THE FUTURE POPE

Can dreams predict the future?

Podcasters will sometimes ask me, “What should we call you? Monsignor, Father, Padre, Captain, Gene?”

I tell them that while I have never been laicized and canonically am still a priest, I do not want to be associated with the institutional Catholic Church under the current leadership of Pope Francis whom I find to be morally corrupt. Like Dietrich Bonhoeffer who spoke out against Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, I have “protested” Pope Francis and complicit bishops and priests who have engaged in and/or covered up the sexual abuse of minors and vulnerable adults.

Unlike many propagandized German citizens, the political and military leaders who were tried at the Nuremberg Trials were aware for some time of the systematic extermination taking place in the death camps. In contrast with Bonhoeffer, General Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, and other members of the Abwehr resistance group, those who were convicted neither said nor did anything to stop it. Because I investigated and have been aware of clerical sexual abuse and cover-ups in the Catholic Church dating back to 1991; because I wrote about it even before it was exposed by the Spotlight Team of The Boston Globe; and because I know that this problem persists to this day, I fear God’s judgment on me were I to keep quiet. Unfortunately, just like Nazi propaganda misled many Germans into viewing Adolf Hitler in a very positive light, so too are many lay Catholics kept “in the dark” by most Catholic media sources (e.g., Catholic News Agency. National Catholic Reporter, America, etc.) that avoid reporting how Francis has consistently failed to help abuse survivors like Lisa Roers, Rachel Mastrogiacomo, Wieslaw Walawender, and countless other victims of clerical sexual abuse.

I can’t tell you how many Catholics write and accuse me of telling lies about Pope Francis or bishops like Cardinal Wilton Gregory, Archbishop George Lucas, and others who have not only been accused of covering up abuse, but also of engaging in it with vulnerable seminarians. Because of such attacks, I recently published, “You Don’t Want the Truth Because You Can’t Handle the Truth.” If it were not for the encouragement and support of good friends and survivors who appreciate my “inactive ministry,” I would have given up my advocacy and investigative journalist work years ago.

Charles Dickens is said to have experienced frequent dreams and sleep-induced spiritual encounters. Recently, after watching Dickens’ A Christmas Carol involving the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future, I had a dream that I was back at my first parish assignment in State College, Pennsylvania, and was getting ready to celebrate Mass. In the dream, I was wearing the hand-me-down cassock I had received from my late pastor, Msgr. Patrick V. Fleming. That dream will never come true as long as Francis is pope or if he is succeeded by another homosexually oriented pope, just like Pope Leo X (r.1513-1521) was followed in time by Pope Julius III (r. 1550-1555).

Catholics who are upset with Francis and many of the things he has said and done during his pontificate need to realize that his successor could be worse. Recall that while Leo X suffered from an anal fistula as the result of having engaged in gay sex with other adults, Julius III is reported to have “shared [his] bedroom and bed” with 15-year-old Innocenzo Ciocchi Del Monte whom he made a cardinal at the age of 17. Cardinal Víctor Manuel "Tucho" Fernández who was outed by Argentine celebrity nun, Sister María Lucía Caram Padilla, is only one of many reported closeted homosexual cardinals who are among the more than 120 “papabile.”

When my mentor, Monsignor Philip Saylor was sent into exile by Bishop Joseph Adamec after he testified at the Father Frank Luddy sexual abuse trial which cost Adamec and the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese more than 1.5 million dollars, he never would have been invited to return and celebrate Mass publicly by the new bishop had Adamec not been exposed for covering up abuse after being called before the Pennsylvania Grand Jury. I believe the only way I could ever return to ministry is if Francis were replaced by a heterosexually oriented pope like Saint Pope Pius V (r. 1566-1572) who followed Julius III and Leo X.

Scandalized by the promiscuous sex lives of several of his predecessors who bear partial responsibility for the Protestant Reformation that resulted in the deaths of between 6.5 and 17 million people, the conclavists elected Michele Ghislieri in 1566 who took the name Pius V. Feeling called to uphold the teachings of the Catholic Church that viewed homosexual behavior as immoral and sinful, Pope Pius V issued a bull in 1568 against homosexual clergy, Horrendum Illud scelus (“That Horrible Crime”), calling for homosexual priests to be deprived of their dignity and be delivered to the secular authority to be put to death.

If a heterosexually oriented pope were elected and followed Francis like Pius V followed Leo X and Julius III, might he be to the Church what many American voters believe President-elect Donald Trump will be to the United States? If 56% of Catholics voted for Trump compared to 41% who voted for Harris, might it have been because they did not like the direction Harris, Biden, and pro-abortion, pro-LGBTQ, pro-DEI, woke Democrats were leading the country? Just as Trump promised to have pro-lifers released from prison who were unjustly incarcerated under President Biden who commuted the sentences of 1,736 people (including “child killers and mass murders”), I’m confident that Brian Burch whom Trump nominated to be the U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See would join me in hoping that a good, holy pope would lift the unjust excommunication of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, and restore Bishop Joseph Strickland, me, and other canceled priests like Washington Father Michael Briese; Chicago Father Paul Kalchik; La Crosse Father James Altman; Buffalo Father Ryszard Biernat; San Antonio Father Clay Hunt; Gaylord Father Matthew Cowan; and countless others to ministry.

It is sad that Deitrich Bonhoeffer did not live to see the collapse of the Nazi Party. On the orders of Adolf Hitler, Bonhoeffer was executed on April 9, 1945, just one month before Germany surrendered on May 8, 1945. Even though there is little scientific evidence that dreams can predict the future, it remains to be seen if I and other clergy who openly resisted Francis and bishops who covered up sexual abuse will live to see the downfall of the Lavender Mafia and the election of a pope who will “Make the Church Great Again.” (MCGA)

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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.