WHY PRIESTS LEAVE OR ARE DISMISSED

The truth often kept from Catholics

Because I was working all week with my co-author, David Tracy, on our novel, Den of Iniquity, based on my screenplay with the same name, and because I did not have time to research and write a new Sunday morning article, I decided to edit, expand, and repost my most viewed article that appeared a year ago in August of 2025 and received over 23,500 views.

Over fifty years ago, when the majority of priests were heterosexually oriented, like Fox News contributor Father Jonathan Morris, the main reason they left was to marry, rather than live a double life. The teaching that the Holy Spirit would descend upon the ordinand, who, through the power of the Holy Spirit, would then be able to live happily without human affection and love, did not prove true for many straight priests. Unfortunately, they were never informed in the seminary about studies showing that not more than half of all priests are practicing celibacy at any given moment in time; that, prior to gays being accepted into African seminaries, it was difficult for the Dicastery for Bishops to find an African priest (to be consecrated a bishop) who has not fathered children; and that no more than 2% of priests admit to having observed celibacy throughout their entire lives. If straight seminarians were informed of these studies and facts, might some decide to pursue another career in life, just like a woman might decide not to marry someone if she knew he suffered from an injury that caused him to be sterile?

After I was ordained, when I attended my first priests’ retreat, I went for a walk after lunch with the chancellor of our diocese, who said, “Now that you are no longer a seminarian but a priest, I have just one piece of advice for you. When you fool around, don’t do it with anyone in your own parish.” Before that encounter, I was under the impression that most priests, like myself, were heterosexually oriented and lived celibate lives. I never knew that the two young priests with whom I served during my first parish assignment were both preying on our altar boys like they were groomed when they were in high school seminaries. It was only decades later, when victims from various parishes came forward, that they were removed from ministry.

A priest who later followed the two predator priests and me at my first parish assignment was a closeted homosexual who entered the seminary in his early thirties after leading a closeted gay lifestyle. This homosexual priest never posed a threat to young men and boys because all of his prior sexual encounters were consensual with other adult gay men. Just like Cardinal Robert McElroy, who was ordained by San Francisco Archbishop John Quinn, and who was later made Quinn’s live-in secretary before Quinn made him his vicar general, so too was this homosexual priest made the live-in secretary of the bishop and later appointed the chancellor of the diocese. A few years after being named the pastor of one of the largest parishes in the diocese - passing over many older and more qualified heterosexual priests - the closeted homosexual priest left to marry a gay Protestant minister. With “gay marriages” being performed today, one can no longer assume that a priest is leaving the priesthood to marry a woman.

When dealing with priests who are removed from ministry, it’s important to distinguish if they are predators, homosexuals, or both. The priest who was ordained next to me in the Cathedral of St. John Gualbert, like retired Omaha Archbishop George Lucas, was reported to be both a predator who abused teenage boys and a homosexual who engaged in consensual sexual relations with other adult gay men. Such clerics, along with extensive research, invalidate the argument, advanced by members of the LGBTQ community, that there is no connection between sexual abuse and homosexuality.

In dealing with abusive priests who are caught, I think it is also important to investigate if the predator was groomed and abused himself by a bishop, priest, seminarian, or Catholic employee before he was ordained, For example, if a homosexual predator identifies someone who groomed him in the seminary which led him to become a homosexual as a result of being introduced to gay sex in an improperly supervised all-male environment during his period of psychosexual development, then, while being laicized and never allowed to return to ministry, should he receive a certain amount of financial support from the diocese or order because of the serious psychosexual harm he suffered which may not have occurred had he not been a member of the Roman Catholic Church?

Unlike many lay Catholics, and a small number of seminarians and young priests, most ordained Catholic clergy know that Pope Leo, his predecessor Pope Francis, and the vast majority of American-born bishops, priests, and seminarians today are homosexuals, many of whom, unfortunately, were groomed/abused in improperly supervised seminaries. Now that even seminaries in Africa are reportedly being populated with homosexuals – where over half the men in one African seminary class were caught last year “performing homosexual acts,” fewer straight priests are being ordained.

Even though there are still some straight priests leave and later marry, the inability to lead a celibate life may not always be the principal reason for their departure. “Allen” was assigned as an associate to a parish where the pastor was a homosexual who “entertained” other gay men in the rectory. When Allen asked the bishop to be transferred, he was sent to another parish where the pastor was also a homosexual. A teenage parishioner told Allen that the pastor told him in confession that it was not a sin for him to have sex as long as he used a condom. It wasn’t long before the gay pastor began sexually harassing his straight associate. Scandalized and suffering from “destabilization”– a sense of being alienated, disconnected, and estranged from other members of the group – Allen left the priesthood and later married. He did not leave because he could not lead a celibate life. He left because the priests around him were not only sexually active with other men, but were also trying to get him to engage in the same perverted behavior. Because the pope and most bishops are homosexuals, it would have been a waste of time for Allen to report what he was experiencing “up the chain of command.”

While the Catholic media reported how one small diocese ordained five priests in 2024, leading readers to believe more men are being ordained in the U.S. today, it failed to report how three recently ordained priests from that diocese have asked to be incardinated into another diocese perceived to be more traditional and “straight-priest-friendly.” Hence, instead of leaving the priesthood, some straight priests request to serve elsewhere. The only problem is that even if a bishop were to release a priest to be incardinated elsewhere (as happened when Washington Cardinal Donald Wuerl released Father Mark White - ordained by ex-Cardinal McCarrick - to be incardinated into the Diocese of Richmond), that “elsewhere” may not always prove as “straight-friendly” as some priests might hope. This happened when Father White later found himself working for homosexual Bishop Barry Knestout. Not only was Knestout McCarrick’s secretary, but he was also present at McCarrick’s New Jersey beach house on the night of May 6, 1994, when McCarrick was reported for sexually assaulting a young, vulnerable foreign-born seminarian.

The real reasons some priests, deacons, and seminarians leave, voluntarily or involuntarily, are often kept from many members of the laity. When the late Baltimore Cardinal William Keeler forced heterosexual transitional Deacon Wieslaw Walawender to leave St. John the Evangelist Church in Severna Park, Maryland, the alcoholic homosexual pastor, Monsignor Edward Staub, told parishioners that Walawender left because he questioned his ability to lead a celibate life. The truth, however, was that Keeler got rid of Walawender because he feared he would be criminally prosecuted for failing to report that Staub had drugged and sodomized Walawender. By clicking on and reading “Wes,” you will learn how Walawender, like numerous other foreign seminarians, was sex trafficked as “young meat” for sexually insatiable gay U.S. bishops and priests.

The Coalition for Canceled Priests, dedicated to assisting priests unjustly removed from active ministry, may soon have a new member. Father Michael Briese is a sixty-nine-year-old priest of the Archdiocese of Washington (AOW) who is revered for his work with the poor and homeless of southern Maryland. Briese was deeply affected by the suicides of two young people who took their lives after being abused by two priests of the AOW. When he learned that Cardinal Gregory failed to investigate and discipline priests accused of abusing seminarians, he wrote about the allegations in his Substack account (Fr. Michael’s Newsletter) only after Gregory refused to meet with him to discuss the allegations. Briese’s response to McElroy’s unwarranted actions can be read online by clicking HERE.

McElroy, who is attempting to change the Church’s teaching that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered,” is requesting the Dicastery for the Clergy to laicize Father Briese for his refusal to delete his online writings that address clerical sexual predation and misconduct in the Catholic Church. If McElroy has his way, Briese, who is in poor health, will be thrown into the street without an income, health insurance, or any of the benefits that alleged sexual predators are receiving. What McElroy is attempting to do with Briese in Washington is exactly what Knestout did with White in Richmond.

Sex abuse victims’ advocates question whether justice will be served in Briese’s case because Pope Leo XIV has yet to discipline Father Marko Rupnik, who is accused of raping over 20 nuns, or to laicize over 160 bishops credibly accused of abusing minors and vulnerable adults. Briese is appealing the threatened laicization that can be read in this linked letter to Cardinal McElroy.

While many priests have been removed from ministry, primarily for abusing teenage boys, many abusive priests are transferred to other assignments or are dangerously kept in ministry as documented in From Predators to Pastors. BishopAccountability.org has identified many whistleblower priests, and even monsignors like myself, who were unjustly removed from ministry, or laicized like Monsignor Ricardo Coronado-Arrascue, for speaking out against clerical sexual predation, misconduct, and cover-ups in the Roman Catholic Church.

As long as the Lavender Mafia remains in power, openly endorsing the LGBTQ agenda, appointing and promoting homosexual bishops, and seeking to canonize pedophiles like Father Lorenzo Milani, one should not be surprised when straight priests, deacons, and seminarians leave or are dismissed. In the meantime, homosexual priests and bishops, many of whom are not leading celibate lives, continue to enjoy the good life on the nickel of naive “paying, praying, and obeying” Catholics who are misled by Catholic media sources (EWTN, CNA, CNS, Crux, NCR, etc.) to believe that the pope, bishops, priests, and seminarians are all straight and celibate.

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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.