Sexual Abuse and Consensual Sexual Misconduct by Roman Catholic Clergy: Addressing and Resolving Both Problems

PART I

In 1985, Rev. Thomas Doyle, O.P., J.C.D.; F. Ray Mouton, Esq.; and Rev. Michael Peterson, MD; co-authored “The Problem of Sexual Molestation by Roman Catholic Clergy: Meeting the Problem in a Comprehensive and Responsible Manner.” The priest, attorney, and psychiatrist projected that more minors and vulnerable adults were at risk and the Catholic Church could spend $1 billion over ten years in settlements and legal fees if the U.S. Bishops and Vatican officials failed to implement their recommendations to deter clerical sexual abuse. Forty years and countless abuse victims later, with the Archdiocese of Los Angeles alone projected to pay a combined $1.5 billion, the financial loss for the Catholic Church may be close to $10 billion. If more states were to extend their statute of limitations for sex abuse like New York, New Jersey, Maryland, California, and eleven others, the amount could easily double.

Homosexuality and Clerical Sex Abuse

For years, based primarily on working with abuse victims, as well as accused and convicted predators, I argued that the cause for the Catholic Church’s clerical sex abuse crisis in which over 80 percent of the victims were post-pubescent males was the large number of men with same sex attraction in the episcopacy and priesthood. Insofar as “The Gay Report” by homosexual researchers Karla Jay and Allen Young documented how 73 percent of homosexuals surveyed admitted to having had sex with post-pubescent boys between the ages of 11 and 19, I concluded that by enforcing the Church’s rule of not ordaining homosexuals with “deep-seated homosexual tendencies,” the sex abuse problem would diminish.

My opinion is also shared by the current president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who, despite covering up for his predecessor Cardinal Edwin O’Brien who grossly underreported sex abuse within the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, said there is "no question that the crisis of sexual abuse by priests in the USA is directly related to homosexuality." Broglio’s position may have been influenced by Catholic University of America researcher, Father D. Paul Sullins, whose November 2018 study presciently documented how, beginning in the ‘60s, the number of sex abuse cases increased in direct proportion to the percentage of homosexuals in the episcopacy, priesthood, and seminaries. Sullins’ conclusions, supported by a 2011 study, “Sex Abuse of Minors by Catholic Clergy,” co-authored by Richard Fitzgibbons and Dale O’Leary, refute the 2004 and 2011 John Jay Reports that erroneously argued that the abuse crisis has nothing to do with homosexuality. Those same John Jay researchers also reported that only 4% of U.S. priests were found to be predators which was incorrect when it was later shown how many bishops grossly underreported abuse. In one case, an archbishop reported two abuse victims when in fact there were over 500!

I know many men, particularly those who were sexually abused during their period of psychosexual development before ever having had an emotional or sexual relationship with a woman, who today are homosexuals. This happened to countless seminarians, some who went on after ordination to groom and abuse teenage boys as they themselves were preyed upon at that same age. Just as everyone who grows up with an abusive or alcoholic parent does not necessarily become an abuser or alcoholic himself, so too are there many abuse survivors, even members of the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests (SNAP), who would never even think of abusing another human being. Because many of these survivors self-identify today as homosexuals, they reject the connection between homosexuality and clerical sexual abuse. While that may be true in their case, the connection, although not found in cases of pedophilia involving pre-pubescent children, is certainly found in cases of ephebophilia involving adolescents between the ages of 11 and 19. If there is no connection between homosexuality and clerical sex abuse, then are all members of the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) who engage in sex with adults and adolescents not to be considered “homosexuals?” If Scout Masters who abused adolescent Boy Scouts were not homosexuals like many bishops and priests who abused teenage boys and seminarians while also engaging in gay sex with other consenting adults, then why did Dr. Judith Reisman warn the Boy Scouts of America not to allow homosexuals to serve as Scout Masters? Reisman maintained, “Since heterosexuals outnumber the homosexual population about 44 to 1, as a group the incidence of homosexuals molesting children is up to 40 times greater than heterosexuals.” If there is no connection between homosexuality and sex abuse, then why have 100,000 sexual abuse compensation claims led the Scouts to file for bankruptcy protection on February 18, 2020 along with some 40 U.S. Catholic religious organizations today?

Pope Francis, Cardinals Pietro Parolin, Víctor Manuel Fernández, Blase Cupich, and other prelates thought by fellow clergy to be closeted homosexuals, have attempted to blame sex abuse on “clericalism” or “false mysticism.” Puerto Rico Bishop Daniel Fernández Torres who refused to send his seminarians to an interdiocesan seminary reputed to be infested with homosexuals, and Bishop Joseph Strickland who spoke out against clerics who engage in or cover up clerical sexual predation and homosexual misconduct, were both unjustly removed from office by Pope Francis. Bishops fear violating the Church’s “Code of Silence” lest they find themselves excommunicated like Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò who accused Pope Francis not only of covering up for sexual predators like ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, but also of preying on seminarians when he was Master of Novices of the Society of Jesus in Argentina. The fact that a heterosexually oriented prelate like retired Dublin Archbishop Diarmuid Martin who exposed sex abuse cover-ups by releasing 80,000 documents to the Murphy Commission is passed over for cardinal, while pro-LGBTQ San Diego Cardinal Robert McElroy was given the red hat after covering up sex abuse as he did in the case of Rachel Mastrogiacomo and 12 abused seminarians and priests who were reported to him by the late psychotherapist and researcher, Richard Sipe, invalidates in the minds of many the argument that there is no connection between clerical homosexuality and sex abuse.

After also researching the scandalous problems of clerical sexual abuse, investigative journalist, Rod Dreher, concluded that while one “cannot blame the scandal entirely on gay priests…until and unless the networks of sexually active, even predatory, gay priests are exposed, and the public understands exactly how they work, and how they’ve worked to conceal abhorrent behavior, including abuse — nothing will change.”

This is the end of a multi-part examination of clerical sexual abuse and the even more pervasive problem of clerical consensual sexual misconduct. While it is estimated that clerical sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church involves not 4 percent, but 15-40 percent of priests, studies by Richard Sipe and South African sociologist Victor Kotze also show that, at any given moment in time, about half of all priests are sexually involved with men or women. According to Sipe, the percentage of priests believed to practice celibacy throughout their entire lives is only around 2 percent. This “infidelity” rate stands in sharp contrast to adultery rates in the U.S. in which 20 percent of men and 13 percent of women admit to having been unfaithful in marriage. The next article will examine the role celibacy plays in both clerical sexual abuse and consensual clerical misconduct.

Gene Thomas Gomulka is a sexual abuse victims’ advocate, investigative reporter, 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.