Quod erat demonstrandum

In a piece written for The Wanderer  back in the 1990s and entitled "A possibility wrought with dire implications," I wrote: "On October 1, 1986, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith published an Instruction entitled 'Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on Pastoral Service for Homosexual Persons, signed by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger and approved by Pope John Paul II. In this Instruction, Cardinal Ratzinger writes, 'It is necessary to point out that the particular inclination of a homosexual person, though not a sin in itself, nevertheless constitutes a more or less strong tendency to an intrinsically evil behavior from the moral standpoint. For this reason, the very inclination should be considered as objectively disordered.' (No. 3).

This would appear to be especially significant since Canon 1040 of the Code of Canon Law states that: 'Persons who are affected by a perpetual impediment, which is called an irregularity, or a simple impediment, are prevented from receiving orders.' Now, irregularities arise either from defect (ex defectu) or from crime (ex delicto). It seems clear to me that a homosexual inclination, which Cardinal Ratzinger has referred to as "objectively disordered," constitutes an irregularity ex defectu.

In fact, when asked by a Bishop if it is licit to confer priestly ordination to men with manifest homosexual tendencies, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments replied with a letter signed by Jorge Cardinal Medina Estevez which stated that, 'Ordination to the diaconate and the priesthood of homosexual men or men with homosexual tendencies is absolutely inadvisable and imprudent and, from the pastoral point of view, very risky. A homosexual person, or one with a homosexual tendency is not, therefore, fit to receive the sacrament of Holy Orders."

Now the state of Massachusetts (see here) has released a comprehensive report detailing how 270 clerics abused innocent children over a period of 100 years.

And...there it is.

Clerical abuse in the United States alone has cost more than three billion dollars

CatholicCulture.org reports:

"The clerical abuse scandal cost American dioceses and religious orders $141,283,794 between mid-2014 and mid-2015, according to a report released by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).


67% those funds were allotted to settlements ($87.1 million) and therapy for abuse victims ($8.8 million). The remaining funds were spent on attorneys’ fees ($30.1 million), support for offenders ($11.5 million), and other costs ($3.8 million), according to the 2015 “Report on the Implementation of the Charter for Protection of Children and Young People.”

These expenses brought the total cost of the clerical abuse scandal to American dioceses and religious institutes between 2004 and mid-2015 to $3,036,913,024, according to the data in the current report and previous reports. That figure does not include expenses incurred in lawsuits that were settled prior to 2004..."

More than three billion dollars spent on sexual abuse lawsuits and settlements in the United States alone.  Tragic. Imagine the good that could have been done with all that money.  Instead of closing Churches and Catholic schools, we could have been building them. Money that could have been spent on evangelization and building up God's Kingdom here on earth spent instead on the damage inflicted by [for the Most part] homosexual clerics who never should have been ordained in the first place.

This culture of sodomy has made extensive inroads into the Church. For nearly 25 years I've been calling on the Church to address the homosexual problem amongst the clergy.

When Bishop Fabian Bruskewitz proposed "Amendment 27" to his brothers in the Episcopate - stipulating that the "current homosexual culture" was the root cause of the sex abuse crisis - his proposal was rejected on a voice vote.

Father Charles Fiore, a Catholic priest who has fought the homosexual subculture in the Church for years, once said, "the grand taboo in U.S. culture is to focus on homosexuality."

Can we afford not to address this taboo any longer?  Especially since the greater cost comes in the form of shattered lives and damaged souls created in the Imago Dei?

Year of mercy?  Give me a break!

Three billion dollars!  Dear Jesus, mercy.


Graph depicting the homosexual nature of most abuse cases courtesy of Renew America.