This stuff is pure crap and nothing but the crap.
What if it’s not? That Bernardin was an active gay has been well known for a long time. The rest may be debatable but Bernadin’s tenure in the USCCB was a disaster for the Church in the country, a disaster from which we still have not recovered.
If so, may God who knows and sees all forgive me for not being personally knowledgeable of the claims and naively passing on untruths. But in searching further, there certainly is an abundance of sickeningly distasteful and disturbing information, not the least of which implying the protection/covering up/transferring out of offending abusive priests:
Excerpt:
Among Bernardin’s close friends was Monsignor Frederick Hopwood who also worked at the Chancery and lived at the rectory of the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist.
Originally ordained as a priest of the Archdiocese of New York in 1951, Hopwood was sent to Charleston by Cardinal Spellman in January 1952. The reason for the transfer is unclear. In November 1954, the same year that Bernardin began to work at the Chancery, Spellman gave permission for Hopwood to be incardinated into the Diocese of Charleston. Bishop Russell made Hopwood his Assistant Chancellor.
By the late 1950s, Msgr. Hopwood had gained a reputation as the Chancery’s resident pederast. Hopwood routinely sexually abused young boys in his room at the Cathedral of St. John as well as Camp St. Mary in Beaufort. Such criminal activities could hardly have escaped the attention of Hopwood’s superior Bishop Russell or his friend Msgr. Bernardin.
Hopwood’s long record of sexual abuse, which involved more than 100 victims, did not come to light until December 1993 when the first lawsuit was filed against the priest.
All of Hopwood’s victims who pressed charges were eventually paid off by the Diocese of Charleston with the financial and legal assistance from Cardinal Bernardin and lawyers hired by the Archdiocese of Chicago from the premier law firm of Mayer, Platt and Brown. The court records of the Hopwood case were sealed as part of the financial settlement with the priest’s victims and their families. As of June 2004, Rev. Msgr. Hopwood was still listed as a priest (retired) of the Diocese of Charleston.
Whether or not Bernardin was an active pederast alongside Hopwood or simply a silent partner while the Hopwood follies were in full swing in the Diocese of Charleston is not known and it is unlikely that Hopwood, who owes his freedom to the late Cardinal, will enlighten us on the subject any time soon.
As Paul Likoudis points out in Amchurch Comes Out, Msgr. Hopwood was not the only active clerical pederast in the Charleston Diocese during the Russell-Bernardin years.
There was Father Justin Goodwin who was ordained in 1953. He reportedly spent a great deal of his spare time at the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. In June 1995, Goodwin was charged with the sexual abuse of male minors. Diocesan officials had moved Goodwin from parish to parish not only in the Diocese of Charleston, but also to out-of-state parishes in Washington, D. C., New York, and North Carolina before he left the priesthood.
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2006/07_08/2006_08_18_Abbott_RememberingJoseph.htm
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Excerpt:
Frank Pellegrini was the organist and choir director for All Saints-St. Anthony of Padua Church in Chicago. On May 30, 1984 he was found brutally murdered at his apartment.
His hands were found to be tied with barbed wire, and he had been stabbed more than twenty times. Apparently, there was no sign of a forced entry. The officials from the police department believed that the murder was committed by a homosexual or a woman.23
“According to police who were present at the crime scene, shortly after Pellegrini’s body was discovered, Cardinal Bernardin arrived at the murdered man’s home to quiz the officers about the killing. The cardinal told police that he did not know the murdered man. This raises the obvious question of how he learned of the killing so quickly, and of what special interest Pellegrini was to him since he did not know the victim.”
According to information obtained by Pellegrini’s girlfriend, Pellegrini had been in a homosexual relationship with a priest from Chicago. He had also been
involved in a secret priestly “boys club” which included occult activities and sexual abuse of young boys from low income ethnic families from Chicago.
Pellegrini’s girlfriend explained to the police that
Pellegrini wanted to get out of the club. She went on to
say that he was planning a meeting with Chancery (Chicago
diocesan) officials to talk about this matter shortly
before his murder, but she never knew if he actually had
met with them.24 “
http://www.mostholyfamilymonastery.com/bernardinfinal.pdf
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Excerpt:
Even Pellegrini’s dog was slashed, leaving it seriously wounded but alive.
In the opinion of police detective/profilers working on the case, the brutality and manner of the killing indicated that it was carried out either by a woman or a homosexual, Callaghan stated.
Pellegrini was stabbed 47 times – the same number of years he had lived.
Just after Pellegrini’s body was discovered, and while police were still on the scene of the murder, police observed two unusual incidents, Callaghan reported.
The first involved the arrival of then-Cardinal Archbishop of Chicago – and one of the most powerful men in the American Catholic Church – Joseph Bernardin. Although there was never an indication that Bernardin met Pellegrini, he arrived at the murder scene and quizzed police personnel on the progress of the investigation.
Left unanswered was how Bernardin learned of the killing and why he should personally visit the scene of a relatively unimportant individual whom he had no reason to know.
The second incident involved Pellegrini’s dog. As the police conducted their investigation at the scene, the dog remained quiet, still suffering from its wounds. When the dog saw priests come into the apartment, it suddenly became aggressive and barked wildly.
The Pellegrini murder occurred in 1984 and was “reopened” with federal funds in the early 1990s, but many of the investigation’s informal police notes have been “lost,” and important leads in the case have never been fully followed up, according to Callaghan. The Pellegrini case, at present, remains one of the many hundreds of unsolved Chicago murders.
Although Callaghan never met Pellegrini, nor participated in the original investigation, he and Adema found that whatever secrets the case entailed posed a direct threat to their own lives.
As Callaghan and Adema pressed on with their investigation on behalf of their client, they learned of a warning, which came through contacts in the Chicago Police Department.
Callaghan learned that mob informants had stated that a contract had been offered on his life, and on that of Adema, by an individual closely tied to the Pellegrini case.
http://www.puritans.net/news/boysclub082405.htm
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Lord, protect and cleanse Your church from any and all evil and evildoers. St. Michael, defend us in battle.