WHY I CANNOT OBEY AND RESPECT POPE LEO

'Obedience can be commanded - respect must be earned'

If you were a German citizen during World War II and you learned that I, an officer in the Wehrmacht, deserted my post, you might feel that I should be tried and executed as a deserter. Before having me shot, however, let’s consider the fact that I was posted to the Dachau Concentration Camp in Southern Germany, where 2,720 clergy were imprisoned, of whom 2,579 (or 94.88%) were Catholic. I’m using Dachau as an example because I worked in a Polish parish as a seminarian with Monsignor Alexander Murat, who was one of 30,000 surviving prisoners who was liberated from Dachau on April 29, 1945. It is estimated that 41,500 prisoners lost their lives there due to disease, starvation, forced labor, and murder.

When I served on active duty for over 24 years, I could have been court-martialed had I been charged with disobeying an order. However, if the convening authority was moral and just, and if the order I had been given was found to be immoral/unlawful (e.g., “take no prisoners”), then the person who issued the orders and sought to have me court-martialed would be punished. On the other hand, if the convening authority was as immoral as the person who issued the unlawful order, then I would be “toast.”

The best example I can provide to illustrate an unlawful order and a corrupt and compromised convening authority involves the Israeli government during the 1967 Six-Day War. When the war began with Israel attacking Egypt, the USS Liberty (AGTR-5), an American spy ship sailing in international waters off the Egyptian coast, intercepted Israeli transmissions documenting the killing of unarmed Egyptian prisoners of war. Even though Israeli Brigadier General Arye Biro publicly admitted to ordering the killing of 49 Egyptian unarmed prisoners of war, he was never disciplined because the Israeli leaders above him in the chain of command were just as corrupt and evil.

The murder of millions of innocent people by the Nazis during World War II, like the murder of unarmed Egyptian prisoners of war by the Israelis during the Six-Day War, is as egregious as the sexual abuse of children and vulnerable adults by Catholic clergy. Many abuse victims become alcoholics, drug addicts, or commit suicide, while the clergy who abused them, and the bishops who made them suffer more by covering up their abuse, go on to lead comfortable, opulent lives without accountability.

Unfortunately, when Catholic priests, seminarians, or laity report abuse and cover-ups, they often not only suffer reprisals, but they cannot appeal their unjust treatment because the Pope, cardinals, and bishops above them in the Church’s “chain of command” are as evil as the predators who abused them, and the bishops who covered up their abuse.

Washington Father Michael Briese, who reported the suicides of boys abused by archdiocesan priests, as well as the abuse of seminarians by priests like Adam Park and Carter Griffin, cannot expect Cardinals Robert McElroy and Wilton Gregory to be disciplined for covering up abuse because the only one who can discipline a bishop is Pope Leo XIV who himself was accused of covering up abuse of Augustinian and Chiclayo clergy when he was the prior general of the Order of St. Augustine and the Bishop of Chiclayo. Leo’s unjust laicization of Monsignor Ricardo Coronado, who confronted him for covering up abuse in the Diocese of Chiclayo, shows just how complicit and morally corrupt Leo is.

There are other priests, including former Augustinians, with whom I have spoken in confidence, who reported sexual abuse cover-ups by Father Robert Prevost. However, like the twelve seminarians and priests who confided in the late Richard Sipe of being abused by the late ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the former Augustinians, like McCarrick’s victims, are afraid to have their testimony made public for fear of reprisals which, in some cases, have resulted in the deaths of whistleblowers like Fathers Joe Moreno, Francis J. O’Connor, John Minkler, and Alfred Kunz.

There are many Catholics, even in my own family, who do not want to know the truth, because they can’t handle the truth. While claiming to be “good Catholics” because they attend Mass regularly, these so-called “Catholics” exacerbate the pain and suffering of sexual abuse victims through their lack of concern and support.

Like the Wehrmacht soldier who refused to participate in the murder of innocent holocaust victims, so too do I refuse to participate in ongoing abuse cover-ups and reprisals in the Roman Catholic Church.

Quoting a line from the newly released movie Young Washington: “Obedience can be demanded, but respect must be earned,” I invite you to read the following abuse account that Pope Leo and Omaha Archbishop Michael McGovern are currently covering up. If you can stomach reading it without getting sick, you might come to understand why, despite having promised my bishop “obedience and respect” at my ordination, I cannot in conscience either obey or respect Pope Leo and many bishops because of their ongoing cover-up of abuse, and their reprisals against whistleblowers like Father Briese, Monsignor Coronado, Father Paul Kalchik, Father James Altman, former seminarian Anthony Gorgia, and many others.

This is an edited abuse report on file with the Antelope County Sheriff’s Department, from a survivor whose abuse continues to be covered up by Pope Leo XIV and Omaha Archbishop Michael McGovern. The accused predator, Father Dennis Hanneman, believed to be in residence at Boys Town, has yet to be removed from ministry and investigated for the egregious behavior recounted below.

Between 1972 and 1974, when I was 9-11 years old, Father Dennis Hanneman, our associate pastor, sexually abused me at St. Boniface Church in Elgin, Nebraska, where I practiced playing the pipe organ.

I vividly remember Father Hanneman having me lie down on a wooden table where he would give me enemas, which he referred to as “spiritual cleansings,” designed to “cleanse me of my sins.” He would often force the nozzle in three times as he recited, “In the name of the Father....and of the Son....and of the Holy Spirit.” Many times I was in so much pain that I couldn’t talk.

Hanneman would often force rosaries into my vagina or anus, sometimes with the crucifix left hanging outside of my body. He forced me to recite the Our Father or Hail Mary while this was happening. The pain was unbearable.

In addition to using rosaries, Hanneman would sometimes have me pull down my jeans and penetrate my vagina or anus with his fingers. He would often say that I needed to be “stretched to be able to take in the Holy Spirit.”

Hanneman also employed a crucifix, candles, hosts, and other sacred objects during this demonic abuse. He would have me kneel in front of him and ask for forgiveness of my sins. He said that I was “dirty, stained, and evil.” He would force the crucifix into my vagina while I was to ask forgiveness for whatever sins I might have done. During these rituals, Hanneman would make low, moaning, guttural sounds which were very frightening. I remember him taking a gold pyx, opening the lid, and removing a consecrated host. He forced the host into my vagina as I was told that it would rid me of my sins, my evil, and my filth.

On one occasion, my grade school teacher, Sister Richardine, took me aside and asked me if there was anything wrong. She told me I seemed so sad and withdrawn. I remember getting very scared and nervous. I suspected she knew something was not right.

On another occasion, as I was kneeling in front of Hanneman, he took my hand and guided it through the buttons of his long, black cassock. He pushed my hand onto his penis and forced me to move my hand up and down on it.

I can never forget the time Father Hanneman took me down to the church basement where I encountered another little girl cowering in the dark corner. She looked terrified. Hammeman forced me to watch him hurt her with the same penis-shaped object he inserted into me. The girl looked at me with terror-filled eyes. Hanneman forced me to also insert the object into her vagina as she was writhing in pain. Hanneman made animalistic, guttural noises that shook me to my core. Hanneman also gave me a white altar candle, which he ordered me to shove into the girl’s anus. Hanneman lit the candle as he made increasingly loud, animal-like sounds. I was shaking in fear as I watched the wax from the candle drip onto the floor. The little girl was moaning. I couldn’t make the horrific sounds go away.

Hanneman performed these rituals weekly, and sometimes more often, for about two years. I could fill pages with reports of them.

Readers are invited to email Pope Leo at nuntiususa@nuntiususa.org and Archbishop McGovern at bjsetter@archomaha.org, requesting that they remove Father Hanneman from ministry while inviting other possible victims to come forward. If they fail to act, then I suggest you encourage them to resign and live lives of prayer and penance. In the meantime, do not expect me to obey or respect them.

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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.