In 1964 when I moved into the Chicago neighborhood with 26 big Catholic churches, one of the first things I found was that many Priests and Brothers were homos (as we called it back then). Since many Republican staffers were homos and at that time the left was violently (literally violently) against homos, I was only interested in the humor and means of denial.
Holy Trinity students in YFG would say “Don’t turn your back on Brother sonso”.
Old Italian ladies in the Alinsky organization would say of a Priest who was living openly with the very female head of the Welfare office “Well, at least he isn’t doing it to little boys like the other priests.”
Everybody knew and disapproved, but not strongly disapproved.
So it is interesting how 20 and 30 years later it became headlines.