THE PASCAL MYSTERY IN OUR LIVES

How we too die and rise like Christ

It was in June of 1941, when most of Europe was at war, that John was praying in a Johnstown, Pennsylvania, hospital chapel as doctors were attending to his pregnant wife. With a four-year-old daughter and a two-year-old son, John was amenable to having another girl or boy. He prayed that their newborn child would be healthy, and that the delivery would not prove too painful for his wife.

When John returned to the maternity section of the hospital, he was confident that God had heard his prayers. Pacing back and forth in the waiting room, John was approached by a doctor in scrubs whose facial expression caused John’s heart to miss a beat. Looking into John’s eyes, the doctor said, “John, I’m very sorry. We lost them both.”

“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

Holding the hands of each of his small children at the gravesite following the funeral Mass, John had no idea how he and his children would survive. Six months later, when Japanese naval air forces attacked Pearl Harbor, John’s job as a steelworker became more demanding. Bethlehem Steel, where John worked, contributed to the war effort by producing bomb casings, armor-piercing shells, tank forgings, and countless other military equipment and parts.

It was in 1942, when the tide of the war began turning in favor of the Allies, that John was socializing with friends at the Polish K.M.P. Society Club (Kolko Mlodziezy Polskiej) when a young waitress, also of Polish descent, caught his eye. Ten years younger than John, Fran’s parents discouraged her from dating a widower with children. Likewise, John’s parents questioned how such a young woman could care for him and the children from his previous marriage. Despite a lack of family support, Fran and John married in September 1943, the same month Allied forces invaded the Italian mainland after their conquest of Sicily.

Three years following the Japanese surrender in 1945, after having been married for five years, John found himself again in the hospital chapel. Fran was only eight months pregnant when she had gone into labor. “O Lord, don’t let anything happen to them,” John prayed. When John returned to the maternity section, understandably anxious, it wasn’t long before the doctor emerged from the delivery room. Looking very exhausted and with stains of blood visible on his scrubs, he walked over to John, and breaking into a smile, said to John, “It’s a boy! He’s only four pounds, two ounces, but we think he’s going to make it. Your wife is doing just fine.”

“Thank you, Jesus!” Where there was death, there is now life

John’s son grew up surrounded in his home by much love from his parents, sister, brother, and Polish-speaking grandmother. Living only three blocks away from their parish church, the “baby of the family” enjoyed serving Mass in Latin, especially when they used incense. Inspired by the dedicated priests and nuns of his parish, the boy - now a young man - felt he had a vocation to the priesthood. At the age of twenty-five, he was ordained a priest and celebrated his First Mass in the church where he had been an altar boy since the third grade. His first parish assignment was with a very supportive, inspiring Irish pastor who loved him as if he were his own son. He truly loved being a priest and, in time, became a chaplain, serving Marine Corps and Navy personnel and their families.

Death can be physical, as well as spiritual. While serving on board the battleship USS Wisconsin (BB-64) during the Gulf War, the forty-one-year-old chaplain was medevaced back to the States, where he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. After multiple surgeries, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy, he looked so emaciated that he could have been cast as a concentration camp prisoner in Schindler’s List.

“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

Family and friends who came to visit him never thought he would survive. After coming down with pneumonia when all of his bodily functions started shutting down, he went to sleep thinking he would never awake again. However, in the morning when he awoke and found himself hungry - something he had not felt in almost a year - he realized that his time had not yet come.

“He is risen!”

Recovering from his near-death experience, he continued to work hard, waking up every morning, happy to be alive, and proud of his ministry as a Catholic chaplain. Owing to a number of ecclesiastical, literary, and military accomplishments, including being invited to testify before Congress, he was made a “monsignor,” a Prelate of Honor to Pope John Paul II whom he met and befriended when he was a seminarian studying in Rome.

Five months before The Boston Globe published a series of Spotlight articles on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, the chaplain addressed that very problem in an article in America magazine, documenting how he had to discipline predator chaplains under his supervision. What angered his ecclesiastical superiors, who had been underreporting and covering up abuse, was not only his writings, but the fact that he was sending priests guilty of pedophilia and homosexual predation to prison, one who was sentenced to 12 years, and one who is serving a 30-year sentence.

His endorsement to serve as a chaplain, along with the endorsement of Air Force Chaplain Father Thomas Doyle, O.P., was unjustly revoked in 2004 by then-Archbishop Edwin O’Brien who had been grossly underreporting and covering up abuse in the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA. The spiritual pain the chaplain felt in being removed from serving the people he loved was greater than the physical pain he experienced when he was fighting cancer.

“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

When his Altoona-Johnstown Diocese ordinary, Bishop Joseph Adamec, who had also been covering up abuse, wanted to silence him by having him work at a remote state prison, he “shook the dust from his feet“ (Mt. 10:14) and took a leave of absence. He saw how whistleblower priests, sent off to remote, isolated assignments, often succumbed in time to alcoholism, other problems, or even suicide. In consultation with his mentor, Monsignor Phillip Saylor, who was also unjustly transferred to a remote parish and issued a “precept of silence” by Bishop Adamec for testifying at a clerical sex abuse trial, he decided that he would not allow complicit Church leaders to destroy him like they did the lives of so many other abuse victims and whistleblowers.

If the story of Jesus did not end at the cross, and if Christ who called him to be a priest truly “is risen,” then maybe that same risen Christ would not let his life end in isolation, loneliness, and betrayal for speaking the truth (Jn 18: 37). After years of pastoral experience in working with dating and married military couples, the chaplain published The Survival Guide for Marriage in the Military which was so successful that he later published a second edition. Unable to be laicized without lying about who and what was behind his unjust removal from the military, he married and was blessed by God with twin children, a boy and a girl. Just as it might be difficult for some people to believe that Jesus died and rose from the dead, some people might also find it miraculous for a whistleblower priest to have twin children born on his 57th birthday!

For years, the chaplain was angry at O’Brien and Adamec for treating him like Bishop Joseph Strickland who was unjustly removed from his Tyler Diocese by Pope Francis for speaking out against clerical sexual predation and homosexual misconduct at the USCCB meeting. However, in time, the chaplain came to view his unjust treatment in light of the Paschal Mystery and realized that had he not suffered the pain of being robbed of his public ministry, he never would have been blessed with the lives of his two beautiful children.

“He is risen!”

The battle between good and evil continues as the former chaplain, whom Church officials cannot laicize without lying about how he was removed for exposing criminal abuse and cover-ups, continues to help abuse victims while exposing complicit and corrupt Church officials. Knowing how Pope Leo XIV was accused of covering up abuse before his election, and continues to cover up the abuse of Lisa Roers and countless other victims and whistleblowers (Walawender, Briese, Gorgia, etc,) throughout the world, he has little hope that the Pope will respond to his open letter of May 10, 2025, restore him to ministry, and discipline over 160 bishops credibly accused of abusing children and persons in vulnerable situations.

Grateful to be alive, the canceled priest is intent on helping other whistleblower priests and seminarians who were likewise unjustly dismissed for reporting abuse and cover-ups. It remains to be seen if Pope Leo XIV, instead of restoring him to ministry, might treat him like Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, whom Pope Francis excommunicated for accusing him not only of covering up for serial predator ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, but also for engaging in sexual relations with Jesuit Novices in Argentina.

The above experiences, even those predating the retired chaplain’s birth, demonstrate how the Paschal Mystery, Christ’s victory over sin and death, has played out in his life.

As we celebrate the Resurrection of Christ this Easter Sunday, I invite you to prayerfully reflect upon how the Paschal Mystery impacts the way you live your life on this Earth, with faith and hope in Jesus Christ who suffered, died, and rose from the dead!

Happy Easter!

Gene-Thomas Gomulka, Retired Chaplain, Priest, Monsignor, and Dad

If you appreciate my research and writings, please contribute to the “Save Our Seminarians” Fund that will help safeguard young men from becoming victims of homosexual predation in U.S. Catholic seminaries.

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