VINDICATED ONLY AFTER DEATH

Introduction to three upcoming articles

Although I served most of my 24-year active duty military career under some very inspiring Marine Corps and Navy commanding officers, as someone who has always enjoyed history, particularly Civil War and World War II history, one military leader whom I always deeply admired was U.S. Army Colonel William “Billy” Mitchell.

As a result of confrontations and differences with senior leadership, both Mitchell and I were unjustly coerced into leaving institutions - the U.S. Army and the Roman Catholic Priesthood - to which we had dedicated our lives. I believe I will be vindicated for much of what I have spoken and written about over the years, only after my death, as was the case with Mitchell, who also retired as an O-6 (Army Colonel/Navy Captain).

Mitchell and I both got into trouble specifically for reports and publications we wrote that were critical of acts of commission and omission on the part of those above us in the “chain of command.” While Mitchell reported to certain General Officers in the U.S. Army, I reported to then-Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien of the Archdiocese for the Military Services (AMS), and the late Bishop Joseph V. Adamec of the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese.

While on an inspection tour to Asia and Hawaii in 1924, Mitchell returned to write a 324-page report in which he predicted a future war with Japan, including an attack on Pearl Harbor. Because his report was critical of Army and Navy leadership for thinking future wars would be fought like the previous war, he was reduced in rank to Colonel in 1925; court-martialed for insubordination; and suspended from active duty for five years without pay. Instead of accepting the suspension, Mitchell resigned in February of 1926, ten years before he died in 1936.

While we all know that U.S. military leaders ignored Mitchell’s prediction about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, we do know that the Japanese learned a valuable lesson from the British who used torpedo bombers to destroy the Italian Fleet anchored in the port of Taranto on November 11, 1940. The same military leaders who sacked Mitchell were the same inept general officers who did not anticipate that the Japanese might mount a similar attack on their Pacific Fleet based in Hawaii on December 7, 1941.

In an August 27, 2001, article in America magazine entitled “Home Alone in the Priesthood,” published four months before the Spotlight Team of The Boston Globe published its January 6, 2002, article on clerical sex abuse and cover-ups in the Boston Archdiocese, I addressed the clerical sex abuse problem in the U.S. Marine Corps and predicted problems that priests would have (e.g., alcoholism, pornography, sex) as more and more of them found themselves living alone. I wrote, “While serving as the Deputy Chaplain of the U.S. Marine Corps…I was discouraged by the disproportionate number of Catholic chaplains who were committing offenses that resulted either in their imprisonment or separation from the military. While priests comprised about 20 percent of the chaplains, they accounted for about 50 percent of the serious offenses….while a relatively small percentage of married Protestant chaplains got into trouble as a result of adulterous behavior punishable under the Uniform Code of Military Justice, a much larger percentage of priests were imprisoned or separated as a result of homosexual conduct.”

Not long after publishing that article, a chaplain friend called me and said, “I know a monsignor who is not going to be made a bishop!” His prediction was correct, as it wasn’t long thereafter that Archbishop O’Brien forwarded me a letter he endorsed that was written by Msgr. Patrick E. Brown, a homosexual priest from the Patterson Diocese (later convicted and imprisoned for tax evasion and embezzling parish funds), who questioned my veracity and requested that O’Brien “respond to America with true facts.” In response, I provided “true facts” by writing, “During the period in question, there were some 250 chaplains serving with Marines. Fifty (20 percent) were Roman Catholic (RC). Five Catholic Chaplains (10 percent of the RC chaplains serving with Marines) committed UCMJ offenses (four involving homosexual behavior and one involving pedophilia). Three of the five RC Chaplains were incarcerated (one received a 12-year sentence for pedophilia), and two received other than honorable (OTH) discharges. During this same period, two married chaplains (1 percent of the Protestant chaplains serving with Marines) were alleged to be involved in adulterous relationships.”

It was a few months later, after The Boston Globe articles began appearing, that I realized that the sexual abuse problem I addressed in my article extended far beyond the military services. If my America article upset O’Brien, he was even more upset with a semi-annual report I sent him dated May 6, 2002, in which I made mention of a Navy chaplain who was cohabitating in Hawaii with a “live-in boyfriend.” After six months, when I never received a response from O’Brien, I mentioned in my next report that his failure to address important issues (i.e., clerical homosexual misconduct) was beginning to affect “my faith.” What happened next is documented in my online “Autobiography,” as well as in an article entitled “Cardinals Behaving Badly,” in which I am referred to as “Father X” on page 2.

Like Billy Mitchell, I was unjustly coerced into leaving (along with U.S. Air Force Chaplain Father Thomas Doyle, O.P.) while the reports I wrote about abuse were all covered up. If Pearl Harbor served to vindicate Billy Mitchell, my vindication came when the chaplain I reported to O’Brien in 2002 was later arrested in 2007 and charged with conduct unbecoming an officer, aggravated assault, sodomy, and failure to inform sex partners that he was HIV positive. That chaplain, Father John “Matt” Lee, is currently serving a 30-year sentence in the Petersburg (VA) Federal Correctional Institution. The current head of the AMS, Archbishop Timothy Broglio, as evidenced by this link to his own lying correspondence, was appointed to cover up for O’Brien who reported only two abuse victims to the John Jay Study in 2004, when in fact, the number is estimated to be over 500. No prelates in the U.S. have covered up more abuse than O’Brien and Broglio.

Just as Army leaders dismissed the insightful recommendations that Mitchell put into writing showing that “future wars will not be fought like previous ones,” I believe many Catholics will likewise dismiss the recommendations I propose for solving many of the Church’s current dogmatic and moral problems. The reason, I believe, many Catholics will not support my recommendations is because most of them, like Church leaders and the Catholic media, refuse to admit that over 80% of American-born clergy are homosexuals and, at any given moment in time, no more than half of all so-called “celibate” priests in the world are actually leading celibate lives. Because many Catholics project their heterosexuality and fidelity onto their clergy, they believe their priests, including the pope and bishops, are likewise straight and faithful.

The solutions I propose to replace the majority of gay and unfaithful bishops, priests, and seminarians with straight and faithful clergy will be found in my next three articles. While the first two articles will address “The History and Consequences of Mandatory Celibacy,” the third article will propose changes to priestly formation designed to promote a truly faithful, straight, dedicated, and holy priesthood and episcopate. After reading my future three articles, any readers who disagree with my analysis and recommendations are asked to offer solutions that they believe will be more effective in overcoming the dogmatic and moral scandals that most Catholics and media sources do not wish to address today, including:

• How the ongoing decline in the number of priests outside of Africa has led to the consolidation and closure of countless churches.

• How there is an ongoing loss of Catholic faithful, particularly in Europe, North America, and Latin America.

• How closeted homosexual clergy are openly living together today in the Vatican, episcopal residences, rectories, and seminaries, while a straight priest would be thrown into the street if he were even to think of cohabitating with a woman.

• How bishops and priests who espouse teachings or advocate practices that violate authentic dogmatic and moral teachings of the Catholic Church are scandalously promoted, often to important positions within the Church hierarchy.

• How recent popes have not laicized, excommunicated, or disciplined over 160 bishops and countless priests like Fathers Marko Rupnik, Valentino Salvoldi, Dennis Hanneman, and others, credibly accused of abusing minors and vulnerable adults, including nuns and seminarians.

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.