I am often asked, “How do we: 1) Save a Church that is bleeding membership; 2) Restore unity; and 3) Correct the problem of a disparity between orthodox teachings and heterodox pastoral practices promoted by a synodal church? My response is similar to what Swiss Msgr. Martin Grichting wrote in “Crisis of Confidence in the Church,” where he points out that all power and authority in the Catholic Church reside in the Pope, who alone possesses “absolute power.”
Grichting concludes that the “wounds of ecclesial unity” reflected in the doctrinal and moral mess the Church is in today, not to mention the worldwide clerical sex abuse crisis that the Pope and Bishops continue to cover up, can only be resolved by the Pope who “holds the key to healing the disease” that continues “to fester and divide and weaken the body of Christ, the Church.” Given the Pope’s “absolute power,” I agree with Grichting’s conclusion, but I doubt that Pope Leo can or will heal an increasingly weakened and disease-ridden church.
Homosexuality and Adultery
In order to understand my skepticism, I invite you to go back in time to 1992, when I was asked to testify before Congress on the Department of Defense (DOD) homosexual exclusion policy. After my testimony in support of the policy, Lawrence Korb, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense who opposed the policy, was asked by Senator John McCain, “If we allow homosexuals to engage in sexual relations, how can we prosecute straight troops who engage in adulterous behavior?” In response, Korb said, “Well, Senator, I guess we’ll then have to change the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) to also allow for adultery.”
In Judaism, classical Halakha (Jewish law) prohibits homosexual behavior (i.e., sodomy) based on Leviticus 18:22, which describes it as an “abomination.” In the Hebrew scriptures, adultery is treated as a severe moral and legal transgression, a violation of the seventh of the Ten Commandments found in Exodus 20:14. Members of the LGBTQ community, including most closeted Catholic homosexual clergy, feel they would not suffer from depression and other serious mental health problems, including suicide, if only society were to accept and affirm their behavior as normal. Contrary to this thinking, Orthodox Judaism, Islam, and Christians whose beliefs are grounded in the scriptures (e.g., traditional Catholics, Missouri Synod Lutherans, etc.) believe that problems experienced by those who engage in homosexual behavior, like marital and family problems of people who commit adultery, stem from their behavior and no amount of affirmation or justification of that behavior which is against the natural and divine laws will alleviate their problems. While LGBTQ persons want people to believe they were born LGBTQ, the truth is that most of them were groomed and abused when they were young, and they are victims of learned behavior that has nothing to do with genetics.
Unlike homosexual popes, bishops, and priests, straight priests like myself do not believe that '“we have to change attitudes before we even think about changing what the church says about any given question.” When Pope Leo said that in response to a question about the Church changing its doctrinal teaching on homosexuality, was his use of “we” unconsciously referring to members of the LGBTQ community? And if that is the case, might Leo have been groomed and introduced to gay sex by Augustinian Fathers Reinhard J. Sternemann or Nelson Daniel Rupp, two documented predators, who were on the faculty of the Augustinian high school seminary in which Prevost was enrolled during his period of psychosexual development? The Michigan Attorney General’s sweeping investigation into Catholic clergy abuse details sex abuse allegations within St. Augustine Seminary in Saugatuck, MI, a noted site of documented abuse .
Amoris Laetitia and Fiducia Supplicans
What most Catholics missed was that before Pope Francis and Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández promulgated Fiducia Supplicans in December 2023, which allowed for the blessing of same-sex couples, they issued Amoris Laetitia in March 2016, which allowed impenitent adulterers to receive communion. Granting communion to Catholics in invalid marriages logically gave way to openly gay ABC News anchor Gio Benitez being confirmed in the Catholic Church while his same-sex partner, Tommy DiDario, stood by his side as his sponsor during the ceremony.
Unfortunately, most Catholics fail to view adultery and homosexuality in the 4,000+ year historical context, nor do they recognize the documented link between clerical sexual abuse and homosexuality. Unlike Jesus, who said to the woman caught in adultery, “Go and sin no more” (Jn 8:11), what we hear from the highest authority in the Catholic Church about a very, very promiscuous gay priest, Monsignor Battista Ricca, is “Who am I to judge?”
The point is that complicit popes, documented to have covered up abuse before and after their elections, can never “heal the wounds of ecclesial unity” owing to their own broken and closeted existence. How can they withhold communion from adulterers when they know that gay and straight bishops and priests are almost bever punished for engaging in nonconsensual and consensual sex with men and women, as well as with boys and girls? Fiducia Supplicans and Amoris Laetitia are the logical creations of mainly closeted, groomed/abused, gay Church leaders whose orientation and behavior Catholics want to deny, and the media want to cover up.
Abuse, cover-ups, and reprisals against whistleblowers continue
Another reason I believe that Pope Leo, who possesses absolute power in the institutional Church, will not heal, what Msgr. Grichting referred to as, “an increasingly weakened and disease-ridden church,” is that both he and most bishops continue to cover up abuse and punish whistleblowers. In the U.S. alone, where there are currently 21,750 priests engaged in active ministry, it is estimated that 15,000 predator priests abused over 100,000 victims since the 1950s! If I were to uncover evidence of sexual malfeasance on the part of Pope Leo in Peru, might the mainstream and Catholic media bury it just like they covered up allegations that Pope Francis preyed on seminarians when he was Master of Novices in Argentina?
When I wrote to Pope Leo on May 19, 2025, and offered to return to ministry on the condition that he discipline clerics who covered up abuse, I never received a response. When I called my own bishop, Mark Bartchak, and twice requested to speak with him about the fact that, not having been laicized, I am canonically still a priest and a monsignor of the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese, my calls to him were never returned.
Bishop Bartchak knows I, as a whistleblower, was unjustly removed from ministry for reporting a promiscuous gay Catholic Navy Chaplain in Hawaii in 2002 who went on to prey on Naval Academy Midshipmen and Marines at Quantico before being arrested in 2007 and charged with conduct unbecoming an officer, aggravated assault, sodomy, and failure to inform sex partners that he was HIV positive. Knowing that Cardinal Edwin O’Brien and his predecessor, the late Bishop Joseph Adamec, are guilty of criminal omission in covering up my May report involving Father John "Matt" Lee who is currently serving a 30-year prison sentence, neither Pope Leo nor Bishop Bartchak wants a straight whistleblower priest celebrating Mass publicly, especially when they know I know how sexual predation and misconduct continue to be covered up by mainly closeted homosexual Church officials whose biggest fear is being outed like Monsignor Jeffrey Burrill.
Many former seminarians who were unjustly dismissed for reporting clerical abuse and misconduct deeply regret their decision to study for the priesthood. Their families are even more upset for having encouraged them to pursue what they believed was a true vocation from Christ. Because there are so few seminaries and religious orders in the Americas and Western Europe where straight men can study for the priesthood that are not populated mainly by homosexual priests and seminarians, one should not be surprised that the number of seminarians worldwide continues to go down, particularly in Europe and the Americas, where the majority of bishops, priests, and seminarians are homosexuals.
The Changed Ethnic Face and Sexual Orientation of the Priesthood
Over twenty-five years ago, Father Donald Cozzens authored The Changing Face of the Priesthood in which he foretold the closure of seminaries and a U.S. priesthood composed mainly of gay and foreign-born priests. As the number of U.S. theologates (major seminaries) has fallen in recent years from 47 to 41, will the day come when, like in Ireland, there will only be one major seminary remaining in the entire U.S.?
Most of the few straight American-born priests in ministry today believe that gay men become priests mainly to live comfortable lives in the closet while often engaging in sexual relations with clergy and non-clergy alike. With a median age of 33 among the newly ordained priests in 2026, it should be noted that the median lifetime number of sex partners of persons aged 35-39 is 10 for straight men and 60 for gay men.
Without saying it publicly, straight priests also believe that foreign-born priests, who make up 20%-50% of most dioceses, are here primarily for financial reasons. In the Diocese of Des Moines, for example, 35 out of 77 priests (45%) in active ministry are foreign-born.
When the vast majority of priests in the U.S. today are either homosexuals or foreign-born, what might motivate an American-born heterosexual to join such a fraternity? Aware of this dilemma, one can expect U.S. Bishops, vocation directors, and Catholic organizations that foster priestly vocations to continue misleading Catholic young men and their families into believing that most men being ordained today are straight and celibate. This is exactly what happened when Scott Vincent Borba was ordained on May 23, 2026, for the Diocese of Fresno.
Until the day comes when Pope Leo XIV, who holds “absolute power,” disciplines accused predator priests like Fathers Marko Rupnik, Dennis Hanneman, and Adam Park, as well as over 160 bishops worldwide accused of sexually abusing children and vulnerable adults, one should not expect the “wounds of ecclesial” unity in the Catholic Church, identified by Msgr. Grichting, to be healed anytime soon.
