In response to support from the LGBTQ community, President Bill Clinton attempted to change the Department of Defense (DOD) homosexual exclusion policy. When Congressional hearings took place, the Clinton Administration invited many pro-LGBTQ supporters to come forward and testify. I never would have been called to offer testimony had the Commandant of the Marine Corps not distributed copies of a position paper I wrote on the subject to all of his generals. After my report was cited in The New York Times and published in the U.S. Naval Institute’s Proceedings, members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff arranged for me to testify before Congress (See: Testimony). Some said that my testimony helped prevent the policy from being abrogated, as occurred years later when President Barack Obama was elected. The Obama Administration “stacked the deck” with witnesses who deceptively reinterpreted the policy as an unjust form of discrimination against servicemembers’ sexual orientation. In truth, however, the behaviorally based policy was concerned with homosexual conduct and had nothing to do with a person’s sexual orientation.
What happened with the DOD homosexual exclusion policy is happening today in the Catholic Church. Homosexual prelates who comprise over 80% of the cardinals, and homosexual bishops and priests who make up over 80% of the Vatican staff, have stacked the Synod on Synodality with members who support changing the Catholic Church’s teaching on homosexuality. Pro-LGBTQ authors of the report include Cardinal Carlos Castillo Mattasoglio, known for his theologically heterodox positions; Archbishop Filippo Iannone, who opposed the publication of the names of accused sexual predators; Father Maurizio Chiodi, who argued that contraception can be morally permissible; and Jesuit Father Carlo Casalone, who supported the legalization of voluntary euthanasia in Italy.
After Pope Francis and Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández suffered a serious backlash from African bishops to Fiducia Supplicans, Pope Leo and the Lavender Mafia, by means of the synodal process, are attempting to change “attitudes” of Catholics toward homosexuality as a prerequisite to changing Catholic doctrine.
The Final Report of the Synod on Synodality’s study group on “controversial doctrinal, pastoral and ethical questions” prominently features two anonymous testimonies from openly homosexual men in “same-sex marriages.” Interestingly, one of the testimonies was written by a man who reportedly received a blessing with his same-sex partner from Jesuit Father James Martin the day after the publication of Fiducia Supplicans.
Many of Martin’s positions that attack “conversion therapy” and support the adoption of children by same-sex couples have been debunked by Father Paul Sullins and others who were influential in getting the Supreme Court to overturn the ban on conversion therapy. Recent research has also shown that “children raised by parents in a same-sex relationship face greater emotional, developmental, and other difficulties than those raised by mothers and fathers, particularly by their married biological parents.”
Insofar as a cleric’s sexual orientation will influence his theology, teaching, and ministry, and insofar as over 80% of Catholic clergy in Europe and the Americas are believed to be closeted homosexuals, one should expect them to appoint members to the Synod who are inclined to change the Catholic Church’s teaching on homosexuality. As Bishop Joseph Strickland pointed out, the recent report issued by Study Group 9 of the Synod on Synodality, lauded by Father James Martin, “is deeply alarming and stands in direct contradiction to the constant teaching of the Catholic Church regarding human sexuality, sin, marriage, and the moral law.”
The Synod report suggests that homosexual relationships may not be sinful. The report reads, “Sin, at its root, does not consist in the (same-sex) couple relationship, but in a lack of faith in a God who desires our fulfillment.” Same-sex relationships, considered analogous to marriage, are presented through glowing “lived experience” testimonies. Cardinal Gerhard Müller issued a blistering critique of the report, which he viewed as “the first step toward the recognition of LGBT ideology, which advocates nothing other than a materialistic view of humanity without God, the Creator, Redeemer, and Perfecter of humankind.”
Just as Obama got Congress to accept homosexuals into the military, it appears that Leo, Fernández, Martin, and other closeted homosexuals would like the Catholic Church to follow the lead of most mainline Protestant denominations that accept homosexuality, allow same-sex marriage, and ordain open LGBTQ+ clergy. Studies conducted by the Pew Research Center show that, unlike in Africa, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe, Catholics in Europe and the Americas, where most clergy are homosexuals, are more inclined to approve of homosexual behavior.
According to Fox News, at least 20 Catholic colleges and universities are hosting “lavender graduation” ceremonies this year, separate from the main commencement ceremony, to “honor and celebrate the achievements of LGBTQ+ graduates.” When I inquired if a Catholic Campus Ministries program that advertised “All are welcome” allowed sexually active homosexual students to receive communion, I have yet to learn if the Benedictine priests on campus welcome homosexuals on the condition that they, like members of Courage, are attempting to lead chaste lives; or if they, like many gay clergy and lesbian nuns, do not view homosexual behavior as sinful.
Even if closeted gay Catholic clergy do not publicly condone homosexual behavior, their silence in explaining why the Catholic Church, Islam, Orthodox Judaism, and other faith groups do not accept this behavior has caused many American Catholics to change their “attitudes” and accept acts that the Catholic Church teaches are “intrinsically disordered” and morally unacceptable.
When was the last time a Catholic heard a priest talk about what parents need to teach their kids about homosexuality? It is this silence that has led me, and other heterosexual clergy, to conclude that Catholics are slowly being poisoned by closeted homosexual priests, bishops, and even popes whose sexual orientation has deeply impacted their ministry.
I am proud to echo in my writings the position taken by Swiss Bishop Marian Eleganti who believes there are “powerful forces within the Church that are attempting to normalize homosexuality in accordance with secular social standards…and to abolish or revise its teaching on the subject.” Eleganti maintains that the Church can’t address the abuse crisis until it confronts homosexuality in the clergy.
Unlike people who incorrectly speak about a “pedophile priest problem,” Eleganti is wise to distinguish correctly between pedophilia and ephebophilia (pre-pubescent vs post-pubescent sex abuse). Many researchers have uncovered a compelling link between homosexuality and ephebophilia insofar as most Catholic clerical sex abuse victims are teenage boys. Sociologist and researcher, Rev. Paul Sullins, in a 2018 study, documented a strong linkage between the incidence of abuse and homosexuality in the priesthood and seminaries. Sullins’ findings are consistent with those contained in The Gay Report, a study by homosexual activists Karla Jay and Allen Young, which determined that “73 percent of homosexuals acknowledged having preyed on adolescents or younger boys.”
Unfortunately, straight Catholic experts like Sullins; Polish researcher Father Darius Oko, author of Lavender Mafia: With the Popes and Bishops against the Homoclique in the Church; and Father Brian Gannon, the executive director of Courage whose organization was grossly misrepresented in the Synod report, were not invited to participate in any of the 15 study groups that make up the roughly 364 voting members of the Synod on Synodality.
As long as Church leaders, along with the mainstream and Catholic media, continue to cover up the connection identified by Bishop Elerganti between sexual abuse and clerical homosexuality, one can expect Pope Leo, in the words of President Donald Trump, to be “weak on crime” by failing to discipline abusive priests like Father Marko Rupnik and over 160 bishops credibly accused of abusing children and vulnerable adults.
Just as “All are Welcome” is code for “active homosexuals are invited to share in the Lord’s Supper,” so too is “Dancing Queen,” played recently at the General Audience of Pope Leo XIV in St. Peter’s Square, recognized as a gay anthem associated with “queer nightlife, pride culture, and LGBTQ social spaces.” Such public exhibitions are the rainbow icing on the synodal cake being served to Catholics, which motivated Chris Jackson to write, “When that song turns up in St. Peter’s Square, during a papal audience, under a pontificate already surrounded by rainbow signals, one does not need paranoia to notice the pattern. One only needs ears.”
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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 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.
Your analogy to DOD accepting the homosexual agenda is spot on to how it will happen in the Catholic Church. I will add that acceptance of the homosexual agenda was not solely done by key leaders within DOD. There were advocacy groups that relentlessly charged the objective with overwhelming resources. These groups performed like a combined arms military always on the attack. Rest assured the same is happening to the Catholic Church. The difference being the laity is defending the objective. Their leaders are in the rear with the gear cavorting with the enemy.
It makes perfect sense to favor a democratic process if you have an 80 per cent majority. The synods are the prefect vehicles to rig the process, drive the propaganda and help bring attitudes along. That the Vatican is currently so brazen about doing this tells us a lot about the state of Catholicism in Western Europe and America.