As a NAC seminarian from the early 1990s when O’Brien was the Rector, I can confirm everything in your article is consistent with my experience. But in my view, the shortage of priests will not be solved through a “heterosexually oriented” Pope. We had that when I was in seminary with JPII. In your article you do mention the actual solution: getting rid of celibacy as a requirement for ordination. It’s archaic, non-apostolic, unrealistic, and unnecessary. There would still be issues, but fewer in my opinion. I happen to have no issue at all with gay men in the priesthood, as long as they are celibate. If you can’t be celibate, don’t be a priest. Simple as that.
One nice thing about Substack is that authors can easily make changes to their articles, especially if they receive a comment that prompts them to modify their position. Hence, if you access the article online now, you will discover that I wrote: "Until there is a morally courageous Pope who can take down the Lavender Mafia and attract more heterosexual men to study for the priesthood, or a Pope who will make celibacy optional like in the Eastern Rites of the Catholic Church, one should anticipate the ongoing sexual predation of teenage boys, a shortage of heterosexual seminarians and clergy, and the exodus of more and more Catholics." Feel free to contact me directly at genegomulka@gmail.com. I would enjoy hearing more about your experiences in Rome. Best to you and yours, Gene
Having heterosexual clergy won't remove all the problems. There will be people like this Armenian celebate Archbishop and any number of married Anglican clergyman who have played away from home. At least these offences were with adults, not adolescents. So many Anglican churches, like Catholic ones, have plenty of women volunteers and forbidden fruit is always the sweetest.
Prevost seems cool with Tobin, Cupich, Dolan, McElroy, etc. And they seem cool with him. It's a culture where that arrogant, disgusting viper Donald Wuerl shows up at McElroy's installation grinning from ear to ear. The fix is in. Once we have a pope who suspends pro-gay bishops from ministry, orders that gay priests be removed from parishes, and speaks of the disorder that gay men bring to ordained ministry, then we can take the hierarchy's claims seriously about resolving problems.
Even if Vatican II never took place and the Novus Ordo didn’t exist, the Catholic Church would be lackadaisical about clerical sex abuse. Look up Saint Peter, Damien, and “Liber Gommorahianus.@“”
Thanks so much Fr Gene. Anyone still think that the former Robert Prevost is not Francis II? Anyone still think that he will do anything about the Lavender Mafia? OK, not the Stalin style purge that is needed. Will he even do a touchie-feelie purge by quietly retiring the worst of the worst?
On 9th June 2025 in Rome. Sister Maria Gloria Riva gave a speech in the huge Pope Paul VI hall to Pope Leo and God knows how many Bishops and priests. Apparently the new Christological insight is that we ought to visualise Jesus as holding the Eucharist within His womb.
Apparently Sister Riva was not accompanied by young men in white coats with a thorazine drip to hand (You haven't been taking your tablets today, Sister). And no one in the audience seems to have objected. Hey, chill out, this is what happens when you spend 40+ years in an enclosed order.
Mainstream Catholic and secular reporters have been astonishingly quiet about this new insight. Vatican News mentions Sister and her speech....but nothing about the hermaphrodite Jesus.
Probably some long time Catholic commentators do not want their readers to think that they have finally slipped their cables or that the Church has finally, undeniably apostasised. Or maybe these commentators are still desperately trying to pretend that the former Robert Prevost is not Francis II. No, no, honestly Guv, he really is going to be slightly different from Francis.
And, most revealingly, one of the commentators below Chris Jackson's article pointed to a long history of mystics celebrating the female side of Jesus without being rebuked by the Church. Step forward, Julian of Norwich and Hildegard of Bingen.....
Which matches Leon Podles' account of The Church Effeminate and his description of centuries of effeminate thinking and theology. What sort of bloke is going to take this mysticism seriously?
Outstanding column! The "O'Shaunessey" article in 2000 was written by Jesuit Fr. Paul Mankowski, which has been acknowledged by Phil Lawler, editor of Catholic World Report at the time.
I appreciate you publishing accurate details about these scandals and the links to articles and documents to about them.
At the risk of revealing my naïveté, should priests and religious with SSA who never act on it and live holy, celibate, chaste lives be removed? I really don’t know much about this and I’m not sure what to think. I find it all confusing.
From the perspective of a religious priest, any man who shows he cannot live any of the vows and has been offered help and still doesn’t amend should be expelled. This should have happened during formation. I know from experience that superiors are more focused on numbers than sanctity and let a lot slide. But if a man with SSA is genuinely striving for holiness and not living a scandalous life and is beyond reproach should he be expelled or deprived of the clerical state?
The problem is that the Church accepts candidates for the priesthood if they can say that they didn't have sex for three years before ordination. That's a joke because you're studying theology for 3 years before you're ordained a deacon, when you promise celibacy. So, you can go to a gay orgy, have sex with 10 guys, and still enter the seminary the next day. If you are not a virgin and you've had sex with men or women, I believe you should be able to show that you were able to lead a celibate life for at least 3 years BEFORE entering the seminary or monastery. I know priests with SSA, as well as heterosexually oriented priests, who are not defined by their sexuality and are not tempted to act out either non-consenually with young people or consensually with people their age. No problem here. However, the problem comes with candidates who have never had sex and who are "turned" when they enter formation by a priest, a fellow seminarian, or novice. Once this happens, they feel compelled to stay the course because they do not want to return to their families as homosexuals. By being ordained, their families will ASSUME they are straight and gave up having a wife and children to follow Christ. As long as those in charge of formation are homosexuals and prey on seminarians and novices as "young meat," the abuse problem in the Church will never go away. The fact that Pope Francis, and Pope Leo XIV, have neither laicized nor excommunicated over 150+ bishops credibly accused of abuse, I am led to question if they may have been "turned" before or during formation. The question then arises, "Were the allegations true that Francis/Bergoglio preyed upon novices in Argentina?" Others might also ask, "If Prevost was 'turned' before or during formation, did he ever act out with other Augustinians or even teenage boys in Peru?"
Honestly? We are in a TERRIBLE situation. Here it is: the ORIGIN/MATERIAL CAUSE of all this evil is called the Second Vatican Council. This council relaxed the HEAVY RULES. The beginning: the DESTRUCTION of the Mass before the 1950s (carried out by a small group of revolutionary clergy). The Third Secret of Fatima denounced the FALL OF THE CLERGY.
As a NAC seminarian from the early 1990s when O’Brien was the Rector, I can confirm everything in your article is consistent with my experience. But in my view, the shortage of priests will not be solved through a “heterosexually oriented” Pope. We had that when I was in seminary with JPII. In your article you do mention the actual solution: getting rid of celibacy as a requirement for ordination. It’s archaic, non-apostolic, unrealistic, and unnecessary. There would still be issues, but fewer in my opinion. I happen to have no issue at all with gay men in the priesthood, as long as they are celibate. If you can’t be celibate, don’t be a priest. Simple as that.
Dear fellow NAC alumnus - Hi John!
One nice thing about Substack is that authors can easily make changes to their articles, especially if they receive a comment that prompts them to modify their position. Hence, if you access the article online now, you will discover that I wrote: "Until there is a morally courageous Pope who can take down the Lavender Mafia and attract more heterosexual men to study for the priesthood, or a Pope who will make celibacy optional like in the Eastern Rites of the Catholic Church, one should anticipate the ongoing sexual predation of teenage boys, a shortage of heterosexual seminarians and clergy, and the exodus of more and more Catholics." Feel free to contact me directly at genegomulka@gmail.com. I would enjoy hearing more about your experiences in Rome. Best to you and yours, Gene
Having heterosexual clergy won't remove all the problems. There will be people like this Armenian celebate Archbishop and any number of married Anglican clergyman who have played away from home. At least these offences were with adults, not adolescents. So many Anglican churches, like Catholic ones, have plenty of women volunteers and forbidden fruit is always the sweetest.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpd1qnq87jxo
Prevost seems cool with Tobin, Cupich, Dolan, McElroy, etc. And they seem cool with him. It's a culture where that arrogant, disgusting viper Donald Wuerl shows up at McElroy's installation grinning from ear to ear. The fix is in. Once we have a pope who suspends pro-gay bishops from ministry, orders that gay priests be removed from parishes, and speaks of the disorder that gay men bring to ordained ministry, then we can take the hierarchy's claims seriously about resolving problems.
And…abolish the Novus Ordo and all of Vatican II, pretty please.
Even if Vatican II never took place and the Novus Ordo didn’t exist, the Catholic Church would be lackadaisical about clerical sex abuse. Look up Saint Peter, Damien, and “Liber Gommorahianus.@“”
Thanks so much Fr Gene. Anyone still think that the former Robert Prevost is not Francis II? Anyone still think that he will do anything about the Lavender Mafia? OK, not the Stalin style purge that is needed. Will he even do a touchie-feelie purge by quietly retiring the worst of the worst?
On 9th June 2025 in Rome. Sister Maria Gloria Riva gave a speech in the huge Pope Paul VI hall to Pope Leo and God knows how many Bishops and priests. Apparently the new Christological insight is that we ought to visualise Jesus as holding the Eucharist within His womb.
https://open.substack.com/pub/bigmodernism/p/christ-has-a-womb-the-surrealist?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=9bqtm
Apparently Sister Riva was not accompanied by young men in white coats with a thorazine drip to hand (You haven't been taking your tablets today, Sister). And no one in the audience seems to have objected. Hey, chill out, this is what happens when you spend 40+ years in an enclosed order.
Mainstream Catholic and secular reporters have been astonishingly quiet about this new insight. Vatican News mentions Sister and her speech....but nothing about the hermaphrodite Jesus.
https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2025-06/pope-leo-xiv-holy-see-jubilee-mass-roman-curia.html
Probably some long time Catholic commentators do not want their readers to think that they have finally slipped their cables or that the Church has finally, undeniably apostasised. Or maybe these commentators are still desperately trying to pretend that the former Robert Prevost is not Francis II. No, no, honestly Guv, he really is going to be slightly different from Francis.
And, most revealingly, one of the commentators below Chris Jackson's article pointed to a long history of mystics celebrating the female side of Jesus without being rebuked by the Church. Step forward, Julian of Norwich and Hildegard of Bingen.....
https://www.medievalists.net/2008/11/god-our-mother-the-feminine-cosmology-of-julian-of-norwich-and-hildegard-of-bingen/
Which matches Leon Podles' account of The Church Effeminate and his description of centuries of effeminate thinking and theology. What sort of bloke is going to take this mysticism seriously?
Spot on!
Outstanding column! The "O'Shaunessey" article in 2000 was written by Jesuit Fr. Paul Mankowski, which has been acknowledged by Phil Lawler, editor of Catholic World Report at the time.
I appreciate you publishing accurate details about these scandals and the links to articles and documents to about them.
Thanks Jay! Can we talk? genegomulka@gmail.com Paul Shaughnessey and I were in HI together when his article appeared that was reposted by bishopaccountability at: https://www.bishop-accountability.org/resources/resource-files/media/gaypriest-pf.htm
At the risk of revealing my naïveté, should priests and religious with SSA who never act on it and live holy, celibate, chaste lives be removed? I really don’t know much about this and I’m not sure what to think. I find it all confusing.
From the perspective of a religious priest, any man who shows he cannot live any of the vows and has been offered help and still doesn’t amend should be expelled. This should have happened during formation. I know from experience that superiors are more focused on numbers than sanctity and let a lot slide. But if a man with SSA is genuinely striving for holiness and not living a scandalous life and is beyond reproach should he be expelled or deprived of the clerical state?
I would appreciate some guidance.
The problem is that the Church accepts candidates for the priesthood if they can say that they didn't have sex for three years before ordination. That's a joke because you're studying theology for 3 years before you're ordained a deacon, when you promise celibacy. So, you can go to a gay orgy, have sex with 10 guys, and still enter the seminary the next day. If you are not a virgin and you've had sex with men or women, I believe you should be able to show that you were able to lead a celibate life for at least 3 years BEFORE entering the seminary or monastery. I know priests with SSA, as well as heterosexually oriented priests, who are not defined by their sexuality and are not tempted to act out either non-consenually with young people or consensually with people their age. No problem here. However, the problem comes with candidates who have never had sex and who are "turned" when they enter formation by a priest, a fellow seminarian, or novice. Once this happens, they feel compelled to stay the course because they do not want to return to their families as homosexuals. By being ordained, their families will ASSUME they are straight and gave up having a wife and children to follow Christ. As long as those in charge of formation are homosexuals and prey on seminarians and novices as "young meat," the abuse problem in the Church will never go away. The fact that Pope Francis, and Pope Leo XIV, have neither laicized nor excommunicated over 150+ bishops credibly accused of abuse, I am led to question if they may have been "turned" before or during formation. The question then arises, "Were the allegations true that Francis/Bergoglio preyed upon novices in Argentina?" Others might also ask, "If Prevost was 'turned' before or during formation, did he ever act out with other Augustinians or even teenage boys in Peru?"
Honestly? We are in a TERRIBLE situation. Here it is: the ORIGIN/MATERIAL CAUSE of all this evil is called the Second Vatican Council. This council relaxed the HEAVY RULES. The beginning: the DESTRUCTION of the Mass before the 1950s (carried out by a small group of revolutionary clergy). The Third Secret of Fatima denounced the FALL OF THE CLERGY.
Even the emergence of saints is compromised.
There was a story in the NY Post for years ago that a sexually deviant pastor in the Bronx was O’Brien’s chauffeur from JFK for years.