WHO WILL SAVE OUR SEMINARIANS?
June 18, 2024
A Sad But True Priest Story
August 29, 2024
I was ordained 50 years ago and was assigned to a parish in State College, Pennsylvania where I served as a parochial vicar for five years (1975-1980) while also teaching dogmatic theology and liturgy at a major seminary within our diocese. Having just returned to State College, I discovered that most of my 160 former altar boys, most in their 60s today, are now members of the second largest “denomination” in the United States: non-practicing Catholics. When one of those former servers recently came to my home for dinner with his wife, he recounted having been plied with alcohol by a young priest who was later removed from ministry after the former bishop, Joseph Adamec, covered up his predation for decades. He was also scandalized to learn that the current bishop, Mark Bartchak, initially refused to help cover the counseling costs of another former altar boy who was abused in the same parish. Both former servers, now adults, find it difficult to worship in a Church that tolerates the sexual abuse of children and vulnerable adults.
As the bishops prepare to launch a $28 million Eucharistic Congress later this month, here is a simple word of advice: If you really want people to be drawn to the Eucharist, then end the abuses and cover-ups. To do otherwise is to doom the Indiana-based gathering for failure before it has even begun.
It is very difficult for Catholic parents to motivate their children and grandchildren to attend Mass and celebrate their faith when countless children and vulnerable adults are documented to have experienced abuse by priests and cover-ups by bishops. Many Catholics receive communion from priests who, despite facing sex abuse complaints and lawsuits, remain pastors of parishes and schools. How can parishioners, young and old alike, be expected to see their parish priest as an alter Christus when they learn that the same hands that administer the Eucharist were used to molest minors and seminarians?
Priests who are allowed to remain in ministry like Marko Rupnik, who forced nuns to drink his semen out of his chalice; Dennis Hanneman, who is alleged in a police report to have inserted consecrated hosts into the vaginas of little girls; and Travis Clark, who was arrested after being caught having sex on an altar with two women wielding sex toys, fail to inspire confidence in Catholics who are taught to approach the Eucharist with reverence and faith.
While the Eucharistic Congress is trying to persuade Catholics that the Eucharist is the “source and summit” of their faith, the bishops contradict this message every time they continue to entrust the Eucharist to undisciplined accused priests like Jeffrey Burrill and Michael Callaghan who were caught soliciting gay sex on their Grindr dating apps; Mykhaylo Dosyak who is reported to have sent graphic pornographic text messages to a young man aspiring to the priesthood; and Adam Park who sexually harassed seminarians while serving as vice-rector of the North American College (NAC) in Rome.
Abuse victims and whistleblowers who have their reports covered up by Church leaders are sent a distinct message that they are no longer welcome at the table of the Lord. These victims are shunned not because they have sinned, but because they reported the sins of their abusers who are often protected and promoted. Rachel Mastrogiacomo, who watched Francis elevate Robert McElroy to the College of Cardinals after he covered up her satanic ritual abuse, was led to comment, “Catholic priests, Catholic bishops, and Catholic establishment media outlets have consistently told me through their actions that it would be better that I just disappear.” Claims that “there is room for everyone in the Church” are debunked every time truth-tellers like Archbishop Viganò and Bishop Strickland are ousted for confronting Church leaders who engage in or cover up abuse, or every time abuse victims are gaslit, smeared, and even threatened by bishops who have “zero tolerance” for transparency.
Many Catholics struggle to find themselves in “holy communion” with Church leaders who have covered up thousands of abuse cases and with the vast majority of bishops who lack moral courage to call out rampant clerical sexual corruption. Credible sex abuse and cover-up allegations implicating a number of sitting bishops today, including New Orleans Archbishop Gregory Aymond and Richmond Bishop Barry Knestout, only convince former Catholics that nothing has changed or will change in the Church as long as there is a complicit pope surrounded by complicit bishops and priests.
Catholics are taught to present themselves for the Eucharist in a “state of grace.” However, they cannot be inspired by unrepentant clergy like Omaha Archbishop George Lucas who celebrates Mass despite being credibly accused of engaging in anal sex at a homosexual orgy with former NAC rector, Father Peter Harman; New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan who profaned St. Patrick’s Cathedral by allowing trans-gender activists to hold a sacrilegious funeral; or Archbishop Luigi Ventura who is convicted of “sexual aggression” after he allegedly molested at least five male victims during various ceremonies and at Mass.
Why is it hard for some Catholics to understand the reason some 30 million former U.S. Catholics like my former altar boys no longer worship in a Church headed by a pope who fails to discipline some 150 bishops credibly accused of abusing minors and vulnerable adults? Who will be drawn to attend Mass in a diocese or in a parish where a bishop or pastor lacks the moral courage to call upon Pope Francis to resign or address the cover-up allegations clearly documented in Martin Boudot’s documentary, Sex Abuse in the Church: Code of Silence? Who wants to contribute their hard-earned money to an institution headed by a complicit pope who will excommunicate a whistleblower like Viganò but not a sexual monster like McCarrick?
As long as Catholic clergy and laity remain silent about abuses and cover-ups, one should expect the number of former Catholics to grow as more churches are closed and converted into mosques, restaurants, and bars as is happening throughout the United States and Europe. Until the bishops stop skirting the core reason why so many no longer participate in the Eucharist, $28 million will never buy back the faith of fallen-away Catholics.
Gene Thomas Gomulka is a sexual abuse victims’ advocate, investigative reporter, and screenwriter. A former Navy (O6) Captain/Chaplain, seminary instructor, and diocesan respect life director, Gomulka was ordained a priest for the Altoona-Johnstown diocese and later made a Prelate of Honor (Monsignor) by St. John Paul II. Follow Gene Gomulka on YouTube or email him at msgr.investigations@gmail.com.
5 Comments
It’s more than just the sexual abuse cover ups—- horrific as they may be—– but the corruption and abuse of the mass is, theologically, a worse problem, which has
alienated many Catholics. Throw in dumbed-down, heretical teachings in Catholic schools and colleges and the clergy is “shocked” that 70% of ACTIVE Catholics don’t believe in
the real presence, and like the hypocrites that they are, Bishops like Robert Barron blame the laity for their weak faith. Even the ugly “altar” speaks volumes about just how un-Catholic the mass has gotten. Now the open heresies of “pope” Francis cast even more doubts on the truth claims of the Church.
Bergoglio is delusional enough and so terribly lost in a murky spiritual wilderness, that he erroneously believes the world embraces his bizarre brand of Catholicism. His deranged notion is steeped in socialism, modernism, liberation theology and oddball experimentation. He feels he is duty bound to continue on this demented, twisted course of action to leave the church in a state of perpetual polarization and dissension. He has all the opportunity to make things right…but incomprehensibly cannot. Bergoglio has lost his faith…if he ever had any to begin with.
No doubt celibacy is the principal cause here. Celibacy is just a cover for a lavender superculture of abuse. The Church really is 50 shades of gay.
Some friends returned recently from Ireland and told me the Emerald Isle is now a bleak Island full of bad weather, food and teeming with liberals and radicals who support Palestine. Bob and Judy told me that England was glorious and the people outstanding,as the British were stirring with Anglo Saxon patriotism. Judy said she was stunned at how many priests she encountered were openly gay and ridiculously effeminate. This has been discussed in earlier transmissions, as the lions share of pederast priests are either from Ireland or are of Irish descent. It’s sad because the Irish have no great and noble history or empire, they were always just a weak conquered people. Now it’s more apparent why! They are a weak, Gaelic band of hooligans! The Irish are famous for producing boozers, terrorists and pederasts. In this country alone, a disproportionate number of disgusting, rotten child molesters are either from 🇮🇪 Ireland or are of Gaelic descent. I, sadly have always found them to be a rather corrupt lot, just one step below the sinister, cadgering gypsy. Its mind boggling the number of gay priests who are Irish ☘️ are also dirty pederasts. Can someone explain this to me, it’s really shameful
The Irish seminaries and religious communities, especially the notorious Hospitallers have produced a bumper crop of homosexual religious who have travelled the globe, molesting children in Australia and New Zealand, and at least one male victim in Ventura California. Ireland has produced hundreds of homosexual priests, and pederasts who have molested children in America and around the globe…anywhere they manifest…molestation reigns. In the seminaries a number of Irish perverts have groomed and stalked innumerable male seminarians, to procure gay sex, contrived through illicit and sinister machinations. It’s becoming more clear….crystal in fact, that this bleak, grim island in the North Atlantic has been a fertile breeding ground for pederast clerics and religious, the world over. The “ lions share” of offending clerics are either from Ireland or of 100% Irish descent. Like some foul pestilence, it’s as if this island nation which is so steeped in corruption by its religious and clergy, that one is left in disbelief, because of the holy saints and churchmen it has birthed over the centuries…but the statistics don’t lie. Brother Brian O ‘ Donnell O.H. Is the notorious prior general/ provincial of this religious order, and has spread the perverse disease of pederasty and homosexuality to all corners of the globe, when dispatching his foul monks to scandalize and contaminate. Even now the New Zealand government is using its constabulary arm to secure closure of these Hospitaller schools, where the developmentally delayed were preyed upon by the sexually depraved monks of this order, who relished corrupting and victimizing countless children to satiate their unholy lust. These same Hospitallers who profess to follow the rule of Saint Augustine, seem to follow another rule…much more devoutly. It’s the rule of sexual molestation which they adhere too. I have known a score of flagrantly homosexual brothers of this order, and have met the most vile and debased of its monstrous offenders. Chief among them was the demonic “archmolester” Brother Bernard Kevin McGrath. A serial rapist and child molester the likes of which the world has never seen. Even the hardened prosecutor from Sydney was so traumatized by the crimes of this reprobate, that she required psychological counseling, in an attempt to rinse and bleach the toxic horror of this man’s devilry from her conscious mind. Shocking…positively shocking