When asked, “Do you want some ice cream?” some people used to jokingly respond, “Is the Pope Catholic?” Today, many question whether the Pope, many members of the hierarchy, and even many Catholics are truly “Catholic.”
While Catholics recognize that there are non-Catholics who live more Christ-like lives than some Catholics, they believe that Catholicism, dogmatically speaking, represents the fullest representation of Christ - “the way, the truth, and the life” - than other faith groups. Hence, Catholics believe that Catholicism represents a much fuller representation of the “truth” than other Christian denominations and other non-Christian religions.
The only problem with that belief, however, is that the Pope and many members of the clergy and laity today do not believe or practice many Catholic dogmatic and moral teachings. Let’s imagine your daughter is dating a young man who is a Missouri Synod Lutheran whom you are hoping might convert to Catholicism. When you have a chance to speak with him privately, you ask him if he ever considered becoming a Catholic. His response reveals that he is aware of the official teachings of both the Roman Catholic Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.
He says, “While the official teachings of your Church and my Church are very similar in regard to issues like the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, the sanctity of life from conception to natural death, and the sanctity of family life which views homosexual behavior as against the Natural Law, I find that your Pope, Bishops, and many Catholics do not adhere to these teachings.”
When you ask him how that is, he goes on to explain, “In the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church, we would never give the Body and Blood of Christ to politicians who publicly support the killing of innocent unborn children as your bishops and priests have done. Further, you would never walk into a Missouri Synod Lutheran Church and see a pastor blessing a same-sex couple, wearing rainbow colored vestments, or displaying LGBTQ banners inside or outside the church. When I marry and have children, I want them to be pro-life and pro-family because I believe in my heart that Jesus Christ would feel more ‘at home’ praying with people who have not compromised the scriptural teachings handed down to them from the time of Christ.”
Before the father could respond to his daughter’s boyfriend, the young man added: “When I have children, I also do not want them sexually abused, as many children, especially teenage boys, have been abused in the Catholic Church. I could never be proud to be a member of a Church whose spiritual leader has not laicized or excommunicated over 160 bishops credibly accused of abusing children and vulnerable adults, or even discipline a priest who was reported for having raped over 20 nuns. I read an article about a woman who had communion inserted into her vagina by a priest when she was 9-11 years old, and Pope Leo and the Omaha Archdiocese have yet to investigate and discipline the priest alleged to have abused her.”
If you were the father, what might you say in response to this young man whom you know your daughter loves very much?
It was recently reported that Father Philip Conklin, formerly a priest of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota, who was ordained in 2024, left the diocese to join the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX). Might his decision to affiliate with the SSPX, like the Missouri Synod young man’s decision not to convert to Catholicism, have something to do with the disconnect between official Catholic Church teachings and pastoral practice? Might Father Conklin be attracted to the SSPX not only for its strong adherence to official Church teachings, but also because the Society does not consecrate and promote pro-LGBTQ bishops like many whom Pope Leo has installed in dioceses around the world, both when he headed the Dicastery for Bishops and now that he is the Pope?
Here is a meme that may help explain why this young, recently ordained priest may have left a diocese infested by homosexual clergy who might bless same-sex couples and give holy communion to pro-abortion politicians, just like someone recently reported seeing a Catholic Bishop in a gay bar in Dallas, Texas.
Interestingly, the statistics for members of the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church align closely with those in the “Latin Mass” column.
Most Catholics, who would like to believe that Pope Leo, the bishops, and priests are all heterosexual and celibate, fail to realize that heterosexual priests have a hard time respecting closeted homosexual superiors who promote fellow homosexuals while discriminating against heterosexual clergy. Knowing that gays and lesbians believe that “LGBTQ rights and abortion rights are inseparable,” straight priests understand why homosexual prelates like Cardinal Robert McElroy, Cardinal Blase Cupich, and most pro-LGBTQ cardinals and bishops refuse to acknowledge that Jesus Christ does not condone homosexual behavior, abortion, and other sinful and immoral practices.
Priests like Father Conklin have a very different interpretation of events in the Church than most lay Catholics. It’s like a devout Catholic woman who told her friend about how Father Adam and Steve went away on a retreat together when, in fact, they vacationed in Thailand, where they spent far more time “preying” than “praying.” When one Catholic podcaster reported the recent appointment of Italian Father Marco Balleri as Pope Leo’s new secretary, highlighting his qualifications, some investigators might look into Balleri’s background and draw very different conclusions. Before entering the seminary and being ordained, Balleri worked as an engineer. While there are some straight men who work in various professions before studying for the priesthood, there are more closeted gay men in this category who see the priesthood as a safe and comfortable place to live and work.
Balleri’s appointment makes sense when one looks carefully at the Pope’s own background. Although unreported by most mainstream and Catholic media, I have proof that Pope Leo failed to report and covered up sexual abuse when he was the Prior Provincial of the Chicago Province of the Augustinians (1999 to 2001) and when he was the Prior General of the Augustinians (2001 to 2013), just as he was accused in a Vos Estis complaint of covering up the abuse of three Peruvian women when he was the Bishop of Chiclayo in Peru (2015 to 2023).
Because straight bishops are less inclined to cover up sexual abuse, many bishops and priests believe that Leo may have been groomed and introduced to gay sex by Augustinian Fathers Reinhard J. Sternemann or Nelson Daniel Rupp, two documented predators, who were on the faculty of the Augustinian high school seminary in which Prevost was enrolled during his period of psychosexual development. Because many innocent seminarians were “turned” and developed a homosexual orientation, just as many studies show can happen, the question that most Catholics do not want to ask is: 1) Did Prevost “befriend” his secretary, Edgard Iván Rimaycuna Inga, in Chiclayo when Rimaycuna was a 17-year-old seminarian, like he himself was “befriended” in the seminary in Michigan; and 2) Would Balleri have been chosen to be Pope Leo’s secretary if he were a heterosexual?
After the late Knoxville Bishop Richard Stika and Cardinal Justin Rigali invited Polish seminarian Wojciech Sobczuk, to live with them in Stika’s episcopal residence after Sobczuk was thrown out of two seminaries in Poland and one seminary in the United States for homosexual misconduct, why should we be surprised to learn that Pope Leo, Msgr. Ramaycuna, and Father Balleri are all comfortably living together in the papal apartment in the Vatican Palace. But of course this is not scandalous, because as most Catholics are led to believe, all of these clerics - both in the Vatican and in Tennessee - are all heterosexual celibates.
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Gene Thomas Gomulka is a sexual abuse victims’ advocate, investigative reporter, author, and screenwriter. A former Navy (O6) Captain/Chaplain, seminary instructor, and diocesan respect 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.
I served as an Episcopal priest for 30 years. I 'contended' with liberalism within the Episcopal Church, both with much of it's leadership, and yes, even among people in my parish. In 2012, I became Catholic, thinking that I had escaped this environment and found 'home'. It didn't take long for me to realize that the same liberalism exists in the RCC, yes, even more so than within the Episcopal Church. It is very, very discouraging. And what is more discouraging is that many laity do not even want to hear or talk about what is going on. If you try, you are viewed as a 'troubler of Israel.' Honestly, I feel very alone in my parish.
Msgr. Luigi Capozzi, the private secretary to Cardinal Coccopalmerio, was arrested in 2017 by Vatican Gendarmerie for using cocaine at a gay orgy party at Capozzi's Vatican apartment - the apartment belonging to Coccopalmerio. The good Cardinal was recommending Capozzi for bishop, and had a reputation for generally opposing the removal of child abuser priests from the priesthood.
We now know why the walls are so high around the Vatican and the preferred modus operandi of the lavender hierachy regarding living arrangements.
I am not saying this is Leo’s case, but it certainly fits the pattern.