IF LEO XIV CLEANS HOUSE, HE MUST BEGIN AT HOME

Have the U.S. Bishops found a “friend in high places” to help cover their dirt?

As mainstream and Catholic media celebrate the historic weight of a U.S. citizen being elected the first American Pope, not one outlet has questioned what Leo XIV’s papacy will mean for arguably the most scandal-racked episcopal body in the world: the U.S. Bishops. Knowing that in most cases, successors are chosen to be “keepers of secrets” rather than “shepherds of souls,” some wonder if Leo’s corrupt U.S. brother bishops will find in the new Pontiff a “friend in high places” or a force to be reckoned with.

Bishops who have escaped accountability for decades hope that Leo’s U.S. ties will make him a willing ally in covering up the American Church’s ongoing issues:

· After revelations of ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s abuses of seminarians and minors rocked the Faithful in 2018, there are at least five more U.S. cardinals (Timothy Dolan, Edwin O’Brien, Wilton Gregory, Joseph Tobin, and Roger Mahony) who remain “princes of the Church” despite being accused of sexual predation or homosexual misconduct involving fellow bishops, priests, seminarians, or minors.

· 40 U.S. dioceses and religious orders have filed for bankruptcy because of bishops and superiors who buried the crimes of abusive clergy. These cover-ups have caused a surge in sex abuse lawsuits outing the U.S. Church’s darkest sexual secrets. While the New York dioceses are facing more than 3,300 abuse lawsuits, the Archdiocese of New Orleans has spent $45 million on attorney and legal fees over the past five years without victims yet seeing one penny.

· The Pontifical North American College (NAC) in Rome, dubbed the “breeding ground of America’s future bishops,” is actively battling abuse and cover-up litigation where multiple former NAC seminarians are testifying about seminary leaders’ sexual antics and reprisals against seminarians who objected. After enrollment nosedived and both the accused vice-rector and rector stepped down in disgrace when the accusations became public, more than 30 U.S. and Vatican bishops remain undisciplined for covering up the credible reports against NAC superiors.

· A 2021 report, “Addressing the Present-Day Culture of Sexual Predation and Cover-Ups in U.S. Seminaries,” identified abuses and cover-ups involving more than 40 seminaries and dioceses and named multiple sitting U.S. bishops. The ensuing hemorrhage of vocations has fueled American church closures at an average rate of 100 shuttered parishes per year.

· Not a single U.S. or Vatican prelate shown to have known and kept silent about ex-Cardinal McCarrick’s serial abuses has been punished. While many with key roles in the cover-ups like Cardinal Kevin Farrell and Cardinal Robert McElroy went on to score plum promotions, others like U.S. Cardinal Donald Wuerl continue to rake in more than $4 million from the wallets of Washington Catholics after he resigned as Archbishop in disgrace.

· Church-established abuse reporting procedures like Vos estis lux mundi and internal diocesan review boards continue to result in whitewashes where victims’ complaints are fraudulently deemed “unsubstantiated” and predators escape justice. Cover-ups in the U.S. Church continue to grow, such as what one victim experienced when he recently filed an abuse complaint with the Diocese of Buffalo. Just three hours later, he received a default form letter stating that Buffalo’s internal Review Board “thoroughly investigated” his complaint (on a Sunday afternoon) and determined it to be “not credible.” Obviously, neither the victim nor a single witness was interviewed during Buffalo’s less-than-180-minute “probe.”

When the media portrayed Leo XIV’s election as a united front among the U.S. cardinals, they overlooked the high stakes of this Conclave whose outcome could make or break a body of bishops with a growing list of sins. After U.S. President Donald Trump’s troubling endorsement of scandal-plagued Cardinal Dolan for Pope fell flat, Dolan, a Cardinal for 13 years, was upstaged by Cardinal Robert Prevost, a younger fellow American who just clinched the red hat in 2023. While senior prelates may have seen this Conclave as their last chance to sit upon the Throne of Peter and secure life-time cover for their crimes, the new 69-year-old Pope has been handed full charge over the fate of retirement-aged heavyweights in the American Church’s struggle with sex abuse like Dolan and Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich. Will Leo allow them and other disgraced bishops to retire with honor at the expense of the Faithful, or will they be defrocked and forced to pay for their deeds?

Leo XIV’s Pontificate, given his age, may span well over the next two decades. For better or for worse, he will profoundly shape the U.S. episcopate as he appoints new generations of bishops to U.S. dioceses. An article, America’s Aging Bishops, estimates that by 2028, an unprecedented 38% of U.S. diocesan bishops have been up for replacement. When Leo names successors to Sees thirsting for accountability, will new Archbishops be sent in to crack open predecessors’ cover-up files just as Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin handed over to civil authorities 80,000 files from the archdiocesan archives revealing the cover-ups of his predecessor, Cardinal Desmond Carroll? Or will Leo appoint new bishops to ensure that their predecessors’ secrets never see the light of day?

While media reports speculate that Leo’s career abroad made him the “least American” and most likely U.S. citizen to win over the College of Cardinals, it remains to be seen whether Leo will prove that his allegiance is to his U.S. brother bishops or to the universal Church. If 34 of Pope Francis’ fellow South American Chilean bishops could tender their resignations en masse in 2018 following a sex abuse crisis which drew sharp media criticism, will Leo not only demand the resignation of every U.S. bishop who has engaged in or covered up abuse, but also discipline them for their crimes?

Sources with close knowledge of then-Jorge Bergoglio’s career as a Jesuit superior allege that serial predator ex-Cardinal McCarrick succeeded in getting newly-elected Pope Francis to lift Pope Benedict XVI’s disciplines because McCarrick had gathered intimate knowledge during travels to Argentina regarding accusations that Bergoglio sexually abused Jesuit novices. If reports by InfoMadrid are true that the Diocese of Chiclayo paid three Peruvian victims $150,000 to keep silent about complaints that then-Bishop Prevost covered up their abuse, will Leo cave to fellow U.S. bishops who may threaten to blackmail him over claims that he “bought the Papacy?”

Although Pope Benedict XVI faced questions over his own handling of sex abuse during his career, some saw his April 10, 2019 published letter as a final confession in which he admitted that seminaries have long been hotbeds of sexual misconduct and that “the Holy See knew of such problems” but that “various powers had joined forces to conceal the true situation.” If Leo XIV does not want media reports of his alleged cover-ups in Peru to overshadow his papacy, he too can send a powerful message by punishing cardinals, bishops, and clergy who commit or bury abuse. Given the scandalous landscape of the American Church, might there be no better place for him to start than in his own backyard? The fate of 30 million U.S. fallen-away Catholics rests on his decision.

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Gene Thomas Gomulka is a sexual abuse victims’ advocate, investigative reporter, and screenwriter. A former Navy (O6) Captain/Chaplain, seminary instructor, and diocesan ​R​espect Life ​Director, Gomulka was ordained a priest for the Altoona-Johnstown diocese and later made a Prelate of Honor (Monsignor) by St. John Paul II. Email him at msgr.investigations@gmail.com.