WHY SOME CATHOLICS CAN’T HANDLE THE TRUTH
If "everyone knew," why didn't they act?
Having served on active duty at Navy and Marine Corps commands for 24 years, I like to joke with relatives and friends by saying, “Tom Cruise wore a costume, but I wore a uniform.” One of my favorite scenes from a movie with Tom Cruise is when he is cross-examining Jack Nicholson on the stand in A Few Good Men. Cruise demands loudly, “I want the truth,” to which Nicholsan responds, “You can’t handle the truth!” What I say, especially to Catholics who question my writing, is “You don’t want the truth because you can’t handle the truth.”
On July 3, 2025, I sent an email to around 100 Catholic editors, journalists, and podcasters, stating, “My extensive research has uncovered disturbing facts about Catholic vocations and seminaries that the U.S. bishops, seminary rectors, and vocation directors have not refuted or denied. Some of the disturbing facts are found in ‘Goodbye, Straight Men’ and ‘North American College Predicted to Close’.” In response to this email, Robert Royal, the President of the Faith and Reason Institute who is best known as a member of “The Prayerful Posse,” along with Raymond Arroyo and Father Gerald Murray, wrote, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” When I asked Royal to identify specifically what I wrote that was not true, I never received a response.
There can be serious consequences when a journalist is told by one's editor to kill a story. Consider, for example, what might have happened had Marty Baron, the Editor of The Boston Globe, told the members of the Globe Spotlight Team to bury their report on clerical sex abuse and cover-ups in the Boston Archdiocese? Because Catholics make up approximately 37% of the population in Boston, might he not have feared a loss of revenue, especially if Cardinal Bernard Law, supported by The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, were to have accused Baron, a Jew, and The Boston Globe, of defamation?
Just as the U.S. Bishops and the Vatican buried Dominican Father Thomas Doyle's 1985 co-authored report, "The Problem of Sexual Molestation by Roman Catholic Clergy," so too are the bishops and seminary officials burying my 2024 report, “Addressing the Present Day Culture of Sexual Predation and Cover-Ups in U.S. Seminaries,” which was the basis for the two articles I sent to the 100 Catholic editors, journalists, and podcasters. Can you imagine how many abuse victims' lives could have been different had the U.S. Bishops and the Vatican acted on, and the media reported on, the recommendations found in Doyle's 1985 report? How many more parishes will close, how many more dioceses and religious orders will file for bankruptcy, and how many more heterosexually oriented priests and seminarians will leave ministry and formation as a result of Church leaders and the media ignoring the findings of my 2024 report?
Both the mainstream and Catholic media are guilty of covering up the truth for a variety of reasons. When Rachel Mastrogiacomo learned that San Diego Cardinal Robert McElroy was going to be installed as the Archbishop of Washington, she was interviewed by a reporter from The Washington Post with whom she shared how McElroy covered up her abuse by former Father Jacob Bertrand. Instead of reporting how McElroy covered up her abuse and the abuse of 12 seminarians and priests that was reported to him by the late psychotherapist Richard Sipe, the Post presented a totally one-sided picture of McElroy as a pro-immigrant, pro-LGBTQ, “counterbalance to the Trump Administration.” To add insult to injury, the lay-Catholic publication, The Pillar, falsely portrayed McElroy’s installation Mass as a standing room only event when, in fact, the basilica was less than one-third full.
A week hardly goes by without one reading an article that distorts the truth and is very misleading to Catholics. On July 14, 2025, Bill Donohue of the Catholic League published an article, “Why Is It Virtuous To Be Non-Judgmental?” Donohue tried to defend Pope Francis’ quote, “Who am I to judge?” by arguing that the Pope was not endorsing homosexual behavior. While Donohue is correct in noting that the quote was in response to a reporter’s question about the homosexual behavior - and not the orientation - of Monsignor Battista Ricca, he misled his readers by echoing the Pope’s false claim that Ricca “was accused, but not found guilty.” The truth that Donohue and the media representatives who were present during the interview failed to report is that Ricca had been cohabitating with his gay lover, Patrick Haari, in Uruguay, that he got caught with a gay prostitute in an elevator, and that he had been assaulted in a gay cruising ground. Why would Donohue be so gullible to believe that Ricca was innocent of all of these charges when the Pope in his book, On Heaven and Earth, wrote that clerical sex abuse “never occurred in my diocese”? Imagine, 2.7 million Catholics in the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires, and not one abuse case!
Der Spiegel’s 2018 article, “Thou Shalt Not Lie,” accused Pope Francis of knowing about sexual abuse allegations against Cardinal Theodore McCarrick long before he admitted he was aware of them or took any action.
The lie Pope Francis told about Ricca in July 2013, only four months following his election, was only one of many that he would tell during his 12-year pontificate. The problem was not simply that he lied about not knowing of ex-Cardinal McCarrick's predatory behavior when “everyone knew,” but that most media sources (unlike Der Spiegel) did not expose the lie even after the whitewashed McCarrick Report was published. Had Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano not published his Testimony in August 2018, or had Father Boniface Ramsey not tried for years to get Church officials to act on his reports, McCarrick's predatory behavior may never have come to light. The mainstream and Catholic media like EWTN, CNA, CNS, and publications like America and The National Catholic Reporter, did not report all the abuse that Pope Francis covered up when he was the Archbishop of Buenos Aires, as documented by French investigative reporter Martin Boudot, nor did they, like Complicit Clergy and LifeSiteNews, report the allegation by Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano that Pope Francis preyed on Jesuit novices in Argentina before he was made a bishop. Because of these media cover-ups, it is not surprising that, on the occasion of his death, “75% of U.S. Catholics viewed Pope Francis favorably.”
When investigative journalists expose ecclesiastical corruption that most of the mainstream and Catholic media cover up, they should not be surprised when someone accuses them of slander, libel, or not knowing what they are “talking about.” Personally, I don’t fear being sued for libel in which a person makes “a false written statement about someone” because my reporting is based on verifiable facts. If I don’t have evidence to support a claim, I certainly will not “jump the gun” and violate the Eighth Commandment by bringing false witness against someone.
Most bishops will not accuse a publication or journalist of publishing a false story or sue for libel because they fear discovery which, in most cases, will result in a plethora of evidence to support what was reported. When the Kansas City Star in January 2000 reported that "hundreds of priests had died of AIDS-related illnesses and that hundreds more were living with the virus that causes the disease," Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahoney denounced the Star’s articles as anti-Catholic fabrications. In defense of the accuracy of its reporting, the Star undertook additional research and reported in November 2000 that the AIDS death rate was even higher than what they originally reported, i.e., more than six times that of the general population. Mahoney, the Star’s major critic, was later named in 21 certified abuse claims in Los Angeles Superior Court (JCCP5101) as the actual perpetrator of rape, forced oral copulation, and abuse of mostly immigrant teenage boys, claims that were buried in a $880 million settlement to avoid trial.
So long as Catholics in the pews continue to “pay and obey” without confronting their shepherds for their lies, corruption will continue to infect the Church because of Catholics who can’t handle the truth.
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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.
Catholics don’t want the truth because Catholics have been conditioned to give blind loyalty and deference to a clerical class that manipulates the sacraments to accrue power to itself. They’ve also been conditioned to believe a lot of theology about priests that is nothing more than superstitious legalism. Clerical sex abuse destroys both those illusions and any moral credibility the clerical class has.
And…we can never forget how much money dioceses paid out to all the victims who had to sign non-disclosure agreements to get paid. I never asked for anything from any of these dioceses where priests abused me. All they offered was pay for counseling. Too bad I didn’t sue all of them. Now I just live the pain and the horrible memories.