The following excerpt from a report on the recently convicted Father McBride says it all. Follow the link for more. [McBride is a priest; Burkhart is a detective; and what follows is an actual transcript]
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/969270/posts
On May 22, 2002, Burkhart met McBride for dinner at Snickers Tavern, a gay-friendly restaurant on West 76th Street. Unbeknownst to McBride, Burkhart was wearing a wire. Not only would it play a major role in the case; it would also shed light on the secret life of a gay priest.
Burkhart and McBride dined on crab cakes and chatted lightly. After dinner, McBride turned the conversation to the recent Catholic Church scandal. He hoped that, when it was all over, the church would recognize that priests are sexual beings too -- and that some are gay.
"Back in the 1960s, would you have ever come to a place like this?" Burkhart asked. "I mean, in this town, where you were working?"
"Probably not, no," McBride said. "Realistically, in 1960, no."
"And in certain places it looks like the seminary on Saturday night now," Burkhart joked.
"Yeah, that really is how it is," McBride said.
They compared notes on seeing clergy in gay bars. Then Burkhart stammered as he asked McBride a personal question: "So, whenever you had sex . . . were you bound to go to confession and confess it before you said Mass, or . . .?"
"Well, you were supposed to, yes," McBride said.
"Do you think all these priests do?"
"No," McBride said. "I think they changed their minds and decided it's not a sin."
After a long monologue on sex and the Catholic church, McBride seemed ready to wrap up the discussion. "Now we have to continue these conversations, and you'll have to come up to Chautauqua and we could -- "
"Well, one of these days, maybe you could talk me into that," Burkhart interjected, then brought the conversation to the issue at hand: "But I was really glad you called me, because I needed to talk to you anyway. I don't know if Bob has talked to you yet, it's, ahem, really unfortunate . . . I don't know how to tell you this, but . . . you guys used to go over to a place called Marshall McCarron's . . ."
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Future Church is not welcome at one of Cleveland's largest parishes, St. Albert the Great in North Royalton.