The Catholic Church is being heavily criticized for its “sex scandal” in a 1400-page grand jury report, as it should be. I wait with bated breath for a similar report on public schools where there’s a similar cover-up,1 and this says nothing about the easy access of drugs, reports of rape, sexual liaisons in the classroom, counterfeiting,2 stabbings, and murder that are common. But that’s a topic for another day.

The #MeToo movement has exposed a great deal of sexual exploitation in the entertainment business that has its own cover-up problem going back decades.

It’s the Catholic church’s failure to act on the long-term sexual abuses and the massive cover-up that has disillusioned and enraged church members. No one likes a cover-up, especially religious devotees who believe the church is a means of salvation.

The Church must also come to grips with reality and admit to itself that some priests, like the population in general, like to have sex with people of the same sex and with young girls. In 2002, some church experts estimated that 20% to 50% of the then “45,000 U.S. priests are homosexual.”3 The priesthood is so dominated by homosexuals that Paul Wilkes, who studied 600 parishes for his book Excellent Catholic Parishes: A Guide to Best Places and Practices, makes this telling observation, “If we drove all the gay priests out of the priesthood, our Masses would be on videotape.”4 What a startling admission. The Church has made it easy for homosexuals to enter the chicken coop. The homosexual-dominated non-denominational Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) is a lesson in sexual political reality. “Two sociologists who studied MCC in its formative years found magazines with ads for sex next to devotional literature. One congregation member referred to its youth ministry as — the Chicken Coop’ because it attracted predatory older men, ‘chicken hawks.’”5 No one criticizes a homosexual church for preying on adolescents.

According to Cardinal Raymond Burke, “It was clear after the studies following the 2002 sexual abuse crisis that most of the acts of abuse were in fact homosexual acts committed with adolescent young men. There was a studied attempt to either overlook or to deny this. Now it seems clear in light of these recent terrible scandals that indeed there is a homosexual culture, not only among the clergy but even within the hierarchy, which needs to be purified at the root. It is of course a tendency that is disordered.”

Then there’s this from Roman Catholic Bishop Robert C. Morlino:

There has been a great deal of effort to keep separate acts which fall under the category of now-culturally-acceptable acts of homosexuality from the publically-deplorable acts of pedophilia. That is to say, until recently the problems of the Church have been painted purely as problems of pedophilia — this despite clear evidence to the contrary. It is time to be honest that the problems are both and they are more. To fall into the trap of parsing problems according to what society might find acceptable or unacceptable is ignoring the fact that the Church has never held ANY of it to be acceptable — neither the abuse of children, nor any use of one’s sexuality outside of the marital relationship, nor the sin of sodomy, nor the entering of clerics into intimate sexual relationships at all, nor the abuse and coercion by those with authority…. It is time to admit that there is a homosexual subculture within the hierarchy of the Catholic Church that is wreaking great devastation in the vineyard of the Lord.

I find it interesting that all the sexual abuse cases are done exclusively by pedophiles, seemingly a heterosexual malady. Are we to believe that not one case of sexual misconduct can be attributed to a single homosexual priest? There are anywhere from 8,000 to 22,000 homosexual priests. If the priesthood is made up of such a high percentage of homosexuals, then it stands to reason that at least a high percentage of the church’s so-called pedophile problem is really a homosexual problem. Since “homosexual rights” is today’s badge of enlightenment thinking, who in his right mind would point out that homosexuality is one of the Catholic Church’s numerous curses?

A Sexual Red Herring

The church’s unbiblical, illogical, and irrational policy that priests must not marry and thus remain celibate is being blamed for the sex scandal. Such an argument is off the mark. Has anyone noticed that the priests aren’t, in 95 percent of reported cases, having sex with teenage girls? The male priests are having sex with young male parishioners. The problem is not celibacy; it’s homosexuality. Homosexual men are becoming priests because that’s where young, impressionable, and vulnerable boys are found. These men enjoy having sex with boys in the same way that Willie Sutton enjoyed robbing banks. Most adult homosexuals were first lured into the homosexual lifestyle by men when they were boys. But who can say this in today’s ethically paranoid society?

The Roman Catholic Church has had a difficult time recruiting men to the priesthood. Homosexuals see this as an opportunity. Why not go where there’s an almost unlimited supply of young men whose parents consider priests to be god-like? Are we surprised that the Boy Scouts have also become a target of homosexuals? Once again, it’s where boys can be found for recruitment and propaganda purposes. Liberals attack the Scouts for not opening its leadership ranks to admitted homosexuals, while these same critics attack the Catholic Church for giving homosexuals (“pedophiles”) easy access to children of the same age.

Legitimize the Perverse

The first step in the process of infiltrating the Catholic Church was to “define deviancy down” by using the public schools and the entertainment industry to indoctrinate young boys and girls to believe the myth that homosexuality is a legitimate sexual choice. Remove the taboo and the stigma of sodomy by an appeal to tolerance, choice, and diversity, and the game is nearly won. This is being done at a rapid pace. Homosexual propaganda pieces like It’s Elementary and That’s a Family! have been specifically designed to desensitize children to the abnormal nature of sodomy. Helen Cohen, the producer of That’s a Family!, is unapologetic about her goal: “Now that we have this [film], we have an incredible opportunity to reach millions of children in this country through schools and community service organizations, family service organizations, and many, many other venues.”6 For an even more shocking propaganda push, see the article that appeared in the Boston Globe and Massachusetts News that describes a March 25, 2000, workshop sponsored by the Massachusetts Department of Education that was held at Tufts University in which homosexuality–the least of the perversions promoted at the conference–was depicted as normal. The target audience? Teenagers. “One could see children as young as 12 or 13 at the conference participating and receiving ‘information’ and materials.” At one point in the workshop, a teacher “informed her adolescent students that it is okay if an older man approaches them for sexual gratification.”7 The Massachusetts Department of Education condoned the very thing for which these priests are being condemned!

Move into Positions of Authority

The second step was to move into professions that carried with them almost unquestioned authority by its leaders. Who could ever believe that a priest could do wrong? Catholics are taught that priests and nuns are spiritually special and set apart for God’s work. I can still remember sitting in my fifth-grade class at St. Germaine’s Catholic School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, when Father Hugo would enter the class. Sister Mary Josephine would always ask, “Who wants to be a priest when he grows up?” Being a priest was seen as a one-way ticket to heaven, like getting a “Get out of Hell Free” card.

Devout families — and predator priests frequently chose their victims from the most ardent parishioners — had been taught for generations to exalt, respect and trust priests. Who could imagine dear Father Tim — who came to dinner, played with the kids, counseled mom, acted like a dad — would do something so sinful? Doubting the priest would cost you your spiritual security.8

It’s no accident that early Hollywood designated the priest as the most trusted of film characters. Spencer Tracy, Bing Crosby, and Pat O’Brien made their careers with movies like Angels with Dirty Faces, Boys Town, The Men of Boys Town, Going My Way, and The Bells of St. Mary’s. Every parish dreamed of having a Father Flanagan for its priest or a priest who just looked like Pat O’Brien. Notice that almost in every case, the priest was a friend and confidant to young boys. It came with the territory. Parents always knew that their children were safe with a priest.

Film-making in the early years was nearly dominated by Jews, as Neal Gabler describes in his highly informative book An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood. Even so, Catholic clergy were almost universally depicted as decent and caring spiritual leaders. Louis B. Mayer “was a close friend and a great admirer of New York’s Cardinal Spellman, with whom he dined every time he visited New York, and a large portrait of Spellman in his red vestments was the first sight that greeted visitors to Mayer’s library.”9 It was the church’s “respectability” that impressed Mayer. “If a character appeared on screen wearing a clerical collar it served as a sure sign that the audience was supposed to like him.”10

Thanks to the new Hollywood, clergymen of all kinds have fallen on hard times. “Whenever someone turns up in a contemporary film with the title ‘Reverend,’ ‘Father,’ or ‘Rabbi’ in front of his name you can count on the fact that he will turn out to be corrupt or crazy — or probably both.”11

Capture the Robes

Robes are symbols of authority. Traditionally, three groups are distinguished by robes: judges, university professors (Goodbye, Mr. Chips), and ordained ministers.12

The third step was to capture the Catholic seminaries and fill them with pro-homosexual professors who would look the other way when reports of homosexuality surfaced. As Toby Westerman reports, “A gay culture is growing among clergy of the American Catholic Church that receives support from members of the hierarchy as well as from those directly involved in the training of priests, according to a Catholic priest-theologian.”13 The Vatican has found it nearly impossible to police its seminaries. Much of the problem is a lack of will and fear of a backlash from an already depleted clergy. It’s also happening in traditionally conservative denominations. Orthodox Presbyterian minister Lee Irons and his wife are promoting homosexual marriages. Do you think I’m kidding? Get a look at this:

Since the church believes gay marriage is wrong for religious reasons, it is in the church’s best interest to support gay marriage for civil rights reasons.

Wasn’t sure you heard me the first time? Then let me be absolutely clear: Conservative Christians should support gay civil marriage.

Why? Because the question of whether to allow civil same-sex marriage is a civil liberties question, and maintaining a respect for people’s civil liberties in this country is always to the church’s advantage. In fact, it is absolutely essential for the church’s survival in a pluralistic society.14

All types of behavior claim their rights based on “civil liberties,” abortion and assisted suicide are just two examples. In fact, following the logic of the above quotation, any appeal to any type of consensual behavior based on “civil liberties” would be legally justified. Polygamy, inter-family marriages (incest), and pedophilia could all come under the “civil liberties” category.

Set Out the Red Herrings

The fourth step has been to redirect the focus from a discussion of homosexuality to pedophilia, a nearly universally despised predatory behavior, although this is beginning to change.15 The charge of pedophilia is being used as a screen by homosexuals to fly under the sexual radar. While the general public excoriates the pedophiles among us, the homosexuals go merrily along debauching young men in the name of sexual tolerance.

In the April 1, 2002 issue of U.S. News & World Report, homosexuality is mentioned only once in the eight-page article on the Catholic sex crisis. Rev. Joel Garner, the pastor of a Catholic church in Albuquerque, New Mexico, is quick to point out in the article that “the pedophilia problem has nothing to do with celibacy or homosexuality.”16 Throughout the article, the sex scandal is called a “sex-abuse scandal,” “youth-sex-abuse,” “sexual misconduct,” “predatory sexual behavior,” but never a homosexual problem. Author Marianne Szegedy-Maszak, confuses the readers of U.S. News even more (on purpose?) when she reported, “Despite the common image of a priest sodomizing a 9-year-old altar boy, most of the priest abusers are technically ‘ephebophiles’ — that is, they abuse adolescents rather than children.”17 In any other dictionary, the description of an ephebophile would be a practicing predatory homosexual.

The article begs the question. It’s not just “adolescents” that priests are abusing, it’s adolescent boys. If pedophilia is the problem, then why aren’t the priests having sex with the same percentage of young girls in the church? The church is covering up its crisis to save its reputation, and it’s no less true that these reporters are covering up for the homosexual rights movement. The late John Leo, an editorial writer for U.S. News and World Report, touched on the real issue when he wrote that true pedophiles are rare, and the super majority of the priests involved in this sex crisis are not pedophiles. “But the church is reluctant to mention the distinction,” Leo writes, “most likely because opening up the issue of sexually active gay priests is itself explosive, even apart from charges of abuse.”18

Charles Fiore, a Catholic priest for more than forty years, with degrees in philosophy and theology, as well as clinical training at the Menninger Clinic and the State Hospital in Topeka, Kansas, has been fighting the infiltration of homosexuals into the priesthood almost since the time of his ordination. The following comments, which appear as a part of an interview in World Net Daily, tell the real story of the Catholic Church’s “sex scandal”:

“The problem is not clerical pedophilia but homosexuality.” The distinction is important, Fiore noted, because most victims of Catholic clergy abuse are adolescents. “Strictly speaking,” Fiore stated, “pedophilia is the sexual molestation of a pre-pubescent child of either sex,” but the overriding problem is the abuse of older children from 12 to 18. “More than 90 percent of the cases,” Fiore observed, “involve the clerical molestation of teen-age young men.” In reporting clerical abuse, “the grand taboo in U.S. culture is to focus on homosexuality,” Fiore stated. “Pedophilia is done only by an aberrant few,” but society “looks upon homosexuality as an alternative way of life,” explained Fiore.19

The homosexual lobby is so powerful and intimidating that almost no one wants to suffer from its unbridled wrath. So for cover, the priests are charged with pedophilia in order to hide the fact that homosexuality is the real culprit.

1. Chris Reinolds, “Student testifies teacher chats led to ‘sexual stuff,’” Atlanta Journal-Constitution (April 25, 2002), C1. [↩]
2. Four Marietta (Georgia) High School students were accused of passing counterfeit money at their school. David Burch and Jeffrey Widmer, “4 teens charged in counterfeit money scheme,” Marietta Daily Journal (April 25, 2002), 1A. [↩]
3. Cathy Lynn Grossman, “Hot under the collar: Gay Catholics angry, say they’ve been singled out,” USA Today (April 25, 2002), 9D. These numbers are confirmed in Jason Berry, Lead Us Not Into Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 188. [↩]
4. Grossman, “Hot under the collar,” 9D. [↩]
5. Berry, Lead Us Not Into Temptation, 198. [↩]
6. Quoted by Beverly LaHaye, “Dear Friend” letter, Concerned Women of America (March 2002), 1. [↩]
7. Brian Camenker and Scott Whiteman, “Kids Get Graphic Instruction in Homosexual Sex,” The Massachusetts News (June 200). The entire article can be found at http://www.shire.net/big.brother/gay2.htm. It’s shocking. [↩]
8. Johanna McGeary, “Can the Church Be Saved?,” Time (April 1, 2002), 31. [↩]
9. Neal Gabler, An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood (New York: Crown Publishers, 1988), 285. [↩]
10. Michael Medved, Hollywood VS. America: Popular Culture and the War on Traditional Values (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 51. Roman Catholic and Episcopalian clergymen (e.g., Life with Father and The Bishop’s Wife) were most often chosen to represent the church because they were easily identified because of their clerical garb, most specifically a special collar. Most Protestant clergymen do not wear special clerical grab. They generally look like businessmen. [↩]
11. Medved, Hollywood VS. America, 52, see pages 52-69. [↩]
12. See Gary North, “Capturing the Robes,” Backward Christian Soldiers? (Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1984), 59-66. [↩]
13. Toby Westerman, “Suffer the Children: ‘Gay’ culture in Catholic Church grows Priest says scandal really about homosexuality, not pedophilia,” World Net Daily (March 24, 2002). [↩]
14. Misty Irons, “A Conservative Christian Case for Civil Same-Sex Marriage.” For additional information on Misty Irons’ article and her support of same-sex marriage in the civil sphere, go here. In the passage of time since she wrote her original article, the civil sphere has not left the church alone on the topic. Anyone who opposes same-sex marriage cannot hold a contrary opinion is still open to harassment by the civil sphere as the Jack Phillips’ case makes clear. Even after the Supreme Court rule in his favor, the civil rights office of Colorado has come after him again. California is making it impossible to speak against same-sex sexuality. [↩]
15. Judith Levine, Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children From Sex (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2002). [↩]
16. Angie Cannon and Jeffery L. Sheler, “Catholics in Crisis,” U.S. News & World Report (April 1, 2002), 57. [↩]
17. Marianne Szegedy-Maszak, “Chastity and lust: Is there a psychological link between sexuality, celibacy, and predation?,” 55. [↩]
18. John Leo, “Of Rage and Revolution,” U.S. News and World Report (April 1, 2002),” 12. [↩]
19. Toby Westerman, “‘Gay’ Culture in Catholic Church Grows,” WND (March 24, 2002). [↩]