A majority of bishops knew about McCarrick and did nothing. A priest friend told me that recently, having heard it from a bishop friend. They looked the other way. That tells me that 1) they don't really mind an older prelate engaging in sodomy with younger clerics, and/or 2) they do it themselves and are therefore targets for blackmail, or 3) they're too timid to say anything, and won't speak up about any issue unless it's approved by gay prelates (e.g., immigration). Men immersed in homosexual culture will never confront this problem. It's not changing until the laity vacate parishes led by gays and stop giving to fundraising campaigns led by gay prelates.
I'm interested to know what led to the spike in numbers of homosexual seminarians. It seems to have begun in the 1950s, perhaps earlier. Some of the worst, like John Geoghan, Paul Shanley, Joe Birmingham--just to take Boston as an example--were ordained in the early Sixties up through the mid Seventies.
While there are a number of reasons, two include: 1) The sexual revolution of the 60s when young people became more aware of sexuality at a younger age, This impacted the recruitment of heterosexuals. Few young men that have sex with their girl friends want to be celibate priests; and 2) Minor (high school) seminaries that recruited boys boys before they discovered girls introduced these boys to gay sex (oral, anal, etc.) during their period of psychosexual development. These "turned" boys/young mem did not want to return to their families and friends as homosexuals, so by staying in the seminary and getting ordained they could live their llives in the Church's closet without anyone discovering what happened to them in the seminary. The two young priests with whom I lived and worked at my first parish assignment were both products of minor seminaries. It was only years later that it was revealed that both of them, unbeknownst to me and the pastor, were hitting on the altar boys in our parish. Hence, it was The Catholic Church, and its corrupt seminary system, that produced more homosexuals than any institution on Earth.
My impression is now that homosexual behavior and minor sexual abuse were previously treated in the same manner as any other violation of the sixth Commandment, that is , by transferring the priest and burying the incident. In my earliest days, incidents of this nature were mentioned in whispers, then confessed under the tab of "spreading gossip.". We did not discuss the sins of the clergy. After Vatican II, as clergy and religious hemorrhaged from the Church, it took character of cast iron to resist mentioning the decline in the joy the workers were taking in the vineyard. When these fairly normally oriented people left, in the intervening fifteen or so years, it was obvious that persons of inferior scholarship, unstable emotions, and questionable motivations were seeking admission to seminary and being admitted. That is not to say there weren't any homosexual priests in the pipeline, but there were definitely many more of them, and even in my early teens, their ways were obvious and impossible to ignore. When children were being harmed by their behavior, the public was in no mood to suffer it in silence.
I recall one young religious sister c.1983 explaining the mass exit of priests under Pope Paul VI. There had been so many "mothers' vocations" where Mum or Granny or some over-influential teacher had over-encouraged a naive teenager into the priesthood. So it was only just to allow these unwilling priests to escape.
Unfortunately, if loads of priests escaped to get married, you were left with the genuine vocations and those who were not the marrying kind. So the non-marrying kind were very quickly far more influential just by numbers. Was it just an amazing coincidence that Paul VI was probably bent?
Since the 1980s there has been such difficulty in many countries in recruiting priests that it is not surprising that bishops are pushing the totally unsuitable through to ordination. Beggars can't be choosers. So we get recruits, as in my diocese, who quickly end up "c/o Bishop's House" as even the Bishop dare not assign them to a parish. And, of course, the visibly bent and weird priests are going to turn off any decent teenager from considering the priesthood.
It’s very simple really. The heterosexual seminarians who show backbone and leadership qualities are treated as “other,” graded and disciplined on a separate, harsher standard. If said heterosexual seminarian should observe and call out homosexual activity, especially among his superiors, he is then singled out for Special High Intensity Treatment… (Excuse me for omitting the acronym). This, in a nutshell, was my son’s experience as he “discerned out” of the ostensibly “least liberal” seminary on the Eastern seaboard after his first year.
It is not just troublesome seminarians who are going to be forced out of seminaries. Troublesome priests will soon be looking for a new job, as Fr David Marsden found while working at Oscott Seminary (north-east edge of Birmingham, England). Needless to say, the people at Oscott frantically denied his claims.
In 2010, there were four major seminaries in England.
2011....the largest of the four, Ushaw in the north-east, closed. Built for 400 students. Down to 26 at the end. Three seminaries left.
2021.....Wonnersh, south west of London, closes. Two seminaries left.
2025.....Oscott, down to a handful of students, merges with a Catholic college in Birmingham. Does it still technically exist as a seminary? Not clear.
That leaves Allen Hall in central London. As it is also known as Alice Hall, what are its long term chances?
As always, for your courage and wisdom, thank you. You must publish a compendium of all your insight, knowledge, and experiences, if not for the purpose of effecting meaningful change, then for the recording and history of this time of darkness and corruption in our Catholic Church.
You investigate thoroughly. Unfortunately, most Church investigations are whitewashes like the McCarrick Report written by a CA defense attorney retained by the Vatican. Testimony from multiple victims, therapists working with the alleged victim(s), graphic detail of the abuse ( time, place, description of the scene, etc.) all come into play.
What about incontrovertible this: establish the presence of the (oxymoronic) homosex priests's DNA inside his victims body. The rape kit could not only serve to identify and garnish the rapist to *support* his child instead of aborting him, but the kit could also serve to identify and annul the priest rapist. In each case, use of the current DNA technology could have a huge deterrent effect on heterosexual and homosexual rape.
I'm sure that the pope who was malformed in Chicago, regardless of his Augustinian roots, (Has anyone looked at the Augustinian website lately?) does not perceive that there's a problem.
There seem to be two afflictions that bring problems to every papacy: The Vatican Bank and the Sex Abuse Coverup problem. Even among the "best" bishops, I cannot help but suspect that they have secrets they are carrying. Perhaps I am naive, but the only way the clouds of suspicion are going to go away and we finally get some semblance of sanity is to bring ALL of it out into the open. I would have far more respect for even guilty parties, if they were to openly admit their role in these things rather than keep finding ways to cover their backsides.
I don't think I'll see anything like this in my lifetime, but then again, I don't like to shackle God by placing limitations on what COULD happen.
Bishops who expose the cover-ups and abuse are either removed like Strickland or never promoted and retired like Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin. Nothing in this regard is changing under Leo.
As I noted weeks ago: The Lavender Mafia have spoken. The case is closed. Fr Jimmy Martin gave Prevost the thumbs up almost as soon as the election vote was announced. I assume that Jimmy knew the result long before the conclave, but calling the outcome in 2024 would have been too blatant.
Now the Vatican have done something symbolic against Rupnik - they are finally removing his artwork. Is anyone expecting a defrocking in the near future?
I think it’s irresponsible that you categorize military chaplain priests into “most are homosexuals.” Most is a word that covers a ton of territory. I know several who devote their lives to their huge flocks and don’t appear to put ANY emphasis on sexuality other than preaching what the Gospel teaches us. Words matter. I will continue to pray for Pope Leo’s courage in this painful reality but in the meantime, I think you owe some apologies to the good and holy military chaplains!
While I’m sorry that you are so naive and uninformed, I myself was just like you when I was a young inexperienced priest. Having supervised 250 chaplains as the Deputy Chaplain of the Marine Corps and 150 Chaplains as the Marine Forces Pacific Chaplain, I can agree with various studies which show that at any given moment in time, no more than half of all priests are practicing celibacy. While most priests in Africa and Asia are heterosexuals and are sleeping with women, most priests in Europe and the U.S. today are homosexuals. It’s hard for the Dicastery for Bishops that Pope Leo headed before his election to find an African priest to become a bishop who does not have children. When Cardinal Jose Sanchez, a former head of the Dicastery for Clergy was asked about the validity of these assertions, he responded, “I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of those figures." (See: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/gay-priests-catholic-elephant-is-still-in-the-sacristy/) The infidelity rate among military chaplains is as high, if not higher than among civilian diocesan and religious priests. I cannot apologize for telling the truth which involves breaking the Church’s “Code of Silence” lest the faithful be scandalized by the truth that many of them don’t want because they cannot handle the truth. I’m not saying that there are not good priests in the military where I served for 24 years. I’m just saying that there are far fewer straight Catholic Chaplains today and most of the closeted homosexual priests with whom I served were sexually active. For further docmentation and evidence, see: www.gomulka.net/State.pdf PS. See my response to Regina Weiner below.
I grew up as an Army dependent. I have wonderful memories of service chaplains, almost all were Franciscans, and all but one with an Airborne MOS. The other, I believe, was a Redemptorist with the Artillery MOS. Solid men well deserving of the title Father. I have only met one military chaplain in my adult life, and let's suffice it to say that his manner could not be more different from the chaplains of my childhood. Sample size 1, no conclusion.
Please see my above response to Nan Ran. When I was stationed in DC, Archbishop Ryan, the first Archbishop for the Military Services *which before was the Military Ordinariate under the Archbishop of New York, told me one evening as we were having dinner at his favorite restaurant near Capitol Hill, that he enjoyed my company because I was a "real man." It was his way of saying that he found so many of the chaplains to be homosexuals whom he could not connect with psychologically. When I was working in DC in charge of USN/USMC.USCG Catholic Chaplain recruiting, there were around 273 Catholic Chaplains in the Sea Services which made up around one-quarter of the some 1,000 Catholic Chaplains in all the branches of the armed services and the Veterans Administration. Today, I understand that there are less than 40 Catholic Chaplains in the Sea Services which represents an 85% decline. There were a lot of closeted gay Catholic chaplains in the military when I served on active duty and testified before Congress in support of the DOD Homosexual Exclusion Policy (See: www.gomulka.net/Congress.pdf). When Obama changed the policy and allowed gays to serve, it resulted in more gay Catholic priests entering the military. Hence, today, a gay Catholic priest can cohabitate with another gay man and no one will say anyhting. Chaplain John "Matt" Lee, the cohabitating gay priest I reported in 2002, even before Obama changed the policy, was never disciplined by his supervisory chaplain (Msgr. Joseph Estabrook) or the Military Archbishop (Edwin O'Brien), because they themselves were homosexuals. See: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/cardinal-edwin-obrien-ron-belgau-gay-seminarians-catholic/. P.S. I'm happy that many of the chaplains you knew as a military brat were like Archbishop Ryan who did not become a priest or a chaplain to hide in the closet. Ryan served as a chaplain with the Marines in the Pacific during WW II and participated in many of the notable landings. Unfortunately, he was the last straight Archbishop for the Military Services (AMS). I regret that the AMS Pastoral Center is named after Cardinal O'Brien that I have been trying to get changed. See: www.gomulka.net/Broglio.pdf
Acredito que esse terrível mal é um dos frutos do CV II: este concílio fez o Vaticano abandonar e incentivar o FIM da Missa Tridentina. Ao promover uma formação fraca e uma Missa vazia, muitos homens propensos à vida promiscua encontraram facilidades em viver vidas dúbias nos seminários e nas paróquias.
Very wise to call for support and to move the mainstream faithful to action before more is lost to this blight. It seems that those letters should address elimination of the root cause. Celibacy is required of heterosexual priests, while active homosexual priests and sympathizers corrupt the priesthood. An enlightened leader must make substantial changes to policy and discipline.
A majority of bishops knew about McCarrick and did nothing. A priest friend told me that recently, having heard it from a bishop friend. They looked the other way. That tells me that 1) they don't really mind an older prelate engaging in sodomy with younger clerics, and/or 2) they do it themselves and are therefore targets for blackmail, or 3) they're too timid to say anything, and won't speak up about any issue unless it's approved by gay prelates (e.g., immigration). Men immersed in homosexual culture will never confront this problem. It's not changing until the laity vacate parishes led by gays and stop giving to fundraising campaigns led by gay prelates.
I could not agree more!
I'm interested to know what led to the spike in numbers of homosexual seminarians. It seems to have begun in the 1950s, perhaps earlier. Some of the worst, like John Geoghan, Paul Shanley, Joe Birmingham--just to take Boston as an example--were ordained in the early Sixties up through the mid Seventies.
While there are a number of reasons, two include: 1) The sexual revolution of the 60s when young people became more aware of sexuality at a younger age, This impacted the recruitment of heterosexuals. Few young men that have sex with their girl friends want to be celibate priests; and 2) Minor (high school) seminaries that recruited boys boys before they discovered girls introduced these boys to gay sex (oral, anal, etc.) during their period of psychosexual development. These "turned" boys/young mem did not want to return to their families and friends as homosexuals, so by staying in the seminary and getting ordained they could live their llives in the Church's closet without anyone discovering what happened to them in the seminary. The two young priests with whom I lived and worked at my first parish assignment were both products of minor seminaries. It was only years later that it was revealed that both of them, unbeknownst to me and the pastor, were hitting on the altar boys in our parish. Hence, it was The Catholic Church, and its corrupt seminary system, that produced more homosexuals than any institution on Earth.
My impression is now that homosexual behavior and minor sexual abuse were previously treated in the same manner as any other violation of the sixth Commandment, that is , by transferring the priest and burying the incident. In my earliest days, incidents of this nature were mentioned in whispers, then confessed under the tab of "spreading gossip.". We did not discuss the sins of the clergy. After Vatican II, as clergy and religious hemorrhaged from the Church, it took character of cast iron to resist mentioning the decline in the joy the workers were taking in the vineyard. When these fairly normally oriented people left, in the intervening fifteen or so years, it was obvious that persons of inferior scholarship, unstable emotions, and questionable motivations were seeking admission to seminary and being admitted. That is not to say there weren't any homosexual priests in the pipeline, but there were definitely many more of them, and even in my early teens, their ways were obvious and impossible to ignore. When children were being harmed by their behavior, the public was in no mood to suffer it in silence.
I recall one young religious sister c.1983 explaining the mass exit of priests under Pope Paul VI. There had been so many "mothers' vocations" where Mum or Granny or some over-influential teacher had over-encouraged a naive teenager into the priesthood. So it was only just to allow these unwilling priests to escape.
Unfortunately, if loads of priests escaped to get married, you were left with the genuine vocations and those who were not the marrying kind. So the non-marrying kind were very quickly far more influential just by numbers. Was it just an amazing coincidence that Paul VI was probably bent?
Since the 1980s there has been such difficulty in many countries in recruiting priests that it is not surprising that bishops are pushing the totally unsuitable through to ordination. Beggars can't be choosers. So we get recruits, as in my diocese, who quickly end up "c/o Bishop's House" as even the Bishop dare not assign them to a parish. And, of course, the visibly bent and weird priests are going to turn off any decent teenager from considering the priesthood.
It’s very simple really. The heterosexual seminarians who show backbone and leadership qualities are treated as “other,” graded and disciplined on a separate, harsher standard. If said heterosexual seminarian should observe and call out homosexual activity, especially among his superiors, he is then singled out for Special High Intensity Treatment… (Excuse me for omitting the acronym). This, in a nutshell, was my son’s experience as he “discerned out” of the ostensibly “least liberal” seminary on the Eastern seaboard after his first year.
It is not just troublesome seminarians who are going to be forced out of seminaries. Troublesome priests will soon be looking for a new job, as Fr David Marsden found while working at Oscott Seminary (north-east edge of Birmingham, England). Needless to say, the people at Oscott frantically denied his claims.
https://www.corrispondenzaromana.it/international-news/an-open-letter-to-the-bishops-of-england-wales-and-scotland/
In 2010, there were four major seminaries in England.
2011....the largest of the four, Ushaw in the north-east, closed. Built for 400 students. Down to 26 at the end. Three seminaries left.
2021.....Wonnersh, south west of London, closes. Two seminaries left.
2025.....Oscott, down to a handful of students, merges with a Catholic college in Birmingham. Does it still technically exist as a seminary? Not clear.
That leaves Allen Hall in central London. As it is also known as Alice Hall, what are its long term chances?
Exatamente.
As always, for your courage and wisdom, thank you. You must publish a compendium of all your insight, knowledge, and experiences, if not for the purpose of effecting meaningful change, then for the recording and history of this time of darkness and corruption in our Catholic Church.
Sincere devil's advocate here: how is a superior to tell whether sex abuse claims are true?
You investigate thoroughly. Unfortunately, most Church investigations are whitewashes like the McCarrick Report written by a CA defense attorney retained by the Vatican. Testimony from multiple victims, therapists working with the alleged victim(s), graphic detail of the abuse ( time, place, description of the scene, etc.) all come into play.
What about incontrovertible this: establish the presence of the (oxymoronic) homosex priests's DNA inside his victims body. The rape kit could not only serve to identify and garnish the rapist to *support* his child instead of aborting him, but the kit could also serve to identify and annul the priest rapist. In each case, use of the current DNA technology could have a huge deterrent effect on heterosexual and homosexual rape.
Isso é ótimo.
I'm sure that the pope who was malformed in Chicago, regardless of his Augustinian roots, (Has anyone looked at the Augustinian website lately?) does not perceive that there's a problem.
There seem to be two afflictions that bring problems to every papacy: The Vatican Bank and the Sex Abuse Coverup problem. Even among the "best" bishops, I cannot help but suspect that they have secrets they are carrying. Perhaps I am naive, but the only way the clouds of suspicion are going to go away and we finally get some semblance of sanity is to bring ALL of it out into the open. I would have far more respect for even guilty parties, if they were to openly admit their role in these things rather than keep finding ways to cover their backsides.
I don't think I'll see anything like this in my lifetime, but then again, I don't like to shackle God by placing limitations on what COULD happen.
Bishops who expose the cover-ups and abuse are either removed like Strickland or never promoted and retired like Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin. Nothing in this regard is changing under Leo.
As I noted weeks ago: The Lavender Mafia have spoken. The case is closed. Fr Jimmy Martin gave Prevost the thumbs up almost as soon as the election vote was announced. I assume that Jimmy knew the result long before the conclave, but calling the outcome in 2024 would have been too blatant.
Now the Vatican have done something symbolic against Rupnik - they are finally removing his artwork. Is anyone expecting a defrocking in the near future?
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/264623/vatican-news-removes-father-marko-ivan-rupnik-art-from-website
Rosary and Eucharistic Adoration will bring miracles.
I think it’s irresponsible that you categorize military chaplain priests into “most are homosexuals.” Most is a word that covers a ton of territory. I know several who devote their lives to their huge flocks and don’t appear to put ANY emphasis on sexuality other than preaching what the Gospel teaches us. Words matter. I will continue to pray for Pope Leo’s courage in this painful reality but in the meantime, I think you owe some apologies to the good and holy military chaplains!
While I’m sorry that you are so naive and uninformed, I myself was just like you when I was a young inexperienced priest. Having supervised 250 chaplains as the Deputy Chaplain of the Marine Corps and 150 Chaplains as the Marine Forces Pacific Chaplain, I can agree with various studies which show that at any given moment in time, no more than half of all priests are practicing celibacy. While most priests in Africa and Asia are heterosexuals and are sleeping with women, most priests in Europe and the U.S. today are homosexuals. It’s hard for the Dicastery for Bishops that Pope Leo headed before his election to find an African priest to become a bishop who does not have children. When Cardinal Jose Sanchez, a former head of the Dicastery for Clergy was asked about the validity of these assertions, he responded, “I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of those figures." (See: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/gay-priests-catholic-elephant-is-still-in-the-sacristy/) The infidelity rate among military chaplains is as high, if not higher than among civilian diocesan and religious priests. I cannot apologize for telling the truth which involves breaking the Church’s “Code of Silence” lest the faithful be scandalized by the truth that many of them don’t want because they cannot handle the truth. I’m not saying that there are not good priests in the military where I served for 24 years. I’m just saying that there are far fewer straight Catholic Chaplains today and most of the closeted homosexual priests with whom I served were sexually active. For further docmentation and evidence, see: www.gomulka.net/State.pdf PS. See my response to Regina Weiner below.
I grew up as an Army dependent. I have wonderful memories of service chaplains, almost all were Franciscans, and all but one with an Airborne MOS. The other, I believe, was a Redemptorist with the Artillery MOS. Solid men well deserving of the title Father. I have only met one military chaplain in my adult life, and let's suffice it to say that his manner could not be more different from the chaplains of my childhood. Sample size 1, no conclusion.
Please see my above response to Nan Ran. When I was stationed in DC, Archbishop Ryan, the first Archbishop for the Military Services *which before was the Military Ordinariate under the Archbishop of New York, told me one evening as we were having dinner at his favorite restaurant near Capitol Hill, that he enjoyed my company because I was a "real man." It was his way of saying that he found so many of the chaplains to be homosexuals whom he could not connect with psychologically. When I was working in DC in charge of USN/USMC.USCG Catholic Chaplain recruiting, there were around 273 Catholic Chaplains in the Sea Services which made up around one-quarter of the some 1,000 Catholic Chaplains in all the branches of the armed services and the Veterans Administration. Today, I understand that there are less than 40 Catholic Chaplains in the Sea Services which represents an 85% decline. There were a lot of closeted gay Catholic chaplains in the military when I served on active duty and testified before Congress in support of the DOD Homosexual Exclusion Policy (See: www.gomulka.net/Congress.pdf). When Obama changed the policy and allowed gays to serve, it resulted in more gay Catholic priests entering the military. Hence, today, a gay Catholic priest can cohabitate with another gay man and no one will say anyhting. Chaplain John "Matt" Lee, the cohabitating gay priest I reported in 2002, even before Obama changed the policy, was never disciplined by his supervisory chaplain (Msgr. Joseph Estabrook) or the Military Archbishop (Edwin O'Brien), because they themselves were homosexuals. See: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/cardinal-edwin-obrien-ron-belgau-gay-seminarians-catholic/. P.S. I'm happy that many of the chaplains you knew as a military brat were like Archbishop Ryan who did not become a priest or a chaplain to hide in the closet. Ryan served as a chaplain with the Marines in the Pacific during WW II and participated in many of the notable landings. Unfortunately, he was the last straight Archbishop for the Military Services (AMS). I regret that the AMS Pastoral Center is named after Cardinal O'Brien that I have been trying to get changed. See: www.gomulka.net/Broglio.pdf
Acredito que esse terrível mal é um dos frutos do CV II: este concílio fez o Vaticano abandonar e incentivar o FIM da Missa Tridentina. Ao promover uma formação fraca e uma Missa vazia, muitos homens propensos à vida promiscua encontraram facilidades em viver vidas dúbias nos seminários e nas paróquias.
Very wise to call for support and to move the mainstream faithful to action before more is lost to this blight. It seems that those letters should address elimination of the root cause. Celibacy is required of heterosexual priests, while active homosexual priests and sympathizers corrupt the priesthood. An enlightened leader must make substantial changes to policy and discipline.
Prevost the new Antipope will do nothing.