I would very much like to believe that the homosexual problem in the Church is over, that Michael Rose's 2002 exposé Goodbye, Good Men, caused major reform. But did it? I'm not so sure.
When you see men like Robert McElroy, who covered up for a notorious clerical sex abuser, appointed to a plum see like Washington, D.C. you know the elephant is still in the room. How many D.C. seminarians will be recruited who are, shall I say, light in the loafers? The priesthood can be a cushy job. Remember Bishop Michael Bransfield of Wheeling, WV, my husband's home town, who lived like a king. His behavior was no secret, but he enjoyed wining and dining himself for thirteen years on the faithful's dime. It was so bad I did a series with an anonymous priest, Nabi, who detailed the scandals. [See a recent local story from the Weirton Daily Times, Ex-Bishop Michael Bransfield’s ‘creepy’ behavior detailed.] How many bishops like Bransfield still rule dioceses in the U.S.? Many I fear.
And then there's Jesuit Fr. James Martin! When you see Martin, champion of sodomy, serving as a consultant for the Vatican's Dicastery for Communication (appointed by Francis), you know the gay spin is welcome in Vatican media. And Martin's enthusiasm for Pope Leo makes me uneasy. But perhaps that is just practical politics -- brown-nosing the boss.
It's truly disheartening to think that all the payouts from people in the pew, all the ink spent exposing clerical abusers, etc. did not cause a 180 degree turn toward orthodoxy and away from LGBTQ wokism. But it's important to be realistic and on guard. Actions speak louder than words. "By their fruits you shall know them."
Francis often said the right thing. Then he showed his words were empty by his actions. He condemned abortion and gender ideology, but then he praised and rewarded champions of abortion and cheerleaders advancing sexual deviancy.
I thought about all this today when I read Goodbye, Straight Men by sex abuse victim advocate, Gene Thomas Gomulka. He thinks nothing has changed in U.S. seminaries, that homosexuals are still the favored entrants and that solid men are still dismissed. He relates a story about one of Cardinal Dolan's seminarians, Anthony Gorgia:
After graduating as the valedictorian of his high school class, Anthony Gorgia from Staten Island, New York, was offered a full scholarship with a stipend to a prestigious university. Having felt called by Christ to be a priest since he was six-years old, Gorgia turned down the scholarship to pursue his vocation to the priesthood. After graduating summa cum laude from St. John’s University with a master’s degree in philosophy, Georgia was sent by New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan to study theology in Rome at the Pontifical Gregorian University. Even though he maintained a 4.0 grade point average and received outstanding evaluations, Cardinal Dolan informed Gorgia, half-way through his second year of theology, that he was being discontinued based on the advice of the North American College (NAC) rector, Father Peter Harman. Dolan refused five requests to meet with Gorgia and his parents because he knew Gorgia’s dismissal was unjust.
Gomulka goes on to discuss the homosexual links of seminary officials who probably saw Gorgia as a threat. A lawsuit against Dolan and others, was dismissed by a New York judge on minor technicalities but is being appealed. No uniqueness here -- just one more straight seminarian shown the door by those covering up (like Dolan) for the homosexual network.
I hope Gomulka is exaggerating. A Catholic University survey (Catholic Project) indicates that younger priests are more orthodox than their predecessors. I know a few recently ordained men, admittedly a small sample, but they fit the survey results.
Pray for priests and especially pray for those being called by God to serve in the vineyard. When you read the horror stories of harassment of straight men in the seminary, it's enough to make you want to organize sit-ins at the chancery.
Lord of the harvest, have mercy on us!
Sorry, but my gaydar warning bells go off when I see Prevost. It was the same with Bergoglio.
ReplyDelete....excerpt from ''Hierarchy Urges Soft Pastoral Approach
ReplyDeleteto Homosexuals"
by Randy Engel
The Guidelines are replete with 'gay' myths.....
"The Church teaches that persons with a homosexual inclination must be accepted with respect, compassion and sensitivity. We recognize that such persons have been, and often continue to be, objects of scorn, hatred, and even violence in some sectors of our society. Sometimes this hatred is manifested clearly; other times, it is masked and gives rise to more disguised forms of hatred. It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech and action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the Church's pastors whenever it occurs.
"Those who would minister in the name of the Church must in no way contribute to such injustice. They should prayerfully examine their own hearts in order to discern any thoughts or feelings that might stand in need of purification. Those who minister are also called to their own ongoing conversion. In fact, the work of spreading the Good News involves an ever-increasing love for those to whom one is ministering." (Guidelines, p.20)
.......No “study” funded by the USCCB is going to change this reality. This is a Herculean task that only the Vicar of Christ himself can successfully address.
For an extensive background on this topic, see Engel's book
The Rite of Sodomy: Homosexuality and the Roman Catholic Church
https://www.newengelpublishing.com/
Randy is one of my heroes. Amost single-handedly she deep-sixed Clinton's nomination of Dr. Henry Foster as Surgeon General. She exposed the March of Dimes and their "soft" promotion of abortion. As I put it in one article. "They walk women to the door of the abortion clinic and then tell her to make her choice." Got to eliminate those genetically imperfect babies. Thanks for this reminder about one of my super-heroes of life. I'm offering my rosary for Randy today.
DeleteIts the celibacy requirement. Straight men want women.
ReplyDeleteThat's silly. Men called to a mission are willing to make sacrifices. Look at soldiers on the battlefield. Look at Uriah in Scripture who would not go down to his wife when Israel was at war. Think of athletes in training. Do only lesbians go into the convent? Men who are called to the priesthood by God sacrifice having a biological family to become the fathers of many. I thank God for all the good and holy men I call Father. There were others and those who were homosexual were almost all dissenting from the faith. That is still the case.
Delete…. excerpt from an article ....
ReplyDelete“On the Sex Scandal: Ratzinger Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow”
Marian T. Horvat, Ph.D.
• Pope Benedict XVI, in his 5-day visit to Washington and New York, he addressed the Church’s ongoing sex-abuse scandal and his emotional 20-minute encounter with five victims. He expressed his pain, compassion, and concern. At his meeting with the U.S. Bishops in Washington, he even admitted the sexual abuse crisis had been “badly handled at times” by the bishops. But immediately afterward he praised the work they were doing now to restore trust.
One thing he didn’t do is to punish complicit Bishops –a total of 19 American Bishops has been named either as directly involved in sexual abuse cases or in the resultant cover-up. Not one has been penalized by Rome.
Even Cardinal Bernard Law wasn’t fired. He resigned of his own accord, only to go to Rome to be rewarded with very prestigious positions, among them Archpriest of St. Mary Major, the third more important basilica in Rome, after St. Peter Basilica and St John Lateran.
David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests justly observes:, “Thousands of predator priests have been suspended by Bishops, but no Bishops have been suspended by the Pope. Until he does, he essentially condones risk.”
There was no question of any “if” in reading the stories of victims. Joseph Ratzinger, as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), had certainly been reading those files for many, many years. The diocesan reports of pedophile and homosexual priests, the heart-wrenching letters of victims and families addressed to the Vatican as a last recourse effort for justice – all ended on his desk. For 24 years, Cardinal Ratzinger responded to the abuse accusations by referring Bishops to the rules of Crimen Sollicitationis, in force since 1962. The instruction calls for secrecy – specifically in cases where priests are accused of abusing the Sacrament of Confession to sexually proposition penitents, and in extension, to clerics accused of homosexuality, child sexual abuse and bestiality. In effect, he used that document to ensure secrecy and cover up sexual abuse by priests and Bishops. There is no doubt that Ratzinger was aware of the details of those scandals for a long, long time.
This story is over six years old. Involves Adam Park who resigned in October 2021 as vice rector. The seminarian actually left on his own "was coerced into leaving" is how his lawsuit frames it: "Anthony J. Gorgia of Staten Island, New York, alleged in a civil suit filed Feb. 3 that he was barred from returning to his studies in Rome in late 2018 after taking a short approved medical leave because NAC officials knew he had witnessed inappropriate sexual behavior at the seminary...He is asking for a total of $125 million in “special economic damages” he claims he has suffered as well as damages for “mental anguish and humiliation, all of which are of a continuing nature,” his 58-page suit says. He wants $50 million in “compensatory damages” and $75 million in “exemplary damages.” In a lengthy blog post, Gorgia said that after he was told Father Harman had blocked his return to Rome, he requested “on five occasions” to have a meeting on the matter with Cardinal Dolan, “which he denied me.”
ReplyDeleteCardinal Dolan apparently “wanted neither to allow me to present my documentation refuting the false statements against me, nor to receive evidence of Father Park’s alleged misconduct,” he said. In the lawsuit, he said false statements were made about him because he is “heterosexually oriented.”
“In good faith, I could not be complicit with what I believed was a cover-up of what I knew of the vice rector, and I could do no other than resign under duress as a seminarian,” he said in blog post. “Church leaders will listen to my case only when faced with a lawsuit.”
https://catholicphilly.com/2021/02/news/national-news/ex-seminarians-suit-against-archdiocese-seminary-in-rome-called-baseless/
Maybe the lawsuit is re-activating. I am not a fan of Gomulka who seems to think the US congress should mandate Catholic Church fill military chaplain vacancies with married priests (like himself "a father who is a father."
‘We the People’ demand Congress make the Archdiocese for Military Services, whose Catholic Chaplains’ salaries are funded with U.S. taxpayer dollars, mandate mature-married Priests be allowed to serve to fill the over 300 vacancies Archbishop Timothy Broglio spoke of. Our servicemen/women and their families deserve better, and already having married Roman Catholic Priests serve in America makes the shortage an inexcusable inane insanity!
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I used to be a donor to the well known seminary I live near. I will occassionally visit their lovely chapel but I no longer donate and I don't even go to their free public events. After 2018 I decided I couldn't donate. I realized that they had done nothing to reassure the public that their seminary wasn't infested with homosexuals. Just a couple of years ago one of their former professors who is a layman and published author was outed for his homosexuality. He'd been there for years. Of course, the administration had to know.
ReplyDeleteI remember reading in The Wanderer in the 70s & 80s about parishioners fighting the wreckovations of their parishes to no avail. Decades later we find out that many of these bishops were living secret lives. So it's little wonder they set out to steal from and destroy the very institution that labels their behavior as disordered.
So I've concluded that if certain priests or bishops seemed to have an affinity for any new fad, change or goody idea and an abhor anything remotely traditional then I make certain assumptions about them. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck...
I find the argument for married priest to be ridiculous. We all know that there are married men who are unfaithful to their marriage vows. I've also read articles by married priests. They don't support a change to allowing married priests as a normal thing. They say it's very hard to have a family and be a priest.
ReplyDeletePriestly celibacy began with the Council of Carthage in the 5th century when and where Manicheanism was heavily influencial, and was primarily the brainchild of Augustine who was a convert from Manicheanism. Its a ledtovwr of the Manichean heresy that only celibatea can be saved. Augustine also said lusting after your own wife is a sin. He never quite kicked the Manicheanism.
Delete"No uniqueness here -- just one more straight seminarian shown the door by those covering up (like Dolan) for the homosexual network."
ReplyDeleteIs this covering for the lavender network, or is it actively advancing it?