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... The closet of the Roman Catholic Church hinges on an impossible contradiction. For years, church leaders have driven gay congregants away in shame and insisted that “homosexual tendencies” are “disordered.” And yet, thousands of the church’s priests are gay. The stories of gay priests are unspoken, veiled from the outside world, known only to one another, if they are known at all. Fewer than about 10 priests in the United States have dared to come out publicly. But gay men probably make up at least 30 to 40 percent of the American Catholic clergy, according to dozens of estimates...

The Pope called for more tolerance and warned about populism during a speech at the Vatican on Tuesday, Italian news agency Ansa reports. “It is important that young people should know how populism is born. I think of Hitler last century, who had promised the development of Germany. That we know how populism starts: by sowing hate. You can’t live sowing hate,” Pope Francis warned. According to the religious leader more should be taught to young people about the history of World Wars, “so that they do not fall into the same mistake and know how populism spreads.” The pope...

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis accepted the resignation Friday of Washington Cardinal Donald Wuerl after he became entangled in two major sexual abuse and cover-up scandals and lost the support of many in his flock. But in a letter released by Wuerl’s office, Francis praised his longtime ally and suggested Wuerl had unfairly become a scapegoat, having made some “mistakes” in handling sex abuse cases, but not having covered them up. With the resignation, Wuerl becomes the most prominent head to roll in the scandal roiling the Catholic Church after his predecessor as Washington archbishop, Theodore McCarrick, was forced...

The editorial board of the New York Times declared it had identified the source of “The Catholic Church’s Unholy Stain.” It names pedophilia and asks: “How have so many pedophiles been allowed into the priesthood?” The question was purely rhetorical because the board had an answer ready. It cited the usual grounds: “the all-male priesthood and the celibacy imposed on Catholic priests; the elitism, careerism and clericalism of the church hierarchy; the lack of transparency or accountability among bishops.” Most damning is “the power a man of God has over a child.” Every parent knows instinctively that sexual abuse of...

Up to a dozen priests shown on cache of videos, sources say.Home videos discovered in the basement of a Catholic church in south central Illinois show up to a dozen local priests dressed in drag and engaging in homosexual acts, according to sources claiming to have viewed the videos. The Diocese of Springfield has denied allegations that it confiscated the videos, but says that it is investigating their existence and whereabouts. The material, which a parish source says included at least eight DVDs, was allegedly found by a parish employee in early 2018 in the basement of Mother of Dolors...

Papal adviser Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga said last week that Cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s serial sex abuse and the way the pope handled it is a “private matter” that should not be treated as a sensational story.“Turning a private matter into a bombshell headline that explodes in the world and whose shrapnel does damage to the faith of many people does not seem right,” the Honduran cardinal said in reference to a recent report by the former papal nuncio to the United States. “I think that a management issue ought to be aired with more serene and objective criteria, not in...

An Illinois priest accused of patronizing a male prostitute in the 1990s and misappropriating $40,000 from a parish in 2005 has now been removed from ministry for “immoral activity” that could involve child pornography, and allegedly misspending up to $29,000 at two parishes he oversaw in the Diocese of Springfield. The Rev. Barry J. Harmon, 55, was removed from ministry and will apply for laicization, Springfield Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki wrote in a Sept. 5 email to diocesan priests. Harmon has agreed to make restitution for the misappropriated funds, Paprocki said. Harmon was initially placed on medical leave Oct. 30,...

Arresting officer says car didn't even have tinted windows Two men who identified themselves as priests were arrested Monday afternoon after police said they were caught... ... their home address as Mission of San Juan Diego in Arlington Heights, Illinois. Berrio is listed as a priest...

MIAMI BEACH (CBSMiami) — Two Chicago-area priests were charged Monday with Lewd and Lascivious behavior and Indecent Exposure after being caught performing a sexual act inside a car parked on a Miami Beach street. According to Miami Beach Police, 39-year-old Diego Berrio and 30-year-old Edwin Giraldo Cortez were in the front seat of a car performing oral sex. Police got a 911 call about a lewd and lascivious incident taking place in the 1300 block of Ocean Drive. When officers arrived, the police report states, the two were performing sex acts on each other “in full view of the public...

Word from Rome is that the Curial clerics and prelates are telling themselves and others that, “Nobody cares about this. Look at the comment threads on mainstream media outlets. The primary outrage is that the sex abuse is being blamed on homosexuals. Nobody cares about the cover-ups. Just a few loud conservatives. This will all be forgotten in a week.” They are relying on the 36 hour news cycle to bail them out, yet again. I think we should take a lesson from the Weinstein scandal that broke last fall and launched the entire #MeToo movement in that there were...

PITTSBURGH -- Last Sunday, a city parish on the top of a steep hill overlooking the neighborhood aptly named Observatory Hill waited for her faithful to arrive for Sunday Mass, as it has every Sunday for over 102 years. It was 9:00 a.m., just a handful of days after a report was released by the Pennsylvania state grand jury on alleged sexual abuse in 54 of the state's 67 counties, a report that has rocked this tight-knit community. Some came to Mass. Some did not. Those who did had difficulty holding back tears. The somber music played by the organist...

Pope Francis has declined to comment on a claim that he ignored sexual abuse allegations against a senior clergyman amid speculation conservative elements in the Catholic hierarchy are using the issue to mount a "putsch" to remove the liberal pontiff. Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, a former Vatican envoy to the United States, on Saturday said he had told Francis of the allegations against prominent US cardinal Theodore McCarrick in 2013.

From October 2 to 4, 2018, Fr. Bryan Massingale will lead "a retreat for gay priests, brothers, and deacons" at Siena Retreat Center in Racine, Wisconsin, in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. The Siena Retreat Center is overseen by the Racine Dominican Sisters. The retreat is sponsored by the dissident pro-gay marriage group New Ways Ministry. Later this year, on November 16-18, 2018, the Siena Retreat Center will also host a conference for "lesbian sisters, congregational leaders, and vocation & formation ministers." The speakers include Cristina L.H. Traina, the chair of religious studies at Northwestern University. Traina is a member of...

The president of the Catholic University of America, the university in Washington founded by U.S. bishops, says it’s going to take years to rebuild trust following recent sexual abuse scandals in the church. And he says non-clergy Catholics will be essential to the process.“It’s difficult to overstate the impact that this has on them on the moral authority of the church. And that’s something that is going to take decades to recover,” said John Garvey, president of Catholic University.Calling On Non-Clergy Catholics To Keep Church AccountableGarvey wrote a letter over the weekend encouraging students to prepare themselves “to take on key roles...

Due to the sensitive nature of this article, it's important that I make some preliminary statements. There will be enough controversy if my words are rightly understood, let alone misunderstood. First, I am not a Catholic basher. Second, I am not claiming that the Catholic Church has a monopoly on sexual scandals. Third, I believe the vast majority of homosexual men stand with me in denouncing pedophilia and "man-boy love." Fourth, as we focus on predatory priests, we must not forget their victims. Some of the abused have lost faith for life. Others bear their scars in different, significant ways....

Cardinal Raymond Burke has called for “open recognition” of the Catholic church’s homosexual culture in light of recent revelations of sexual abuse. “I believe that there needs to be an open recognition that we have a very grave problem of a homosexual culture in the Church,” Burke said in an interview Thursday, “especially among the clergy and the hierarchy, that needs to be addressed honestly and efficaciously.” he former head of the church’s equivalent of the Supreme Court said it was already “clear after the studies following the 2002 sexual abuse crisis that most of the acts of abuse were...

Bp. Edward Rice backs article slamming gay infiltration of ChurchSPRINGFIELD, Mo. (ChurchMilitant.com) - A southern Missouri bishop is signaling that homosexuality is at the root of the clerical sex abuse crisis. On Tuesday, Bp. Edward Rice of the diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau published a column on his diocesan website affirming that the McCarrick scandal is but one component of a vastly larger crisis, and that the crisis springs from homosexuality. Titled "'Dear Troubled Catholics': Church needs spiritual renewal," the reflection began with Bp. Rice's direct observations. "I, along with all those who love the Church, am dismayed, disgusted, and numbed...

The Washington Post writes about its retired hometown cardinal, Uncle Teddy McCarrick. Once a globe-trotting representative of the Catholic Church worldwide and one of the architects of the church’s policy on sexual abuse, McCarrick’s precipitous fall over the past month has shocked Catholics, especially in Washington, where he was a popular archbishop from 2001 to 2006.McCarrick’s future now rests with Pope Francis, who as pontiff oversees the cardinals. Many church-watchers think this is a make-or-break moment for Francis because of McCarrick’s stature and the fact that Catholic clerical sex-abuse crises are exploding in Chile and Honduras.It is, or ought to...

A scandal now sending shockwaves through the Catholic Church erupted last week when a gay male prostitute produced a massive dossier outing scores of priests who allegedly lead a double life of both ordained minister and homosexual sex-fiend. The dossier included seminarians as well.  The author of the dossier, gay “escort” Francesco Mangiacapra, said he wrote the report because he could no longer stand the “hypocrisy” of the many priests he serviced. The 1,200-page dossier, replete with explicit WhatsApp messages, erotic photos, and lurid descriptions of priests involved in gay sexual activity and drug use, was forwarded to the Vatican...

Declarations in the Vatican Congregation for the Clergy's recent document "The Gift of the Priestly Vocation" have been called "disrespectful," "ambiguous" and "insulting" by the Association of U.S. Catholic Priests. In a statement released April 19, the 1,200-member Ohio-based organization charged that "the terms 'homosexual tendencies' and 'deep-seated homosexual tendencies' are ambiguous and disrespectful of the personhood of those who identify with a homosexual orientation." The terms appear in the Dec. 8, 2016, document's section titled "Persons with Homosexual Tendencies.""We find it also unfounded and insulting," the group said, adding that the clergy congregation document "implies that ordained priests with...