Sex, Lies and Video Tape

Scandals

Monday, 26 September 2011 11:51

The Current Sex Scandal in Catholicism

Is the Church on the Brink of Judgment?

By Robert Sungenis

As a Catholic apologist I valiantly defend the Catholic Church, and will continue to do so. Anyone familiar with my work knows this to be the case. In this essay, however, I am going to defend my Church in a somewhat different manner than what my audiences are used to hearing. Due to the present scandals, I’m going to tell you the good, the bad, and the ugly about the Catholic Church.

According to Canon Law, we have the right to do this. Canon law states: “The Christian faithful are free to make known their needs, especially spiritual ones, and their desires to the pastors of the Church. In accord with the knowledge, competence and preeminence which they possess, they have the right and even at times a duty to manifest to the sacred pastors their opinion on matters which pertain to the good of the Church, and they have a right to make their opinion known to the other Christian faithful, with due regard for the integrity of faith and morals and reverence toward their pastors, and with consideration for the common good and the dignity of persons” (Can 212-2, 3).

Genuine Catholic apologetics seeks to tell the truth without whitewash and spin, no matter how much it hurts. We do this in order that faithful Catholics can know the truth and amend or adjust their lives accordingly to the glory of God. Once a Catholic knows the truth, no one on the other side can surprise him. He will be inoculated against those who wish to exploit the present crisis.

Although we at Catholic Apologetics International condemn the immoralities presently making the news (and which we will make quite clear in this essay), we also want to say that this is still God’s Church and it is up to Him alone what He will do with His Church. Looking at the present crisis from the proper perspective it shows that, because the Catholic Church is a divine institution, not a man-made one, it can survive this crisis, and it has survived even worse ones.

In light of this truth, we can take some solace in the dialogue between the great French general, Napoleon, and Cardinal Consalvi. As Napoleon was swallowing up countries left and right, he came to Cardinal Consalvi and said: “I will destroy your church also.” The Cardinal retorted: “No you won’t. Not even we have succeeded in doing that!” Cardinal Consalvi was being quite candid about the Catholic Church. Anyone familiar with the literature knows that the Catholic Church has a notorious history, but it survives. Why? Because God is in complete control. Only He decides when He has had enough. Prior to that time, God’s working to preserve the Church must often be in spite of her sins and errors. So hold your heads up high, Catholics. There is nothing to fear, but God alone.

Now let’s go into more detail about the bad and the ugly.

The church is in a crisis. That much is obvious. We are just beginning to find out the sordid details of what some in the Church have been doing for the last few decades. Here are some tell-tale items, in case you haven’t heard.

Over a billion dollars has been paid by the Catholic Church for out-of-court settlements having to do with sexual scandals. The Boston dioceses has just discovered another 250 cases of sexual predation among its priests. Archdiocese all over the country have similar problems. The Sante Fe diocese is almost bankrupt due to fewer than one hundred lawsuits against its priests and bishop. Lloyds of London, the Sante Fe diocese insurer, refused to pay out any more insurance claims because the Church, “continued to give parish assignments to priests with a history of sexual abuse”(Our Sunday Visitor, Feb. 27, 1994, p. 5).

The Chicago diocese has paid out multi-millions in lawsuits. Philadelphia, New York, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Baltimore, San Jose, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, and many other cities are experiencing the same. The problem is widespread. The National Catholic Reporter in the early nineties stated that, “10 percent of priests report a sexual approach from a priest while they were in training...spiritual directors, novice masters, seminary professors often introduce sexual contact into the context of their spiritual office” (NCR, Sept. 7, 1993, p. 7). Others say the numbers are much higher.

Canon lawyer Fr. Thomas Doyle, who co-authored the Doyle-Moulton-Peterson report on sexual abuse among the clergy, estimated in 1990 that 3,000 priests were “currently involved sexually with minors.” They also estimated that about 12,000 priests were involved with adult women, with thousands of paternity suits filed against them. They estimated that 6,000 priests were involved with adult men in homosexual relationships (ibid). The total of all three categories is 21,000 priests involved in some type of illicit sexual relationship, out of approximately 47,000 priests. The total is 45% - a number far higher than the 1-2% you hear from some apologists trying to downplay the present crisis by focusing only on pedophilia cases. Twelve years later, the statistics are only worse. Crisis Magazine, in the October 2001 issue, documented that every one of the 188 Catholic dioceses (some say 193 dioceses) in the United States have faced, or are facing, claims of priests in illicit sexual relationships.

Behind the pedophile scandal, however, is the real engine driving this present immorality: homosexuality. Although it is rarely mentioned by the media for fear of the backlash from the gay community, pedophile priests are primarily homosexuals merely using young boys as their favorite targets. In contrast, there are few cases of pedophile priests molesting young girls.

During a press conference in Rome on April 24, 2002, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Bishop Wilton Gregory, was interviewed regarding the homosexual problem in the Catholic Church. In his own words he said: “...it is an ongoing struggle to make sure that the Catholic priesthood is not dominated by homosexual men” (Newsweek, May 6, 2002, p. 23). The implications of this statement are obvious. Since “struggles” implies victories and defeats, then not only have homosexuals established themselves in the Catholic priesthood, but they have, at one time or another, “dominated” the priesthood. Not surprisingly, the statistics reported by Newsweek bear out the allusion to “dominated,” since “between 35 and 50 percent of Roman Catholic priests are homosexual” (ibid). “The facts show that there is 20 times as much homosexuality as there is pedophilia, and the whole structure of many seminaries and many chancery offices promotes and protects it” (The Wanderer, May 2, 2002).

Rod Dreher, editor of National Review Online writes: “Stephen Rubino, a New Jersey lawyer, says that of the over 300 alleged victims of priest sex abuse he has represented, roughly 85% are boys, and were teenagers when the abuse occurred. Dr. Richard Fitzgibbons, an eminent Catholic psychiatrist who has treated scores of victims and priest-perpetrators, says 90% of his patients were either teen male victims or priests, or priests who abused teen boys.” Because the victims are teenagers, this shows that the issue is not one of pedophilia as much as it is one of homosexuality.

Dreher goes on to say that the reluctance of bishops to call it a homosexual problem “arises, no doubt, partly out of a fear of antagonizing homosexual anti-defamation groups, who resent the stereotype of male homosexuals as pederasts. It’s much safer to focus inquiry on the question of mandatory celibacy, or the issue of ordaining women...For journalists, to confront the issue is to risk touching the electrified third rail of American popular culture: the dark side of homosexulality....homosexual priests occupy positions of influence in the vast Catholic bureaucracy; and there seems little doubt that this is the case in the American Church.”

The new book by Michael Rose, Goodbye! Good Men, documents a horrendous homosexual underground affecting a great number of seminaries, chanceries and bishoprics in the United States and many abroad. He writes of various seminaries that are so bad and their antics so well-known by parishioners that they are referred to by nicknames such as “Notre Flame” (for Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans); “The Theological Closet” (for Theological College at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.); or “The Pink Palace” (for St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore). The Vice Rector of St. Mary’s recently gave a speech at the seminary in which he stated: “...yes, we accept openly gay seminarians; that’s our policy.” EWTN personality Fr. John Trigilio stated: “The few times I was there, some of the seminarians would literally dress like gays from the Village. They would even go so far as to wear pink silk; it was like going to see La Cage Aux Folles.” Fr. John Despard states: “In my days at St. Mary’s, down the hall there would be two guys together in the shower and everybody knew it” (Rose, p. 93).

At a Midwest seminary, philosophy professor Ada Mason reports that, “Open homosexual behavior was more than tolerated...every Friday a van took priesthood students to a nearby large city to cruise the gay bars.” A rector on the Board at the same seminary stated: “We don’t ask our candidates about their sexual orientation or their sexual histories. It would be a violation of a man’s civil rights to deny him ordination on those grounds.” At St. John’s in Michigan former seminarian Justice Wargrave states: “Everyone there knew what was going on. There were visits at night as gay seminarians cruised from room to room...it was not uncommon to see seminarians acting out sexually in a fairly public setting.” Although Sacred Heart seminary of Detroit took over the now defunct St. John’s, there are still holdovers from the “hothouse” days.

In 1996, Fr. Wayne Wurst stated on a Chicago radio station that at St. Mary’s of the Lake in Mundelein, Illinois, “there were madams, pimps, and prostitutes all in a major seminary system that, from the outside, if you were to walk through, would look very holy.” Joseph Kellenyi, a seminarian from 1998-1999 says things have not changed at St. Mary’s. He relates that one hall in the seminary dorm is nicknamed the “Catwalk,” since it housed the more fashionable gays and their accompanying feline personalities. When a seminarian would “come out” and admit of a homosexual orientation, he would be wined and dined (literally) by the seminary faculty in hopes of involving him more deeply. The heterosexual seminarians are forced to trade class notes, tapes and share spiritual readings together just to keep their heads above the rampant perversions surrounding them.

In his best-selling book Lead Us Not Into Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children (1992), journalist Jason Berry found that a third of the students at St. Francis Seminary in southern California were gay. One priest, Fr. Stephen Dunn, propositioned one student a dozen times over two years, while another, Fr. Nicholas Reveles, was having sex with at least four seminarians at the same time. When one student refused their advances, they had him committed to a hospital on a trumped-up charge of alcoholism. At St. John’s Seminary in Boston where 30% of the students were gay, the litmus test of being for or against the seminary was whether one accepted homosexuality and masturbation. Those who neither defended nor submitted to homosexuality put their priestly aspirations in jeopardy, sometimes were beaten, and sometimes were raped. Those who protested were labeled as “homophobes” (Rose, pp. 94-133).

The list goes on and on. Reading Rose’s shocking exposé will make even the strongest and most loyal Catholic absolutely sick to his stomach. I found myself sobbing over the horrendous treatment the few remaining faithful seminarians had to endure at the hands of these pernicious gay militants. I know a little of what they are going through. Recently I had to terminate two friendships with priests due to their homosexuality. One had actually made subtle advances toward me; the other I discovered had an assortment of homosexual video tapes.

Rose contends that the real reason there is a shortage of priests is that good men have been systematically weeded out of seminaries and replaced by those with an anti-orthodox and homosexual agenda. He quotes Archbishop Elden F. Curtiss as saying: “I am personally aware of certain vocations directors, vocations teams and evaluation boards who turn away candidates who do not support the possibility of ordaining women or who defend the Church’s teaching about artificial birth control, or who exhibit a strong piety toward certain devotions, such as the rosary” (“Crisis in Vocations? What Crisis?” in Our Sunday Visitor, October 8, 1995).

Richard Sipe, a laicized priest and psychotherapist, after studying the issue for forty years and reviewing thousands of case histories, estimates that 20% of Catholic priests are homosexuals. He writes: “This is a system. This is a whole community. You have many good people covering it up. There is a network of power. A lot of seminary rectors and teachers are part of it, and they move to chancery-office positions, and on to bishoprics. It’s part of the ladder of success.”

Fr. Donald Cozzens, former rector of St. Mary’s Seminary in Cleveland and author of The Changing Face of the Priesthood, puts the figure much higher (Donald B. Cozzens, The Changing Face of the Priesthood, p. 101f). Confirming these results are the inordinate numbers of Catholic priests dying of AIDS - a rate much higher than that of normal male population. An extensive survey by the Kansas City Star revealed that, “there are at least 400 known deaths of priests from AIDS, and probably twice that number -- ranging from four times to eight times the rate in the general population.” Two thirds of the priests interviewed said they knew at least one priest who had died of AIDS, and one third knew at least one priest living with it (January 2000: poll of 800 priests, Wills, p. 193).

Cozzens also reports of the “gay subculture” in many seminaries, and that the priesthood has become a “gay profession.” Gay faculty and students put so much pressure on normal students that the latter are frequently forced to terminate their education and vocation. Supporting this, Thomas Fox, editor of The National Catholic Reporter, concluded from his interviews that, “In some cases there have been reports of predominately gay seminaries and homosexual climates within them that became so pronounced that heterosexual seminarians felt uneasy and ultimately left” (Sexuality and Catholicism, 1995, p. 177). Garry Wills states: “Gays themselves register the change. In a survey of 101 gay priests, those ordained before 1960 remember their seminary as having been 51 percent gay. Those ordained after 1981 say their seminaries were 70 percent gay” (Wills, p. 194).

Polls conducted by Richard Wagner (for a 1980 dissertation at the Institute of Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco) and James Wolf (Gay Priests, 1989) reveal the following statistics about homosexual priests: “...the Wagner respondents averaged 226 partners in sex...22% of them had over 500. Half of the Wagner sample, but three quarters of the Wolf one, knew they were gay before ordination. Those who knew by then that they were gay had experienced sex in the seminary, and some of their superiors knew it. They were allowed to proceed to ordination, perhaps (this is not clear) by complying with the judgment that this was ‘just a phase’ or a lapse...About a third of the priests’ superiors know they are gay -- the same number whose parents know” (Wills, p. 195).

In 1982 the thoroughly footnoted and indexed book titled The Homosexual Network: Private Lives and Public Policy, authored by Catholic priest Enrique Rueda, documented the spread of homosexuality throughout the Catholic Church. Rueda also tells of the growing network of support groups, counseling referrals, newsletters, and organizations of homosexuals and pro-homosexuals in the Catholic churches of America. He reports that in the late 1970’s a key staffer at the Office of Public Affairs and Information at the U.S. Catholic Conference/National Conference of Catholic Bishops was a leader of the Washington, D.C. homosexual movement, as well as president of Dignity/USA (the radical pro-homosexual clerical group). As for the NCCB, its originator, the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago, was himself accused of homosexuality. The three cases against him, and three other bishops, were quietly settled out of court. Francis Cardinal George, who replaced Bernardin in Chicago, although showing no signs of deviant activity himself, has sanctioned “gay masses” and has a “gay ministry” in his diocese. This only encourages the gays to think that their lifestyle is acceptable by Church standards. Bishop Robert Lynch, the former general secretary of the NCCB recently admitted that, after he “crossed the boundaries” of professional relationships with a male member of his staff, he also paid off the victim with $100,778 to keep him quiet about harassment charges (The Tampa Tribune, March 23, 2002).

What is also disheartening are some of the attitudes of individual Catholics. Newsweek reports that fully half (51%) of Catholics say they would attend a church with an “openly gay” priest; 44% are in favor of gay marriages; 39% would accept a gay priest in a committed relationship; and 56% are in favor of allowing gays and lesbians to adopt children (May 6, 2002, pp. 25, 29). If true, these statistics are appalling.

Quoting Louis Vitullo, 57, a Chicago lawyer educated in Catholic schools and a regular churchgoer: “I think what I’m interested in is a good priest, and I don’t think a good priest is determined in any way, shape or form by his or her sexuality.” Even William Donohue, the staunch pro-life defender, found himself indirectly defending gay priests when interviewed by Newsweek. Donohue stated: “I think the issue for them is whether he can live up to his vow of celibacy. I’d take a chaste gay priest any day over a promiscuous straight one” (May 6, 2002). Perhaps Donohue was caught in an off-key moment, nevertheless, his comment is totally irresponsible. Donohue poses the issue as if we only had two choices: (a) homosexual priests who don’t engage in sexual acts, or (b) heterosexual priests who do engage in sexual acts, and thereby implies that we may have to choose one or the other -- the very argument that gay priests and their advocates use to justify themselves. For example, Mark Jordan, a professor of religion at Emory University and a gay Catholic states: “If there were no homosexuals in the priesthood, we would soon cease to have a functioning church” (Newsweek, May 6, 2002, p. 26). Obviously, the right choice is a heterosexual priest who refrains from all types of sexual activity. According to Michael Rose, there are plenty of those men available, but they have been systematically eliminated from Catholic seminaries by the homosexuals entrenched in the faculties. The bishops in charge of these seminaries, in the majority of cases, turn a blind eye to the decay.

Added to this is the plethora of books, written by Catholics, which have condoned homosexuality, attempting to base much of their advocacy on the so-called “silence” of Scripture in condemning it. John McNeil, a Jesuit priest, wrote The Church and the Homosexual (1976), claiming that all the passages in Scripture which seem to condemn homosexuality can be explained in various ways which are not condemnatory. One of the more popular is that the only sin of the homosexuals in Sodom was their inhospitality toward the visiting angels (Newsweek, May 6, 2002, p. 26). This slanted interpretation has actually been around for many years and somehow survives even in the midst of its absurdity. I remember hearing it when I was a college student at GWU back in the late 70’s. The homosexual guest who proposed the interpretation received instantaneous laughter from the rest of the class.

Recognizing its absurdity, some gay apologists have tried a different approach. McNeil’s book was followed by the work of gay Catholic scholar John Boswell in book titled: Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality (1980). Boswell attempts to make a case that rape, not inhospitality, is the sin of the day at Sodom (pp. 92-99). Why? Because this explanation helps him neutralize the distinction between males and females. If the men of Sodom are merely seeking sexual satisfaction and are thus indiscriminate as to who their partner will be, then, as the reasoning goes, homosexuality cannot be the focus of the passage.

Never mind that the men of Sodom refused to have sex with Lot’s daughters and demanded that the men be given to them. Boswell thinks he has a way of escaping this dilemma. He points to the incident in Judges 19:22ff in which the owner of the house, confronted with the same demands Lot faced in Sodom (i.e., to have sex with the male visitor), offers his virgin daughter to the men instead. Because the men take the daughter and rape her, Boswell concludes that the only sin involved here is rape. Of course, he fails to mention that the rape of the daughter, although certainly a sin, was merely an inadvertent event in contrast to their actual desire to have homosexual relations with the male guest – an act outrightly condemned by the owner of the house as an “evil thing” (Judges 19:23).

Prior to Boswell’s book was Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition (1955) by Anglican Derrick Bailey. The major claim of all three books (McNeil, Boswell, and Bailey) is that St. Paul’s condemnations of homosexuality were not directed at the homosexual orientation itself but against heterosexuals committing the “perversion” of homosexual acts! In other words, those who already admitted they had an orientation toward homosexuality would not be sinning if they followed through with their inclinations because they were being true to their calling. They would paraphrase St. Paul’s wording in 1 Corinthians 7:18, 24 as: “Was any man called as a homosexual? Let him not become a heterosexual....Let each man remain with God in that condition in which he was called.” The only ones sinning would be the heterosexuals who became homosexuals and thereby deserted their original calling. As one with any common sense can see, this kind of interpretation is as perverse as the sin they carry. We should expect nothing more from such perverted “exegetes.”

Of the explicit commands in Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13-14 against “men lying with men,” Boswell, followed by Robin Scroggs (The New Testament and Homosexulity, 1983) claim that since the context is condemning the mixing of diverse objects, these are purely ritualistic prohibitions germane to the cult of Israel, but have little to do with the non-ritualistic context of New Testament times. This, of course, is as absurd as the above interpretation. In Leviticus 18 there is no “ritualistic” context. From the beginning of the context (Lev. 18:1) till the end (Lev. 18:30) there is no “ritual” mentioned. All the prohibitions in Leviticus 18 refer to prohibitions against any illicit sex. That these laws are not merely “ritualistic” commands for the cult of Israel is made very clear in verses 24-25 as Moses indicates that the surrounding nations, who did not have the “ritual” laws of Israel, had already been judged for the same sexual perversions:

“Do not defile yourselves by any of these things; for by all these the nations which I am casting out before you have become defiled. For the land has become defiled, therefore I have brought its punishment upon it, so the land has spewed out its inhabitants.”

The same is true of Leviticus 20:1-27. There are no cultic ritual commands in the text. Each command deals only with illicit sexual behavior. The only command that deviates from this is that which condemns the use of “mediums and spiritists” (Lev 20:6, 27), but that applied to all peoples. Identical to Leviticus 18:24-25, we have the same indication in Leviticus 20:23 that the surrounding nations, which did not practice the rituals of Israel, had already been judged for engaging in perverted sexual practices, including homosexuality. In other words, the prohibitions of illicit sex are not confined to Israel. They are universal in scope.

Scroggs might also have something to do with the current trend among certain Catholic bishops to separate male pedophilia from male homosexuality. Coming to the New Testament, Scroggs posits that the traditional reference to homosexuality in 1 Corinthians 6:9 is really a condemnation of pedophilia. Appealing to the ancient Greek philosopher Philo, she writes: “...Thus it is clear that when Philo reads the general laws in his Bible against male homosexuality he is thinking entirely about the cultural manifestation in his own environment [pederasty]” (The New Testament and Homosexuality, p. 88). Of course, she doesn’t explain why she considers Philo the only authority on the subject, nor does she admit that even though Philo is adamant in condemning pederasty it does not mean that he would have given a free license to homosexuality. Needless to say, Scroggs’ logic is typical of homosexuals who are looking for the slightest loophole in Scriptural injunctions in order to give themselves social legitimacy.

Unfortunately, Scroggs tries the same exegetical tricks with the most formidable passage in the New Testament against homosexuality, Romans 1:24-32. She again claims that the issue is pederasty, not homosexuality. For the added difficulty of lesbianism mentioned in Romans 1:26 (“For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural”), Scroggs claims that this refers to female pederasty, “because Philo spoke of pederasty in his Contemplative Life” (Scroggs, p. 115). Again, why Scroggs deems Philo as the final authority on the meaning of Romans 1 she does not say. The mere fact that Philo mentions pederasty as a sin among the clergy is enough for Scroggs to conclude that homosexuality simply never entered the mind of St. Paul as a sin against God. These convenient applications and dismissals permeate the literature among homosexual and lesbian authors.

Back to the scandal:

The bishops in charge of the homosexual/pederast priests have not only been shuffling them from parish to parish, but they now refuse to take the punishment for their negligence. Cardinal Law of Boston, perhaps the most notorious example of late, has recently issued a written statement saying that he will not resign, despite continuing pressure from even his supporters to do so. This decision is in the face of the further discovery that he, and his predecessors, have knowingly allowed Fr. Paul Shanley, the self-proclaimed pedophile, to rape and molest innocent young boys for the last thirty (30) years. Shanley, ordained in 1960, is one of the founding members of NAMBLA (North American Man-Boy Love Association). Shanley has maintained that, “homosexuality is a gift of God and should be celebrated,” and said there was no sexual activity that caused psychic damage, “not even incest or bestiality” (October 1977 speech).

Despite knowing all this about Shanley, Cardinal Law gave him an extraordinary tribute when Shanley retired in 1996. In the tribute Law writes: “For 30 years in assigned ministry you brought God’s word and His love to his people, and I know that that continues to be your goal despite some difficult limitations. This is an impressive record and all of us are truly grateful for your priestly care and ministry to all whom you have served during those years.” For Cardinal Law to write these words of a man he KNEW was a serial child molester shows that Law himself is a very evil man. Yet there is more. The present prelate of Manchester, NH, Bishop McCormack, had plotted with Shanley to set up a “safe house” for clerical sodomites.

Recent information reveals that Cardinal Law, and his predecessor, Humberto Cardinal Medeiros may have been blackmailed by Shanley, reports The Wanderer (April 18, 2002). Shanley claims that he was abused as a teenager by a “cardinal archbishop of Boston.” In light of Shanley’s allegations, over 800 pages of documents recently released reveal the “lengths to which his supervisors went, to emotionally appease and financially accommodate a renegade priest they knew to be a serial child molester.” There are still more documents that can shed even more light on this issue, but so far Law has succeeded in keeping them from prosecuting attorneys.

When Shanley’s antics could no longer be covered over in Boston, Law sent him to the San Bernardino diocese with the commendation: “I can assure you Father Shanley has no problem that would be a concern to your diocese” (National Review, Rod Dreher, April 15, 2002). While there, Shanley and another Boston priest, Fr. John J. White, began a Palm Springs motel that “catered to gay clients.” Editor of First Things, Fr. Richard Neuhaus, stated on a recent Sunday news program: “The people that are primarily responsible for this are the bishops....we have too many bishops that have been negligent and some bishops who have been complicit” (This Week with Sam Donaldson and Kokie Roberts, 4-21-02).

Cardinal Law’s basic motive of self-preservation came out loud and clear in a recent statement he made while attending the Vatican meeting. Apologizing to the group of cardinals, he said: “If I hadn’t made some terrible mistakes, we probably would not be here.” Apparently this benign statement passed over the media’s head, since no one picked up on what the cardinal inadvertently revealed. Although his remark appears apologetic, in reality it totally ignores all the cases of homosexuality and pedophilia OUTSIDE of Law’s diocese that have been going on for almost half a century. Saying that it was HIS mistakes that forced them all to come to the Vatican is tantamount to saying that because he was the only one who received a full media blitz for his failures, then all the cardinals and bishops must suffer and be exposed. Hence, what he is really saying is that if he hadn’t been singled out, then no one else would have been exposed either. I wonder how comforting Law’s remark is to the thousands of victims whose lives have been irreparably damaged by his inaction.

Adding insult to injury, lawyers for Cardinal Law leveled a charge (to which Law must sign off), that a man who claims he was sexually abused as a boy by Paul Shanley is himself partly responsible for the abuse! Accusations of the abuse began in 1983, when Gregory Ford was 6. Now 24, Ford and his parents say Cardinal Law was responsible for the abuse, since he continually shuffled Fr. Shanley from parish to parish. In a six-page response to Ford’s lawsuit, an attorney for Law said, “The negligence of the plaintiffs contributed to cause the injury or damage,” adding that the penalties against Law “should be reduced in proportion to the said negligence of the plaintiffs.” How a 6-year old boy could contribute to the negligence was not explained by the attorney (Washington Times, April 30, 2002).

Cardinal Law continues his game of subterfuge. When questioned in his recent deposition, Law said he didn’t “recall” reading letters warning about Geoghan’s behavior -- including one from his own secretary -- and said doctors had said Geoghan was not a threat. In all, Law said he “did not recall” a grand total of forty-seven (47) times. He said he did not remember reading a letter from the aunt of seven of Geoghan’s victims in which she expressed disbelief that the church gave Geoghan another chance at a Boston parish. Nor did he recall a letter from Bishop John D’Arcy warning him that Geoghan was unfit to be reassigned (Washington Times, May 9, 2002). Obviously, the “I don’t recall” game is alive and well in the prelature. Its the best defense possible, since no one can blame a failing memory. Unfortunately, Cardinal Law is showing us why he didn’t stop the Geoghan and Shanley fiasco, and why he won’t step down. The reason: Cardinal Law is an evil man who is complicit in almost every phase of this fiasco.

His evil was brought home loud and clear on May 14, 2002 when court-released psychiatric records revealed that Law knew Shanley’s condition was “beyond repair,” but still allowed him access to young people (Associated Press).

To show how reticent Church officials are to deal with these aberrations, a good example is noted in their handling of a recent group of Catholic priests and seminarians who took the name, St. Sebastian’s Angels, and who created a website containing some of the most graphic homosexual pictorials ever seen on the Internet. The issue was brought before five leading American cardinals. They all ignored it. It was then brought to the papal nuncio (the second-in-command to the pope in America). He also ignored it. It was then brought to the Vatican. It was discovered that the Vatican had already known about St. Sebastian’s Angels for a few years, and they did nothing about it. Bishop Ryan, the leader of the group, was allowed to retire and remains a bishop in good standing.

To show how convicted priests are moved from diocese to diocese (or move themselves), a recent article in the South Florida Sun Sentinel is very revealing. Staff writer John Holland writes:

“They came from Brooklyn, New Jersey, Orlando and Charlotte. Four came from the same diocese: Rockville Centre, in Long Island, N.Y...Transferred priests typically are required to have a letter from their former bishop attesting to their good standing, yet that was frequently no safeguard in these priests finding new pulpits on which to hold Mass, charities at which to work or seminary classrooms in which to teach. “Up until recently, they haven’t meant anything...Sometimes they are plain lies,” said Richard Sipe, adding that the new dioceses often didn’t conduct any background checks.

“The Rev. Salvatore Miraglia, formerly of the Rockville Centre diocese, left Long Island in 1982, after a complaint that he asked teens to “disrobe,” according to information sent to Nassau County authorities by the diocese, reported Newsday, a Long Island-based newspaper. Miraglia has celebrated Mass at San Isidro Catholic Church in Pompano Beach.

“The Rev. Thomas DeVita passed through the Palm Beach diocese from the same Rockville Centre diocese after undergoing counseling for a relationship with a teenage boy. A psychological report recommended that he continue in the ministry, according to Palm Beach church officials. DeVita lasted five months before a new allegation made by an adult surfaced in October 1995, an allegation DeVita denied. He set off for Michigan, where he admitted his relationship with the boy to his congregation. He is still a parish priest there.

The Rev. Peter Duvelsdorf arrived in 1991 in the Palm Beach diocese with the blessing of his Rockville Centre bishop, even though he had been accused of molesting two brothers on Long Island. He ministered here for six years, until an arrest for public masturbation in a St. Lucie County park. The Rev. Anthony Failla, kicked out of his Brooklyn diocese and ordered into counseling, came to the Palm Beach Diocese in December 2000 without a letter from his bishop. That didn’t keep him from saying Mass and hearing confessions in Boca Raton for about a month. He was supposed to get the necessary paperwork but never did, and officials told him to go.

“Msgr. William White’s dismissal from St. Vincent De Paul Regional Seminary near Boynton Beach came five years after he first admitted to church officials that he fondled and made sexual advances to one of his former high school students. White had the approval of his Archdiocese of New York bishop, though he had been accused of sex abuse allegations in the 1970s. Msgr. Philip Rigney had been performing Mass and other sacraments at St. Peter’s in Jupiter since 1991, six years after he was accused of molesting two generations of boys in a New Jersey family. Rigney, a retired priest from the Diocese of Camden, came with a letter from his bishop attesting to his fitness to serve. The family sued him in 1994, in a case that is still going on. Palm Beach officials forced his resignation when they learned of the suit.

“ In a decade with the Palm Beach Diocese, the Rev. Matthew Fitzgerald, 59, accumulated three accusations of improper behavior with adults between 1992 and 1997. The diocese stripped him of his priestly privileges this month after he tried to say public Mass and recruit people for a pilgrimage. He was fired last week from Food for the Poor, a church-supported charity based in Deerfield Beach, because he needed his credentials in his fund-raising role. He, too, came from the Rockville Centre diocese, in 1989, but officials here say they were told only that he needed to come south for his allergies. Newsday reported Tuesday he was accused in the mid-1980s of sexually molesting a teenager” (Sun Sentinel, April 23, 2002).

Recently, the Rev. William D. Donovan, pastor of Holy Family Parish in Bridgeport, Conn., resigned from the priesthood after admitting to a homosexual relationship, which is presently under investigation. The former pastor, 66, also has a record of three drunken-driving convictions (Washington Times, April 30, 2002). Bridgeport was under the jurisdiction of Cardinal Edward Egan before he was recently transferred to New York.

Although some claim that such abuse is confined to America, Jesuit priest Terence German, the Vatican apologist from 1978-1981 in Rome, states: “...that’s hogwash. It’s going on right in Rome, and he [the Pope] knows it.” In 1994, German filed a 120-million dollar lawsuit against the Church accusing them of “turning a blind eye to his repeated reports of other priests’ sexual misconduct and misuse of church funds” (Times, Feb. 11, 1994, p. 3). Reports of sexual abuse by bishops and priests are coming in from every corner of the globe. Documented cases in Canada, France, Spain, Austria, United Kingdom, Mexico, Poland, Germany, Nigeria, Australia, Venezuela, Columbia, and other places, come in on a daily basis. Unfortunately, the recent meeting called by the Vatican with American cardinals to deal with pedophilia cases gives the false impression to the world that: (a) the problem is confined to America, and (b) pedophilia is an isolated phenomenon disassociated from homosexuality.

German’s comments, of course, direct responsibility for this present fiasco to the very top of the Catholic hierarchy. What is so disheartening is that some bishops who should be defrocked and put in jail for their complicity, actually defend themselves in the face of this scandal, and a Vatican bureaucracy merely slaps them on the wrist for their horrendous crimes against humanity. One Catholic columnist, Thomas Droleskey, so disturbed by Vatican inaction, has stated it this way:

Pope John Paul II has abdicated his responsibility to personally supervise the appointment of bishops and he has failed quite utterly to discipline bishops who have let scandals fester and doctrinal impurity to go unchecked in their dioceses. The Holy Father’s abdication of his role as governor of the Church has done incalculable damage to the Holy Faith. Thousands of souls have been lost to the Church as a result of scandals which need never have occurred and by the failure of the Holy Father to use his disciplinary power to remove bishops responsible for knowingly ordaining homosexuals and for not believing that such behavior after ordination is a disqualification for further pastoral assignments. And this is to say nothing of the Holy Father’s refusal to admit that his bishops are responsible for the promotion of doctrinal impurity, creating, instead, a climate of a siege-mentality in which some Catholics have come to believe that all bishops everywhere are beyond criticism for anything. Indeed, his Holiness has done much to help create such an environment by his praise of bishops - and his abject refusal to do anything to remove men who are harmful to the Faith...”

The Holy Father’s lack of governance of the Church undoes the claim of some of his great apologists, such as George Weigel, that history will record him as John Paul the Great. Pope John Paul II will go down in history as a man who traveled widely and wrote much. However, he will also go down in history as a man who let ecclesiastical bureaucrats beneath him determine the human fate of the Church at this point in salvation history. There is no escaping this conclusion. One can love the Holy Father while recognizing in all candor the weaknesses of his pontificate... (“Time For Plain Talk,” April 14, 2002).

Droleskye’s comments are not without basis. Recently, when the issue of the “one strike you’re out” rule was discussed, “...the pope appeared equivocal on whether to adopt such a policy.” Rather, the pope diffused the issue by referring to the need for guilty priests to convert: “...while recognizing how indispensable these criteria are, we cannot forget the power of Christian conversion, that radical decision to turn away from sin and back to God, which reaches to the depths of a person’s soul and can work extraordinary change” (Washington Times, April 24, 2002). Although conversion is certainly the ideal state pedophiles should be seeking, that quest does nothing to alleviate the immediate problem. Conversions are rare, especially from those absorbed into homosexuality and pedophilia. Where one or two may convert out of their lifestyle, thousands remain, and their victims may be in the tens of thousands. That the Pope said nothing about disciplining and eliminating the offending priests and bishops is very disturbing. As Droleskey says, the Pope’s reluctance to discipline his wayward clerics has been the perennial problem with his whole pontificate. Garry Wills adds: “Many observers suspect that John Paul II’s real legacy to his church is a gay priesthood” (Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit, p. 190).

According to a recent report by the Boston Herald, Pope Paul VI and his underlings have also been implicated in past cover-ups of sexual abuse. On Thursday, May 16, 2002, the Herald reporter, Jack Sullivan writes:

“Previously sealed records in the case of defrocked pedophile priest James A. Porter show Catholic church officials - including Pope Paul VI, Humberto Cardinal Medeiros and top aides to Richard Cardinal Cushing - knew of and took part in the coverup of cleric sexual abuse as far back as 1964.

“It is believed to be the first time records show Vatican officials were aware as long as 30 years ago that priests were molesting children and bishops were shuffling the pedophiles around the country and covering up their acts. It also is the first time involvement by the Boston archdiocese under Cushing has been documented.

“‘It’s not shocking to me in the slightest,’ said the Rev. Thomas Doyle, who worked at the Vatican on priest sexual misconduct issues 20 years ago. ‘There was even more cover-up in days past than there has been in the past 15 to 17 years . . . What we’re seeing now with Bernard (Cardinal) Law, (New York’s Edward Cardinal) Egan and others is not isolated and not uncommon. It is something that has been going on for decades.’

“The file, obtained by the Herald through a court order, also reveals that diocesan officials are required by canon law to maintain ‘secret archives’ that have over the years become a hidden repository for sexual abuse allegations.

“The documents contain hundreds of pages of Porter’s personnel file, including details of his assignments and attempted treatments for his sexual assaults on young boys. The entire, previously secret file, along with a 17-page letter from Porter to Pope Paul VI, was forwarded to the Vatican when Porter petitioned for laicization in 1973 after being caught in Minnesota with a young boy.

“In the letter addressed to ‘Most Holy Father,’ Porter wrote, ‘It became known and reported to (Fall River) Bishop (James) Connolly that I had become homosexually involved with some of the youth of the parish. Bishop Connolly decided to send me home to my family for a short while until the scandal of this affair died down . . . A short time later Bishop Connolly gave me another chance and assigned me to Sacred Heart Parish in Fall River. I can’t recollect much about my stay there except that after a short time I again fell into the same situation that plagued me in North Attleboro.’

Porter also indicates he knows after he is laicized, he would no longer be protected by church officials ‘should I fall again.’

“The records also include scores of letters and memos written by Connolly, many based on conversations with Medeiros, then a monsignor and the Fall River Diocese’s chancellor.

“In a memo dated March 21, 1964, Connolly wrote about a meeting he had with Medeiros where Medeiros said there were “30 or 40 (boys) involved’’ in the molestation allegations against Porter and there was much concern among parents.’’ Medeiros even told Connolly the nickname students at Bishop Feehan High School had given Porter.

‘At Feehan they call him the horn,’ Connolly wrote. Medeiros told Connolly students would ask one another, ‘Has the horn tackled you yet?’

“In 1966, when Porter was ``on retreat’’ at his parents’ home in Revere following his latest sexual assault, two Revere police officers approached James D. Bono, then associate pastor of Immaculate Conception Church, charging that Porter had molested the son of another officer.

Bono, in a 1993 affidavit, said he began reporting the information to higher-ups and was ‘shocked’ at the response he received.

“‘I immediately called the Chancery of the Archdiocese of Boston to notify them Porter had admitted molesting a young boy,’’ Bono stated. ‘Officials at the archdiocese directed me to speak with officials at the Diocese of Fall River. I then called Humberto S. Medeiros, who at the time was Chancellor,’ Bono testified. ‘When I informed Chancellor Medeiros that Porter had admitted to me he had molested a young boy, Chancellor Medeiros responded, ‘Yes, we know.’”

“In 1973, the same year Vatican officials received Porter’s file that graphically detailed Medeiros’ complicity in covering up Porter’s case, Pope Paul VI elevated Medeiros to cardinal.

“In another deposition, Monsignor Reginald M. Barrette, who succeeded Medeiros as Fall River chancellor, confirmed the Porter records were part of a “secret archive” Connolly kept in his bedroom.

“‘The bishop kept all correspondence that had to do personally with priests he did not want to be known,’ Barrette testified in the deposition.

The records show Porter was sent to the Servants of Paraclete in New Mexico for treatment of his pedophilia at least twice, including the first time in 1967 on the advice and recommendation of the Rev. Paul R. Shanley, now being held on three counts of child rape.

“Law, in his public apologies, has said part of the problem in handling priests such as Shanley and convicted pedophile John J. Geoghan was the lack of knowledge about abuse and its effects on victims. But Doyle, who coauthored a report for American bishops on predatory priests in 1985 that was never formally presented, said the Paracletes were well-known even in the 1960’s for their approach to dealing with sex offenders.

“In the Porter personnel file that was forwarded to the Vatican, the Rev. Fred Bennett, a clinical psychologist with the Paracletes, clearly stated the harm sexual abuse by a priest could cause.

“‘People often suffer psychological difficulties later in life whose origins seem to be found in sexual approaches made to them during their childhood by adults of the same sex,’ he wrote in 1970. ‘I have reason to believe that the trauma of such experiences may be further intensified when the adult involved is a priest.’

“In 1985, after a notorious case of a pedophile priest in Louisiana became public, American bishops made their first acknowledgement of the problem, promising a unified policy that has still not been articulated. In 1993, Pope John Paul II made his first public statement on cleric sexual misconduct and last month, during the extraordinary summit of American cardinals, the pontiff declared child sexual abuse a crime and a sin.

“‘(The documents) are illustrating the fact it didn’t start in 1985,’ said Doyle. ‘The bishops first said in 1985, “This is the first we’re hearing about this.” That’s hogwash. They knew’ (Boston Herald, May 16, 2002).

Comments from some apologists don’t help matters much. Philip Jenkins, professor of history and religious studies at Pennsylvania State University and author of Pedophiles and Priests: Anatomy of a Contemporary Crisis, states: “Americans and Europeans often forget what a small proportion of the Catholic world they represent - and that share is declining steadily. Consequently, they ignore the fact that the Vatican has to take account of global matters, and won’t jump to the voices coming out of Boston and Chicago...” (National Catholic Register, April 10, 2002). This has to be one of the most irresponsible and disheartening comments I have heard. According to Jenkins, the shattered lives and broken promises of the thousands of victims of sexual abuse apparently aren’t enough for the Vatican to stop their global march long enough for proper redress. Instead of humbly dealing with the problem, Jenkins makes the victims feel like unworthy grovelers who should think twice about bothering the Vatican with such petty concerns. The picture Jenkins creates is similar to the father who is so absorbed in his business and social life that he doesn’t even notice the needs and concerns of his children. “Don’t you know daddy is an important man. He can’t be bothered with raising and disciplining his children. He has to conquer the world.” Meanwhile, the world is conquering his children, and daddy is not home to stop it.

This reluctance apparently has filtered down to the prelature, for when asked about the “one-strike” rule, Cardinal George of Chicago said: “There is not a total consensus between the U.S. hierarchy here this week” (Washington Times, April 24, 2002). In their final meeting today, the cardinals not only struck down the “one-strike” rule, they added a clause (an “out,” one might say), by stating that cases which in the future were “not notorious,” would be exempt in order “to save further scandal.” So here we stand, faced with the most shameful, devastating and damaging crisis the Church has undergone in the last two-thousand years, and the hierarchy still doesn’t understand the gravity of the situation. Protecting the prelature from premature retirement is the foremost thing on their minds.

As Richard Sipe says, “...preserving the Church from scandal...The system is a brotherhood of guaranteed employment, respectability, prestige, and power. The price is the appearance of celibacy; for all of the benefits accrue automatically as long as the semblance of celibacy is publicly or officially espoused” (Sex, Priests, and Power, p. 85). In other words, Sipe is describing the “good ol’ boy” mentality in which protection of the members is the paramount concern, not protection of or help to the victims. This, of course, is why we hear so very little coming from the Catholic prelature concerning what they are going to do to help alleviate the catastrophic psychological, emotional and physical damage their aberrant priests have perpetrated on their victims and the society as a whole. In fact, we hear of bishops using their attorneys to blame part of the fiasco on the victims themselves.

Obviously, if they cannot agree on a “one-strike” rule, then the one-strike rule will not be adopted, which means that priests who commit a pedophile act in the future will be given a pass; and those cases which are “not notorious” will be given another free ride. How sad for the future victims of these wayward prelates.

The division among the cardinals is highlighted by the recent statement of Archbishop Anthony Bevilacqua: “I speak for the cardinals. All of the cardinals are agreed on zero tolerance, and by that I mean that we are all agreed that no priest guilty of even one act of sexual abuse of a minor will function in any ministry or any capacity in our dioceses.” Although long overdue and welcomed, how Bevilacqua can say this in the face of the above facts is quite puzzling. There cannot exist a “zero tolerance” sentiment among the cardinals if the Vatican and the remaining cardinals have already struck down or even qualified the “one-strike” ruling.

The ineptness of the Vatican at dealing with this issue properly follows the pattern established years ago. As the Times reports, “In the past, American bishops adopted similar guidelines [to deal with abusers], but they were not applied in all dioceses, in part because they did not have the Vatican’s approval.” Thus, either deliberately or inadvertently, the Vatican’s inaction over the years has allowed this problem to fester to its now overwhelming proportions. They have no one to blame but themselves.

With these events and opinions in the background, it is obvious that something is seriously wrong with the Catholic Church. It seems as if we are getting closer to the time when Jesus will say to the Church: “And you, Catholic bishops and priests, will you be exalted to heaven? You shall be brought down to hell. For if the mighty works done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you that it shall be more tolerable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom than for you” (Matt 11:23-24).

As you know, Sodom was the home of the most notorious homosexuals the world has known, at least up until the present day. But the homosexual problem today in the Catholic Church is of such tremendous proportions it exceeds that of Sodom. At least the men of Sodom consorted with men. Today bishops and priests consort with youths, and damage them for life in the process. As Jesus said, their punishment in hell will be worse than the men of Sodom.

Unfortunately, there are a few Catholics today who, considering themselves loyalists, will admit of hardly anything wrong in the Church. They keep putting their collective spin on the degenerating theological and moral issues, hoping that somehow it will all go quietly away. But this is not going to go away. The longer the Church waits to do something about it, the worse it will get.

Comments such as those coming from Cardinal Theodore McCarrick don’t help the issue much. When asked by Tim Russert of Meet the Press whether anyone with a history of homosexuality should be banned from the priesthood, among McCarrick’s answers was “...no, not absolutely impossible” (April 21, 2002). In another interview, McCarrick said he would like to handle homosexual applicants on a “case-by-case” basis. In other words, McCarrick is advocating that if an applicant says he is a homosexual, but does not practice homosexuality, then he could be accepted into the seminary and be ordained as a priest.

Some of this laissez faire mentality stems from a common interpretation of Church teaching which distinguishes “homosexual orientation” from “homosexual acts.” It is reasoned that as long as the aspirant who has homosexual orientation does not actually engage in homosexual acts, he is a viable candidate for the priesthood. Referring to what they will adopt for the future, a spokesman for the American cardinals was quoted as saying: “They’ll try and weed out people who look as if they are going to have problems...A person could have a homosexual orientation but could live in a way that is compatible with celibacy” (Washington Times, April 24, 2002). Obviously, the only thing important to this spokesman is celibacy, not whether the priestly candidate has the potential of becoming a practicing homosexual and/or pedophile.

According to the 25-year study done by Richard Sipe, those with the “orientation” who eventually act out their sexual problems is estimated to be half, whereas only one eighth of heterosexuals act on their sexual impulses (Wills, p. 192). If they are not openly gay before they go to the seminary, the evidence has shown that, under the constant pressure from the militant gays at the seminary, they eventually succumb and begin to engage in homosexual acts.

McCarrick also tries to downplay the crisis by insisting that only 35 priests out of 21,000 who have served in Boston in the past fifty years (1.6%) had “credibly been accused of this crime.” Even if we grant that McCarrick’s figures are correct, it is well-known that each pederast priest in Boston has had dozens, sometimes hundreds, of victims. This means that the teenage boys who were victimized by pederast priests may run into the thousands. It also means that the collective bishops who have ruled over these priests in Boston have allowed thousands of boys to be irreparably damaged. Fr. Geoghan, the most recent priest to make media headlines in Boston, is known to have molested at least 130 boys over 36 years. And these cases are reflecting only the Boston diocese. There are dozens of other dioceses which are likewise affected.

Yet we also know that McCarricks’s figures are not correct, or at best, are a distortion of the true picture. All told, the Boston diocese has been forced to release the names of 80 pedophile priests within the last decade and 250 more cases of their pederast activity, in addition to what we already know. Moreover, as noted above, if one combines all the abuse and immorality cases among priests in the U.S., an alarming 45% of them have been involved in some type of sexual sin (and those are the ones we know about). Moreover, the operative word in McCarrick’s remark is “credibly.” This is often a code word for the cloaking of cases that don’t fit the stringent guidelines of “proof” self-imposed by the bishop. It is much too easy for a bishop to claim that an allegation lacks “credibility,” especially when the bishop’s agenda, which has been proven by the evidence, is to keep even the “credible” cases from rising to the surface.

In the same vein of excuses, many bishops are trying to downplay the crisis by claiming that the majority of pedophile cases come from “twenty years ago.” This is, at best, a distortion of the facts. The reality is that the pedophile cases are still happening. Moreover, the seminaries that produce the pederasts are filled to the brim with homosexuals just waiting for their parish assignment, and nothing has been done about it in the last thirty years. Rose reports in Goodbye! Good Men that most of the cases involving homosexual corruption date from recent years, not decades ago. As long as bishops keep convincing themselves that pedophilia, not homosexuality, is the problem, we will continue to have these cases. The result of the bishops’ indifference to these issues shows up directly in the number of those graduating from seminary to enter the priesthood. Rose reports that from 1966 to 1999 the total number of seminarians dropped from 39,638 to 4,826 (Rose, p. 16. See also The Last Priest in America by Tim Unsworth; and “Priest Shortage Panic” in Crisis, October, 1996).

We have a good indication that the powers-that-be are seeking desperately to keep the issues of pedophilia and homosexuality totally separate. Catholic vigilante groups such as Dignity/USA, Call to Action, Catholics for a Free Choice, and other such groups that are pro-homosexual, are at the forefront of this agenda. This agenda was no better revealed than when the New York Archdiocese distanced itself this past week from statements made from the pulpit at St. Patrick’s Cathedral by Monsignor Eugene Clark who was filling in for Cardinal Egan meeting in Rome with the Pope. Clark made it quite clear that the present scandal has homosexuality at its core. He also said that homosexuality was a “disorder” (in line with the Catholic Catechism, Paragraph 2357) and that admitting homosexuals into Catholic seminaries was a “grave mistake.” He said that the theory that men are born gay “is not true,” and that “the practice of homosexuality is truly sinful.” Many applauded Clark after his homily; some walked out.

Clark stated: “When it was said that homosexuality was fixed at birth (which is not true), and therein required civil rights protection, many bishops and others hesitated to criticize homosexual demands for moral acceptance. Some priests drifted into homosexual circles, then into homosexual license and then into man-boy relationships. The failure of church authorities to approach the subject as a problem gave these delinquent priests a freedom they should not have had.”

The spokesman for the archdiocese, Joe Zwilling, immediately tried to neutralize Clark’s homily by saying, “He was speaking for himself.” Marianne Duddy, executive director of Dignity/USA followed with saying that Clark’s homily was “incredibly horrifying and irresponsible.” Tom Reese, editor-in-chief of the liberal Catholic magazine America, also tried to marginalize Clark by saying, “It’s clear that Monsignor Clark is speaking for himself and is expressing the views of very conservative Catholics” (The Washington Times, April 23, 2002).

There you have it. Could it ever be clearer that the root of this whole fiasco is homosexuality, with pedophilia running a distant second? The seminaries produce hoards of homosexuals, and a percentage of those go on to pedophilia. The liberal, pro-homosexual agenda is entrenched in the New York Archdiocese, and in dozens of archdioceses around the country. They will do anything to protect their turf. Their power and resolve was recently demonstrated quite clearly in their relentless attacks on the Boy Scouts of America for refusing to allow homosexuals into their organization. The homosexuals in the Catholic Church are just as militant, and many bishops allow them to be so. Monsignor Clark, sorry to say, is in the minority.

In several cases, the bishop himself is either homosexual or partial to homosexuals, and the Vatican allows them to remain as bishops in good standing. Daniel Ryan, the former bishop of Springfield, Illinois (now resigned), reportedly paid teenage male prostitutes for sexual favors. Receiving no rebuke from the Vatican, Ryan recently celebrated mass for World Youth Day in Belleville, Illinois. Last April he confirmed Catholic children at St. Michael’s parish in Wheaton. The bishop of Palm Beach, Anthony J. O’Connell, just recently resigned due to confirmed allegations that he engaged in homosexual pedophilia. At present there are seven cases pending of O’Connell abusing seminarians. A lawsuit filed against him claims that every bishop in the United States conspired to keep abuse claims secret, often through hushed financial settlements with victims” (Associated Press, March 22, 2002). Not to be outdone, O’Connell is the successor of Bishop Symons who is known to have molested five altar boys. There are also connections between O’Connell and Law, since both knew each other in the seminary in Missouri where the former taught.

Although Cardinal Joseph Bernardin gave the appearance of complete exoneration when Steven Cook retracted his allegation (and shortly thereafter died of AIDS), three seminarians in Winona, Minnesota also accused Bernardin, and three other bishops, of participating in “satanic rituals and homosexual practices.” We hear little about it in the news because the settlement in the lawsuit was sealed. We do know that one of the other bishops is Robert Brom of the archdiocese of San Diego who paid off his victim with nearly $100,000 for his silence. Much of that money, of course, comes from gifts parishioners give each Sunday.

In San Antonio, Texas, Archbishop Patrick Flores was recently hit with a canonical lawsuit filed by Houston attorney J. Douglas Stuart on behalf of numerous families and individuals in the diocese. The suit states that Flores allowed “heterosexual ...homosexual ... and pedophiliac” practices to run rampant in his diocese as far back as 1986 and continuing to the present (The Wanderer, April 4, 2002). In Cincinnati, the late Humberto Cardinal Medeiros has been alleged to have molested minors. On the heels of this, a Cincinnati grand jury issued a subpoena that requires the archdiocese to turn over all records related to sexual misconduct allegations involving priests and children, which will include decades of cases. Not surprisingly, in Sacramento, the confidentiality agreement struck between abuser Fr. Michael Walsh and his victim Michael Beam was broken by the latter because he “want[s] the world to know what kind of priest he is, and I want him removed from the priesthood....I don’t want a penny. I just want that priest defrocked and the diocese exposed.”

Even in some good dioceses, the bishop has been weak on homosexuals. Bishop Loverde of Arlington, presiding over a diocese that has produced more good priests than any in the country (thanks to the late bishop, John Keating), recently removed Vocations Director Fr. James Gould from his post. According to the Catholic newspaper, The Remnant, “Loverde reportedly did so because Gould allegedly opposed allowing a man with a long history of homosexuality into the seminary. Bp. Loverde has not denied this report. Loverde also supported a homosexual “civil rights” bill in Connecticut in 1991. That law allows homosexuals to adopt children and act as foster parents. The law also permits the state to impose quotas for homosexuals on employers” (The Remnant, November, 2001).

To add insult to injury, Cardinal McCarrick, referring to the meeting with the Pope in Rome regarding the scandal, said to Mr. Russert on Meet the Press: “Don’t expect much from a two-day meeting.” Perhaps we shouldn’t. If the cardinals and bishops haven’t done anything for thirty years, why should we expect them to take the initiative now? The only reason many of them are even giving speeches and interviews on the crisis is because the press has put undue pressure upon them. Once the pressure goes away, it will be back to business as usual. David Clohessy, spokesman for the Chicago-based Survivors Network for Those Abused by Priests states: “I fear that both news media and the public will tire of the story, and it will be back to business as usual” (The Washington Times, April 24, 2002). We may get some movement on the pedophilia issue, but not much in any other direction. Despite McCarrick’s denial, Cardinal Law’s resignation still may be offered as the sacrificial lamb to diffuse the issue. The Los Angeles Times quoted an unidentified cardinal as saying that several U.S. cardinals are pushing the Vatican to ask Cardinal Law to resign. Whatever the outcome with Law, the underlying problem of a Church permeated with homosexuality lies just beneath the surface, and there simply doesn’t seem to be anyone strong enough in the prelature to do anything about it.

Then we have ingratiating prelates such as Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles. Last Sunday, Mahony gave a speech in his church promising to deal with the issue, a speech which received resounding applause. But if there was ever a case of the fox watching the hen house, Cardinal Mahony’s record has proven to be the case. Along with his behind-the-scenes support of both abortion and homosexuality, just a few weeks ago Mahony said he “made a mistake” in transferring pedophile priest, Fr. Wempe, to the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center without informing the staff of Wempe’s past. Fr. Mahony also said he “forgot” that the hospital had a pediatric unit. Even if we give him the benefit of the doubt, what Mahony failed to reveal is that after Wempe’s hospitalization, he kept Wempe on the diocesan payroll, and in ministry, for the next fourteen years, without so much as a slap on the wrist for his crimes. That’s not all. While bishop in Northern California, Mahony transferred a known sex abuser by the name of Fr. Oliver O’Grady to a parish in Stockton, reports the Los Angeles Times which recently interviewed one of his victims. The LA Times also reports that in late February, the archdiocese dismissed up to twelve priests who were believed to have molested minors over the past decade, but that all of the priests had remained in ministry after undergoing “psychological counseling.” Mahony has kept the identity, location and number of dismissed priests secret in order to “protect the victims.”

The San Francisco Chronicle revealed on April 19, 2002: “Testimony in the 1998 Stockton case, in which a jury awarded two brothers millions of dollars in damages, indicated that Mahony had knowingly allowed a pedophile priest to continue working and had taken no action to keep him away from children” According to sworn court testimony, Bishop Mahony ignored documented evidence presented to him warning that the Rev. Oliver O’Grady was a dangerous child molester. The court records state that Mahony “acted with malice and that his conduct was despicable.” Stockton attorney, Larry Drivon, added: “Mahony did what Cardinal Law did. But I don’t believe Cardinal Law had the opportunity to lie on the witness stand under oath.”

To show the utter hypocrisy of Mahony, he recently commented about the exploits of Cardinal Law as follows: “I don’t know how I could face people. I don’t know how I could walk down the main aisle of the church myself comfortably, interiorly, if I had been guilty of grave neglect.” How this man can say such things in the face of his own record shows the depths of sin to which he and his cohorts have sunk.

As of Monday, April 29, 2002, this is what we have found out further about Mahony. The following is reported by George Neumayr, recently honored as a media fellow at the Hoover Institution.

“The sex abuse scandal is lapping awfully close to the feet of Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony. The Los Angeles Times reported Monday that an accused molester of four boys lived in Mahony’s residence at St. Vibiana’s Cathedral and that Mahony recently assigned the molester to serve at his new cathedral in downtown Los Angeles as an associate pastor. For how long had Mahony known his housemate and would-be associate pastor was a molester? For at least a decade. “It was one of those cases where I felt he had followed the treatment successfully, honestly, and was rehabilitated to the extent anyone can be rehabilitated,” said Mahony, who just days ago was posturing about his “zero-tolerance” for “past, present and future” abusers and boasting of his early awareness of the problem. “I feel very good about what we’ve been doing over the years,” he said.

“That Mahony brought a molester into his residence and then tapped him to be the associate pastor at his new cathedral reveals his recent comments as an almost unbelievable sham. What a fitting image of the American bishops’ complicity in the scandal: a priest-molester who should have been behind bars was instead sleeping comfortably behind the walls of the cardinal’s home. Mahony is a fraud, says the lawyer for the victims’ family, Jeffrey R. Anderson: “Cardinal Mahony talks about zero tolerance for priests who abuse now. Well, where was zero tolerance when this mother went to the Church? For years he did nothing.” Anderson on Monday brought two suits against Mahony under federal racketeering laws for the cardinal’s alleged “protection of pedophile priests.”

“Mahony told the Times that Fr. Carl Sutphin did not pose a threat to anyone because he was living with him. “He was probably in the safest supervised situation,” Mahony said. “In some ways you couldn’t have a safer place.” Sound familiar? Father Thomas Smolich, the head of the California Province of Jesuits, also subscribes to the have-the-molester-live-with-me school of oversight. Fr. Tony Mariano, a registered sex offender, lives at Smolich’s “residence near Santa Clara University,” the Los Angeles Times reported last month. Mariano had been nabbed for a sex offense after he “arranged to meet two teenagers by posing as a 25-year-old woman on an Internet chat room. He wore lipstick and rouge when he met the boys.” And who can forget the rehabilitation regime Patrick Ziemann, a former Los Angeles auxiliary bishop under Mahony, had in mind for Fr. Jorge Hume, an accused embezzler and abuser?

“As bishop of Santa Rosa, Ziemann told the police not to prosecute Hume because he had him under close supervision. It turned out that Ziemann was having an affair with Hume. The explanation for Mahony’s refusal to name the priest-molesters he hastily dumped in the wake of the Boston scandal is coming into clearer focus. Mahony said he was withholding information about cases involving accused molesters retired or released so as not to embarrass or inconvenience their victims. But the truth is that he didn’t want to embarrass or inconvenience himself. He knew that reporters would see Sutphin’s name on the list and say, “Didn’t he live at your residence? Didn’t you assign him to be the associate pastor at your new cathedral?” But the lid has popped off.

“So now Mahony is speaking out of both sides of his mouth about his “pain” for the victims and his pain for the victimizers. “I felt badly for all of [the priests forced to retire early], but particularly for him, because if this had been a few months from now, he would have been gone anyway,” Mahony said to the Times. Mahony praised Sutphin for being “very good” with the homeless. John Durham, a member of the Stockton jury that found Mahony negligent in reassigning a molester, told the New Times, an alternative L.A. weekly, that he “found Mahony to be utterly unbelievable.” But Mahony is certain that he can salvage his credibility through spin, spin, spin. “Two weeks ago he went to a major public relations firm, Weber Shandwick, to craft the message that would serve him in the weeks ahead,” reported the Times. The flacks at Weber Shandwick have their work cut out for them. They may find it hard to protect the image of an apostolic successor whose idea of “zero tolerance” toward molesters is to bring them into his house.”

Now to the infamous Bishop Weakland of Milwaukee. After weeks of daily reports by The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on Weakland’s consistent assigning of pedophile priests to area parishes, District Attorney E. Michael McCann said on April 23, 2002 that “his office has been swamped with calls from victims of sexual abuse by priests, and that in a few cases he is examining whether charges can be brought.” Out of 36 priests who were named as child molesters, 21 of them are still in the Milwaukee area, and 6 of those have active assignments. Not one of the 36 has ever been so much as questioned, and no parishioners except the victims knew the names of these priests.

As it turns out, the names of some of the perpetrators are: Fr. Jerome Wagner, who helps Weakland decide where to assign priests; Fr. David Hanser, who was accused of molesting four boys; and Fr. Thomas Walker, who was arrested just one month after Weakland ordained him in 1989 for allegedly having sex with a truck driver, and again in 1999 for prostitution and masturbation. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel also informed area Catholics that Weakland’s top liaison to the Boy Scouts, Robert E. Thibault, and a religion teacher at one of his Catholic schools, was arrested in an Internet child sex sting. Thibault had been involved in the Boy Scouts for 37 years. No wonder the Boy Scouts fought so hard against homosexuals in the recent high-profile Supreme Court case. They wanted to keep people like Robert Thibault away from teenage boys.

In Cincinnati, Hamilton County prosecutor Mike Allen is threatening to subpoena Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk for stonewalling an investigation into clerical sex abuse. “The archdiocese has not been cooperative to date,” Allen said. When in March Allen asked about specific church documents to help in his investigation he was told, “you want it, you find it.” In April Allen reported that the archdiocese has refused to turn over crucial documents, choosing instead to play a game of ‘hide-the-evidence’ .... He said records provided by the Church were missing important information. And when asked about it, Church lawyers refused to hand over more documents. The general records reveal that 20 employees in the 19-county archdiocese had abused children.

In Joliet, the headlines of the Daily Southtown read: “Delay, Deny, and Stonewall: Church Lawyers Use Any Tactics Necessary to Discredit Accusers.” A transcript of a recent deposition of an abuse victim, Joseph Dittrich, reveals that the attorney questioning him engaged in typical bare-knuckled legal tactics in an attempt to break down the victim’s story. If that didn’t work, the attorney’s would claim that the statute of limitations had lapsed before the victims made their allegations. When that didn’t work, they claimed that the incidents were not really sexual abuse due to the fact that there was “no penetration.” This is clear proof that not only does the archdiocese show no remorse to the victim or help them in any way, they seek to further victimize the victim by trying to get out from under the accusations in any way, shape or form.

As of May 3, the Associated Press reports that “the Archdiocese of Boston has pulled out of a settlement agreement with 86 people who accuse now-defrocked priest John Geoghan of sexual abuse, saying the deal - estimated to be worth $15 million to $30 million - was too expensive. The archdiocese’s finance council rejected Cardinal Bernard Law’s request to sign the settlement agreement, saying it would ``leave the archdiocese unable to provide a just and proportional response to other victims,’’ David W. Smith, chancellor for the archdiocese, said Friday. “As you know, the scope of the issue is expanding,’’ Smith said. “Our resources are not.’’ The archdiocese has already paid an estimated $15 million to 40 alleged Geoghan victims since the mid-1990s and faces dozens more claims and hundreds of new allegations against him and other priests. More than 450 have filed suit since the scandal broke in January. Priests’ accusers and their lawyers said the rejection of the settlement shattered their trust in Cardinal Bernard Law and the archdiocese’s leaders. “I’ll be very suspect of anything they say in the future,’’ said Jeffrey Newman, an attorney who represents more than 100 alleged victims of two other priests and a former church worker. Phil Saviano, of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said the withdrawal was a “big blow’’ for victims. “I think from the point of view of the average Catholic, between abysmal results of the cardinals’ meeting in Rome and now this, you can see why victims are so frustrated and have so little reason to trust the church’s hierarchy,’’ Saviano said.

In Dallas, The Dallas Morning News reports that three former employees of the Dallas Jesuit College Preparatory School have been accused of sexual abuse, as have Jesuit schools across the South, from New Orleans, to Mobile, to Tampa. Jesuit superiors apparently do the same thing as diocesan bishops -- they shuffle accused child molesters from place to place.

I could go on for pages describing the lechery of the prelates involved in this fiasco, but I think the above examples, which only scratch the surface, give you a good idea of what is actually going on.

Now, before I go any further, let me reiterate that, although the present scandals cause untold damage in the Church, they will not destroy the Church, for Jesus promised to protect it (Matt 16:18-19). Only the Lord can decide when he has had enough. Nor should any of these scandals cause individuals to lose their faith. Rather, we should know that such scandals, even those of the present proportion, are bound to happen from time to time, and they have happened many times before in our Catholic history. Scripture itself warns us they will happen. But the only time scandals WILL destroy us is if we hide our heads in the sand, like the proverbial ostrich, and pretend that they did not, or cannot, happen. That is when Satan really has us deceived.

My desire to write this essay began when I was pushing my one-year old daughter on her swing one morning. I was so enjoying her gleeful smile and exuberant laughter. It filled me with the joy only a father can experience. Then suddenly, out of nowhere, I imagined her as an adult, twenty-five years from now, and I became very concerned about the world she was going to inherit from me. I had visions of her being enslaved under some godless regime, with a Catholic Church so weakened by faithless heretics, immoral clerics, and apathetic parishioners, that her world would be closer to the one under the Roman Emperor Diocletian in the third century AD, than anything we have known for 2000 years.

I think it is quite significant that the recent homosexual/pedophile scandal has blown up to the proportions it has in recent weeks. It seems to me that God is saying: “No, sorry, not this time! You have disobeyed My voice for over half a century, and kept My Church in spiritual bondage, and now you add injury to insult by attempting to cover it all up. Well, I’m not going to let you. I’m going to uncover your corruption to its very depths. As I did with David, I’m going to expose your sin to the whole world, so they can look upon you with disgust and hatred (cf., 2 Samuel 12:8-12; Ezekiel 23:24-30). You have sown the wind, and now you are going to reap the whirlwind” (Hosea 8:7). Not surprisingly, the scandal has spawned big headlines across the world, exposes, call-in shows, special reports, interactive maps and dramatic packaging.

If the Church lets this scandal ride out, as they sometimes have a habit of doing, then the Church, and the world, do not have much longer before God’s judgment comes. It is that bad. The only thing that can save the Church, for starters, is the unconditional, unmitigated, and immediate discipline and defrocking, of every bishop and priest who has direct involvement in allowing these immoralities to happen. The next thing is to clean out every seminary in the U.S. and abroad of every single faculty member or student who advocates or practices homosexuality. As St. Paul told us in 1 Cor. 5:5-7 when confronted with such grand sexual perversions:

And you have become arrogant, and have not mourned instead, in order that the one who had done this deed might be removed from your midst...Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough? Clean out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump...”

These verses apply directly to the leaders in the Catholic Church. If these leaders do not make a thorough cleansing of those who have committed and allowed these horrible immoralities, then the problem will only get worse and God’s judgment will come with a vengeance. There is nothing more stubborn than a homosexual in his sin. They are some of the most defiant and pernicious sinners on the face of the earth. Among all the sins of mankind, homosexuality is the one sin that has proven to be the most insidious and irreversible. The Catholic “rehabilitation” centers have proven this. Very few of the priests who are sent to the centers are ever cured.

Homosexuality is also the most damaging sin to society. It has destroyed many great civilizations. After all the other sins have surfaced, homosexuality is usually the last to rear its ugly head, and it is usually the telltale sign that the society is irreparably damaged. The Egyptians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Romans, and other societies have all been destroyed by homosexuality, and it is now destroying us in our day. Unless it is rooted out at the core, it WILL overwhelm us. When it does, God will come in judgment upon the Church for allowing it to perpetuate, and the world will suffer as well.

When judgment comes it is because the Church has sinned grievously. The world only does what it sees the Church doing. If the Church allows it, then the world will do it. It is because many bishops and priests have ignored Catholic moral and doctrinal teaching, giving a bad example to the world, that the world engages in its own sin. When the Church is clean, then the world is at least a respectable place in which to live. The Church is the salt of the earth, and thus it preserves the earth from sin and judgment. But when the salt loses its power, then everything rots, and judgment is inevitable (Matt 5:13).

Now, some may retort: “This can’t be true! You can’t mean that God is going to judge the Church!” I’ll tell them: Go read 1 Peter 4:17:

For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God, and if it begins with us first, what will become of those who do not obey the gospel of God.”

In other words, the fate of the world rests with how the Catholic Church handles its own sins. If she does not deal with them correctly, then God will. He will judge the Church, and the world will suffer along with it. As St. Paul says in 1 Cor. 3:17: “If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him.” This warning was given to the bishop and priests of the church of Corinth, and subsequently to all the bishops and priests of the churches which then existed (1 Cor 14:33).

The same was true with Israel in the Old Testament church. God brought judgment on Israel and Judah when their sins reached the heights that we see today. In Jeremiah 25:29 God says:

For behold, I am beginning to work calamity in this city which is called by My name, and shall you be completely free from punishment? You will not be free from punishment; for I am summoning a sword against all the inhabitants of the earth,” declares the LORD of hosts.’

Obviously, God will not hesitate to judge His own people. Ezekiel 9:6 states:

Utterly slay old men, young men, maidens, little children, and women, but do not touch any man on whom is the mark; and you shall start from My sanctuary.” So they started with the elders who were before the temple.

For the sins of the Church, every sector of society will be affected. As the Church goes, so goes the world (whether the world knows it or not). In Israel, every sector of society was affected by the sins of their leaders. Deuteronomy 28 is very clear about this:

15 “But it shall come about, if you will not obey the LORD your God, to observe to do all His commandments and His statutes with which I charge you today, that all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you.16 “Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the country. 17 “Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. 18 “Cursed shall be the offspring of your body and the produce of your ground, the increase of your herd and the young of your flock. 19 “Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall you be when you go out. 20 “The LORD will send upon you curses, confusion, and rebuke, in all you undertake to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly, on account of the evil of your deeds, because you have forsaken Me. 21 “The LORD will make the pestilence cling to you until He has consumed you from the land, where you are entering to possess it. 22 “The LORD will smite you with consumption and with fever and with inflammation and with fiery heat and with the sword and with blight and with mildew, and they shall pursue you until you perish. 23 “And the heaven which is over your head shall be bronze, and the earth which is under you, iron. 24 “The LORD will make the rain of your land powder and dust; from heaven it shall come down on you until you are destroyed. 25 “The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies; you shall go out one way against them, but you shall flee seven ways before them, and you shall be an example of terror to all the kingdoms of the earth.

These kinds of judgments are listed for another 43 verses, in painstaking detail! You’ve heard of such things as the Bubonic Plague, where one third of the population of Europe was decimated. Where do you think judgments like that originate? They are divine judgments upon the Church and the world for their sins. In the vision of Fatima, Mary told the Church and the world that if they did not repent of their sins, world wars would be sent as punishments, and that is exactly what happened. Today the earth is on a hairtrigger for worldwide conflict. All it will take to begin the bloodshed is for God to push the first domino.

In the Old Testament book of Habakkuk a similar set of circumstances faced the nation of Judah. Habakkuk complains to God of Judah’s sins, inquiring when God is going to judge the nation. God answers him saying, “Look among the nations! Observe! Be astonished! Wonder! Because I am doing something in your days that you would not believe even if you were told” (Hab 1:5). God was planning a great judgment against Judah - a punishment that would last 70 years. Habakkuk inquired as to when this would happen. God answered saying, “For the vision is yet for the appointed time. It hastens toward the goal, and it will not fail. Though it tarries, wait for it, for it will certainly come and will not delay.” This tells us that God has a precise timetable for His judgments.

Similarly, we might wonder, after having witnessed two of the most heinous sins in our day that the world has ever known (45 million abortions in the last 29 years, in this country alone; and homosexuality permeating almost every sector of our society), how long will such sins be allowed before God comes in judgment. Because it seemed to be a long time, Habakkuk was tempted to conclude that God was disinterested, but God told him that not only was He interested, but He had been planning the judgment for quite some time. In the meantime, Habakkuk must not grow impatient. The famous saying that St. Paul quotes three times in the New Testament: “the just man shall live by faith,” is told to Habakkuk (Hab. 2:4). In faith he must wait until God is ready to come in judgment, for only at the proper time can it occur.

Some may retort: “Well, that was Israel, but we are the Catholic Church, indefectible, and blessed far above Israel!” Then I’ll tell them to go read 1 Corinthians 10:1-12. In that passage St. Paul teaches that the very reason the punishments of Deuteronomy 28, and many other passages, were written down is that the same sins and judgments can happen to the church of the New Testament. St. Paul warned the Corinthians in no uncertain terms that unless they repented of their sins they were headed for certain judgment. At the time of his writing, the Corinthian church was already tilting toward apostasy. The book of First Corinthians is filled with chapter upon chapter of abuses against the faith. In fact, almost the whole book is an indictment against the leaders (the bishop and priests) of the Corinthian Church. In the midst of his listing of their sins, here is what St. Paul says in 1 Cor 10:1-12:

I want you to know, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, 2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3 and all ate the same supernatural food 4 and all drank the same supernatural drink. For they drank from the supernatural Rock which followed them, and the Rock was Christ. 5 Nevertheless with most of them God was not pleased; for they were overthrown in the wilderness. 6 Now these things are warnings for us, not to desire evil as they did. 7 Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to dance.” 8 We must not indulge in immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. 9 We must not put the Lord to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents; 10 nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer. 11 Now these things happened to them as a warning, but they were written down for our instruction, upon whom the end of the ages has come. 12 Therefore let any one who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.

Could there ever be a more direct comparison between the sins of the Old Testament Church and the sins of the New Testament Church? Later, we find in his Second Letter to the Corinthians that the leaders of the church failed to deal with these sins. St Paul writes in 2 Cor 12:21:

I am afraid that when I come again my God may humiliate me before you, and I may mourn over many of those who have sinned in the past and not repented of the impurity, immorality and sensuality which they have practiced.”

Shortly thereafter, the church of Corinth was judged. Unfortunately, the same sins of “impurity, immorality and sensuality” are occurring today in the Catholic Church, worldwide. We are the new Corinth, and we are failing miserably.

The New Testament is filled to the brim with similar warnings and judgments. Just a few years into the first century, Revelation 2-3 tells us of seven churches of Asia Minor who were having such grave problems in upholding their faith and morals that Jesus warned them He was just about to come in judgment. Only two churches out of the seven (Smyrna and Philadelphia) received a clean bill of spiritual health from the Lord. The other five were on the verge of collapse, and were about to be punished for their sin and their toleration of sin. As history records, they ceased to exist after the first century.

Even more ominous is what St. Paul says in Romans 11:22 to the New Testament Catholic Church:

Behold then the kindness and severity of God; to those who fell, severity, but to you, God’s kindness, if you continue in His kindness; otherwise you also will be cut off. And they also, if they do not continue in their unbelief, will be grafted in; for God is able to graft them in again.”

In the context of Romans 11, St. Paul is talking about the Church at large. If the Church, composed mostly of Gentiles, becomes unfaithful to Him, then God will judge the Gentiles and graft the Jews, en masse, back into the tree. They will run the Church and the Gentiles will be cut off. Consequently, we may not have Pope Pius or Pope John any longer. We may have Pope David or Pope Hezekiah running the Church. Don’t think it can’t happen. That is exactly what Israel thought before God cut them off. The book of Acts has one central theme: The apostles trying to convince the Jews that, after two thousand years of being God’s sole representative on earth, they were now cut off. The Jews were in absolute shock that God would do that to them, for they were His chosen people, the apple of His eye, but He had warned them time and time again.

It is the same with the Church today. She has been warned time and time again by various apparitions and prophetic messages, especially in the last 40 years. There are statues of Mary crying blood all over the world, but the leaders in the Church seem bent on ignoring these portents. The pederast priest scandal is just the tip of the iceberg. There are things happening in the Church today (and that have been going on for decades), that would make your hair stand on end, but I simply don’t have room in this essay to mention them all.

That men can be warned continuously for many years and not pay attention, and, in fact, harden their hearts against God, is quite common in Old Testament literature. For example, at the height of Judah’s apostasy, Jeremiah had warned Judah for 23 years. Jeremiah 25:3-4 records:

“...even to this day, these twenty-three years the word of the LORD has come to me, and I have spoken to you again and again, but you have not listened. 4 “And the LORD has sent to you all His servants the prophets again and again, but you have not listened nor inclined your ear to hear...”

In the Old Testament there is a well-repeated epitaph for the kings of Israel and Judah. It reads: “....and he did evil in the sight of the Lord....” Here is an example from 1 Kings 15:33-34.

In the third year of Asa king of Judah, Baasha the son of Ahijah began to reign over all Israel at Tirzah, and reigned twenty-four years. 34 He did what was evil in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the way of Jeroboam and in his sin which he made Israel to sin.

The “he did evil in the sight of the Lord” formula is repeated for every one except two of Israel’s twenty kings! The two that do not receive it are: Tibni (1 Kings 16:21) about whom Scripture makes no judgment; and Shallum (2 Kings 15:13) who only reigned one month before he was killed.

Judah also had twenty kings. Ten of them received the epitaph: “he did evil in the sight of the Lord.” But many of the other ten who received a good commendation are saddled with various sins that turned them away from the Lord to one degree or another (e.g., Solomon - 1 Kings 11:1-13; Asa - 1 Kings 15:8-14).

Could we replace the kings in 1 Kings 15 with names of Catholic popes, bishops and priests? Yes, especially if one lends himself to an objective reading of Church history. In almost every century there has been corruption in the Church, mostly at the highest levels of the hierarchy. For every good pope and bishop, there is one who is corrupt. Quite a few of the popes and bishops of our last two thousand years would certainly fit the epitaph: “and he did evil in the sight of the Lord.”

For example, we might write the epitaph of Pope Hormisdas (514-523), who illegitimately fathered Pope Silverius (536-537) as: “And Hormisdas did evil in the sight of the Lord.” Or Pope Sergius III (904-911) who illegitimately fathered Pope John XI (931-935) as: “And Sergius did evil in the sight of the Lord.” Sergius III’s mistress was quite wily herself. She and her mother often resorted to murder to make political gains and to hold their papal lovers as political hostages. Her illegitimate son, grandson, and great-grandson would eventually be elected to the papacy.

Some popes and bishops had mistresses who were teenagers. Boniface VIII (1294-1303), famous for his decree “extra ecclesium nulla salus,” had both a mother and her daughter as his mistresses. Others were involved in incest and various other sexual perversions; many fathering hoards of illegitimate children; some murdered by the jealous husbands who caught them. Alexander VI (1471-1503) had ten illegitimate children from six different concubines. Like a mafioso, he put out murder contracts on his enemies who accused him. John XII (955-964) became pope at age sixteen; ran a brothel from the Lateran palace and forced many women parishioners into sex. Five other popes were put in office through prostitution (Boniface I - d. 422; Galasius - d. 496; Agapitus - d. 536; Theodore - d. 649; Adrian IV - d. 1159). Pope Pius II (d. 1464) was noted as saying that Rome was “the only city run by bastards.”

At times, popes and bishops have accepted bribes for favors; and tortured and murdered political opponents. Paul II is said to have, “made the papal chair into a sewer by his debaucheries,” and the next three popes tried “to exceed the vices of his predecessor” (J.H.I. von Dollinger, The Pope and the Council (London, 1869), p. 284). Sixtus IV (1471-1484) issued licenses to Rome’s brothels in exchange for an annual fee; and taxed the clergy for their mistresses.

The list goes on and on. The scandals of immorality coming from Rome would make monthly headlines in our National Inquirer. William Hogan, a priest and lawyer of the nineteenth century wrote of the papacy: “I am sorry to say, from my knowledge of them, since my infancy to the present moment, that there is not a more corrupt, licentious body of men in the world” (Popery As It Was and As It Is (Hartford, 1854), p. 37). St Bonaventure spoke of the Catholic Church of his day with the utmost candor. He writes:

Church dignities were bought and sold, there did the princes and rulers of the Church assemble, dishonoring God by their incontinence, adherents of Satan, and plunderers of the flock of Christ...the prelates, corrupted by Rome, infect the clergy with their vices; and the clergy, by their evil example of avarice and profligacy, poison and lead to perdition the whole Christian people.”

He concluded that Rome was, “the harlot who makes kings and nations drunk with the wine of her whoredoms” (Von Dollinger, p. 184).

The sixteenth century prelate, Cardinal Baronius, although a staunch defender of the papacy, wrote these stinging words about the church: “The Roman Church was...covered with silks and precious stones, which publicly prostituted itself for gold...Never did priests, and especially popes, commit so many adulteries, rapes, incests, robberies, and murders” (Cormenin, History of the Popes, p. 275).

In one of the most audacious instances of papal arrogance, Pope Stephen VII exhumed the body of his predecessor, Pope Formosus, and dressed him in papal garb so that he could condemn the corpse at a mock trial and take his power. Stephen had the three of Formosus’ benediction fingers cut off, and the rest of the body was dragged naked through the town and eventually thrown into the Tiber. Stephen subsequently declared all of Formosa’s ordinations invalid, causing an ecclesiastical problem of towering proportions.

At one point, there were three claimants to the papal throne. As the story goes, Benedict IX, having been chased out of town by angry mobs, eventually “sold” the papal office to his godfather, Giovanni Gratiano, who began his reign in 1045 under the name of Gregory VI. Benedict returned in 1047 and resumed his papal throne, but without Gregory being deposed. To add even more confusion, Sylvester III also set himself up as pope, and thus there were three popes, each with his own private army to protect his turf. Eventually, the citizens of Rome had to appeal to the Emperor, Henry III, to settle the issue. Henry then marched into Rome with a bigger army than all three of the pope’s armies, deposed them all, and named Clement II as the true pope. But after Henry’s armies left, the wily Benedict came back and ruled as pope for another eight months, until Henry returned and chased him out again!

The infamous Pope John XXII gives us a further glimpse into some of the more unruly and unorthodox members of the papacy. John despised the Franciscans who believed in poverty and sought to burn some of them at the stake for disobeying his belief, suggested in his teaching Cum inter nonnullos, that “since the apostles had not a few things,” then his lavish lifestyle was acceptable to God. After his predecessor, Clement V, had given away much of the Church’s wealth to his relatives, John began selling Church items to restore the wealth, including spiritual favors. John also had a passion for war. Except for Innocent III (1198-1216), his pontificate probably shed more blood than anyone on record to that time. John was eventually deposed by the Emperor for heresy (but was just as quickly put back in office when the next pope showed up with a wife at his side). One of John’s more well-known heresies was his belief that the souls of the faithful departed did not immediately enjoy the Beatific Vision. He was summarily corrected by his bishops, and fortunately, John recanted that error.

As you can see, the follies and crimes of the Catholic hierarchy often dwarf those of the kings and princes of Israel and Judah. I’m not making any of these things up. Among the more popular books, much of this information can be found in the Catholic Encyclopedia, often in gory detail. So when you read about all the murders, sexual escapades, political intrigue, financial scheming, and other such evils among the Old Testament kings and princes, don’t think that you are reading something foreign to New Testament times. No, as St. Paul said, those narratives were written down for our sake, to show us that the same sins can, and will, happen among the leaders of the New Testament Church. In fact, just as only a percentage of kings in Judah earned the epitaph “and he did good in the sight of the Lord all his days,” so it is the case with the popes and bishops of the New Testament. As the old saying goes, “What is past is prologue.”

One of the more revealing books describing the underhanded world of the Vatican curia in our day is In God’s Name, by David Yallop. This book stood for four months on the N.Y. Times bestseller list in 1984. In vivid detail, the book documents the evidence leading up to the conclusion that Pope John Paul I was murdered by members of his own Vatican curia in 1978. The Chicago Tribune writes: “A sordid picture of Vatican financial affairs that includes the Mafia, secret Masonic societies, the collapses of governments, bloody assassinations and skullduggery on a scale that would have boggled Verdi’s mind.” To the dismay of his curia, Pope John Paul I had the intention of taking the Church back to its origins, back to the simplicity, honesty, ideals, and aspirations of Jesus Christ. Others before him had had the same dream only to have the reality of the world, as perceived by their wily advisors, impinge on that dream. In a moment of candor in his short 33 days, John Paul I is quoted as saying: “I have noticed two things that appear to be in very short supply in the Vatican. Honesty and a good cup of coffee” (Yallop, p. 188).

No official death certificate has ever been issued. No autopsy ever performed. His body was embalmed only twelve hours after his death. Every other modern Pope was embalmed after twenty-four hours, which was so done according to Italian law. Time of death: ‘unknown;’ Cause of death: ‘unknown,’ Yallop writes. There were more than two hundred drugs available on the market that could have poisoned the Pope without being detected, and most leaving the impression that the Pope died of a heart attack, yet no public autopsy was ever performed, even though several calls from secular newspapers and clerics around the world demanded one. The Pope’s brother, Edoardo Luciani, when asked if Albino was in good health stated: “The doctor reassured me that my brother was in excellent health and that his heart was in good condition.” Yet, without any medical evidence to back him up, Cardinal Oddi declared: “We know, in fact...that the death of John Paul was due to the fact that his heart stopped beating from perfectly natural causes.” To their dismay, several contradictory reports of the Pope’s death leaked out of the Vatican, all leading to the conclusion that lies were being told to the press to cover up the murder (Ibid, p. 269).

Yallop concludes that one of the reasons John Paul I was targeted was his discovery of and wish to eliminate the vast money laundering schemes and other illegal financial dealings of the Vatican bank under Bishop Paul Marcinkus (nicknamed, “The Gorilla”), and the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Villot, and renegade prelate, Cardinal John Cody of Chicago, and a few other notorious clerics. John Paul I remarked: “There are men here within Vatican City who have forgotten their purpose. They have reduced this to just another marketplace. That is why I am making these changes” (Ibid, p. 243). (This sounds eerily similar to what Jesus said to the moneychangers who had made the temple a “den of thieves,” and who had him killed shortly thereafter - Matt. 21:13f). John Paul I made it a mandate to remove each of the above men from their post. All were known Masons who consorted with known underworld figures such as Michele Sindona, John Calvi and Licio Gelli. Each of them stood to gain much by the death of John Paul I, Yallop writes. It is one of most alarming and horrifying documentaries of Vatican intrigue ever recorded. Even if John Paul I was not murdered, the corruption in the Vatican revealed by Yallop is absolutely astonishing.

If one doesn’t want to take the word of Yallop because of his somewhat liberal leanings, one can always read any of the books by the traditionalist Malachi Martin which tells the same story, only in more sordid detail (The Jesuits; Windswept House; Keys of This Blood; The Final Conclave; The Decline and Fall of the Roman Church; Rich Church, Poor Church; and the novel Vatican).

It should come as no surprise that men will seek to cover their wickedness behind the cloak of the Church. Even Adolf Hitler was a Catholic in good standing as he rose to power. He had regularly attended Mass; served as an altar boy; and even had thoughts of entering the priesthood. As he began his studies in the local Benedictine monastery, unfortunately for Hitler, his abbot was involved in the occult and Eastern mysticism, from which Hitler eventually commandeered the Hindu swastika for his future Nazi enterprise. Heinrich Himmler, the infamous head of the Nazi death camps, considered his Catholicism very dear to him. A chicken farmer prior to his induction into the Third Reich, Himler also attended Mass and prayed regularly. He writes: “Come what may, I shall always love God, shall pray to Him, shall remain faithful to the Catholic Church, and shall defend it...” (G. S. Graber, The History of the SS (New York, 1978), p. 12).

Aberrations in the Catholic Church are not only evident in the area of morals, but sometimes in the area of the faith. Although Catholic dogma decreed by the councils and popes is indeed infallible, by the same token, quite a number of popes and bishops issued what must be considered theological errors. The very council that defined papal infallibility, Vatican Council I, proved this when, seeking for a proper definition, they uncovered forty-four (44) theological errors made by previous popes. In fact, it was in the discovery of these errors that the Council was able to make the proper definition of papal infallibility. Prior to this, Pope Adrian VI (1523) stated: “It is beyond question that he [the pope] can err even in matters touching the faith. He does this when he teaches heresy by his own judgment or decree. In truth, many Roman Pontiffs were heretics.” Adrian, a scrupulously honest man, also became fully aware of the many evils in Rome. As a good Catholic apologist, Adrian did the same thing I am doing in this essay. In an attempt to halt the rising tide of Protestantism in Germany he wrote the following words to his delegate in that country:

You are also to say that we frankly acknowledge that...for many years things deserving of abhorrence have gathered around the Holy See. Sacred things have been misused, ordinances transgressed, so that in everything there has been a change for the worse. Thus it is not surprising that the malady has crept down from the Head to the members, from the Popes to the hierarchy. We all, prelates and clergy, have gone astray from the right way...Therefore in our name give promises that we shall use all diligence to reform before all things, what is perhaps the source of all evil, the Roman Curia.

Within a few months of making this statement Pope Adrian was dead. The evidence leads to the conclusion that he was poisoned by his doctor (Yallop, p. 76).

There is no better example of papal error than Honorius I who stated in an official letter to the bishops of the East: “We confess one will of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Denzinger 251). This was later declared a heretical statement by Pope Agatho, Pope Leo II, and the Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Ecumenical Councils (Denzinger 263-264); and Honorius was posthumously condemned as a heretic. Popes and bishops for the next several hundred years had to take an oath, before assuming office, that they renounced Honorius as a heretic. (See notes of my debate on this issue at www.catholicintl.com).

I could list about two dozen more examples of similar events in Church history. The details of moral and doctrinal failures would far outweigh the sordid narratives we find in Kings and Chronicles. Even if some of the details of the wicked popes are embellished by critics, nevertheless, the preponderant evidence of their misdeeds is well-attested.

Why is all of this good to know? Because: (1) it shows that popes, bishops and priests, although ordained men of God, are men with faults, often grave ones; (2) it shows the layman his responsibility in holding the clerics accountable for their actions. In many instances, laymen and laywomen warned the clerics of their sins, and prayed for the wrath of God to come down upon them, and God listened; (3) it shows that God still preserves the Church despite the sins of its leaders; and (4) it helps you prepare yourself for the worst that any non-Catholic can throw at you, for once you know the truth, you will be that much more ready to defend all the good in the Catholic Church, and there is much, much good. Unfortunately, in this essay, we must deal with the dark side of Catholicism, for that is what we are faced with today. For all the good of Catholicism, you can consult my other books, lectures, debates and tapes.

Once again, let’s remind ourselves about the kind of judgments God gives for sins. What did God do when Adam and Eve disobeyed the simple command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil? Death and damnation to the whole human race (save those who would be redeemed from it). What did God do to Moses, a man closer to Him than any other man when Moses struck the rock twice instead of once, as God commanded him? He was denied entrance into the promised land - the very thing for which God had trained him for 40 years (Ex. 33:11; Deut. 34:10; Num. 20:11-13). What did God do to the Israelites when they complained about the manna He gave them? God struck them dead (Num. 11:1-35). What did God do with the Israelites when, after 40 days of investigating the promised land, they came back with a bad report of what God was intending? God made them wander in the desert for forty years - one year of punishment for every day they searched the land (Num. 13-14).

Examples such as these can be multiplied. The Old Testament is filled with them. And again, we must remember, it is these very examples that St. Paul and the other New Testament writers used as warnings against the Catholic Church in their day. The same judgments that came upon them will come upon us. Catholic history is filled with these kinds of divine judgments against the Church’s evildoers. Even the Protestant revolt of the sixteenth century was a judgment from God upon the Catholic Church for abusing the code of conduct laid down by the Apostles and Fathers.

But some might object: “No, the God of the Old Testament was a wrathful God of vengeance. It is not like that in the New Testament.” Well, not only can we answer that question by appealing to the New Testament passages which say the contrary (as I did above), but we can also answer it by noting that the New Testament only covers the first century of the Christian age. If the New Testament covered all the major events in Church history that have transpired for the last two thousand years (as the Old Testament does for the two thousand years of Israel’s history), we would see just as many sins of church leaders and judgments from God as you read of in the Old Testament. There is no difference - God is the same, yesterday, today and forever.

But someone will say: “Yes, but isn’t the Catholic Church infallible and indefectible, unlike Israel of the Old Testament?” The Catholic Church, in her dogmatic declarations, is certainly infallible, but that doesn’t mean, in her exercise of free will, that her ministers cannot trample upon that infallible dogma. Israel also had infallible information from God. They had the written word of God (Ex. 24:4); oral revelations from the prophets (Num.12:6); the miraculous ephod which could contact God directly (Ex. 28:30; 1 Sam. 23:10-11); the voice of God coming directly to people such as Moses (Ex. 32:9); decisions coming directly from God (Num. 15:35); angelic appearances and revelations (2 Kings 1:3f); visions of future events (2 Chr. 9:29; Dan. 2:28f); and miraculous events beyond number (1 Cor. 10:1-5). In many ways, Israel had more direct, infallible revelations from God than we have in the New Testament. But in all these things, Israel disobeyed God, time and time again. St. Paul warns that the same disobedience and punishments can happen to the New Testament Church.

If someone thinks that an individual pope or bishop cannot directly disobey God and lead people astray by his bad example simply because the Church is “indefectible,” then they simply have the wrong understanding of indefectibility. The Church has never defined its indefectibility in that way. “Indefectible,” in the first instance, has always been understood to mean that God will not allow the Church’s dogma to be tainted with error; and second, that the Church, as long as He wants it to, will survive, despite the corrupt people within it, whether clerics or parishioners. “Indefectible” does not mean that individuals within the church will automatically and continually obey the dogma God has given them in the Church.

Israel, in a similar sense, was also “indefectible,” because despite their disobedience: (a) the divine revelations given to them never changed (which is why Jesus could say so often to the Jews in His disputes with them “...it is written...”); and (b) they lasted for two thousand years under the direct plan of God, despite His intermittent judgments against them. No nation would be allowed to destroy Israel until God allowed it to be so. Israel ceased being God’s sovereign representative on earth only when Christ came, and not a moment prior. The same thing is true today in the New Testament Catholic Church. God’s blessing and judgments have not changed. The Church will last as long as God wants it to last.

One might ask: “If the Catholic Church is the true church, then why is there so much evil in her?” We have already answered part of that question by referring back to the experiences of Israel and Judah, the “church” of the Old Testament. Although they were the apple of God’s eye, Israel and Judah often became more wicked than the nations surrounding them. That is the mystery of iniquity - those who identify themselves with God often turn out to be the vilest of sinners. Second, if you were Satan and were as determined as he is to destroy everything God was trying to build, where would you set your major attack? On those who are already in spiritual bondage or on those trying to prevent it? Yes, you would mount your major attack on the latter group, since once they fall, everyone else will fall. Satan has mounted a major assault on the Catholic Church, the principal components of which began almost one hundred years ago when aberrant theological ideas were beginning to take hold. Almost every aberration we see today is a result of liberal-minded incursions into the Church.

One of the ways God keeps the Church on track is by bringing in new leadership to clean up the mess left by others. Since Jesus promised that the gates of Hell would not prevail against the Church, He will continue to preserve and “clean house” for the entire Church Age. Despite those who trample on the Church’s faith and morals, Jesus will sustain the Church by His miraculous power.

By the same token, it is only He who can decide when the Church will no longer survive. I make no predictions as to when that will occur, although I know that at some time in the future it will occur, for the Church and Scripture speak of a time in which Satan will be loosed and the end will come shortly thereafter (Rev. 20:7-8; 2 Thess 2:1-12; CCC Para 675-676). But that is for sometime in the future. All the Scriptures we covered in this essay refer to any time in the Church’s existence.

Well, I hope I have left you with some food for thought. This is serious business. The fate of the Church and the world stands in the balance. I do not hesitate to tell all of you to write to your bishop and tell him that, if he is involved in any of these sins, he better get his act together. We’ve had enough, and we’re not going to take it anymore. If you know that your bishop is involved in anything immoral or unorthodox, then, as Scripture tells us, take two or three witnesses with you (perhaps hundreds or thousands of witnesses) and tell him your grievances (1 Tim 5:19; Mt 18:15-17). If he doesn’t listen, then stop supporting his diocese with your financial gifts. Put your money somewhere that you know it will be used for the glory of God. Get as many people behind you as you can find. Put ads in the newspaper, on the Internet, or any other media outlet, which indicate your grievances. Put pressure on him to stop the sinning. This is your Church. The Catholic Church is the only hope for the world. Often she stands as the only voice against many of the social ills of our day (abortion, euthanasia, cloning, zero-population advocacy, divorce, pornography, etc). We must act before it is too late.

Robert A. Sungenis, M.A.

Catholic Apologetics International

In the Year of Our Lord: Updated May 17, 2002