"But I've seen priests put on cologne, dress up and go on dates with guys."
ilenced priest warns of gay crisis
By Julia Duin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Starting today, 290 of the nation's Catholic bishops will meet at the Capitol Hyatt for their yearly business meeting and to tie up loose ends on the massive sexual-abuse crisis that has shaken the U.S. Catholic Church to its core in the past two years.
Although it's been less than a year since the church revealed that there were 10,667 cases of abuse committed by 4,392 priests in a 50-year period, the message at the meeting will be that the crisis is under control.
But it's far from over, says a local Catholic priest who says the true source of the crisis is a priesthood that is "honeycombed" with homosexual clerics, especially in the Diocese of Arlington.
However, attempts by the Rev. James Haley, 48, to persuade his bishop of the problem have backfired. After hearing from the priest about numerous instances of homosexual activity among diocesan clergy, Arlington Bishop Paul Loverde ordered the priest silenced Oct. 23, 2001. This "precept of silence" — usually only employed during church trial proceedings — is rarely used to silence a whistleblower.
Thus, in the past three years, Father Haley's case, which also involves accusations of sexual misconduct against him, has become a cause celebre among many Catholics in the Diocese of Arlington.
It's also attracted the attention of the Vatican, which summoned him to appear before an ecclesiastical court in March. Church officials held two more hearings on the matter this summer and last week scheduled a fourth hearing in conjunction with the bishops' meeting. Less than 24 hours later, after the priest, now living several states away, had bought nonrefundable plane tickets to Washington, the meeting was canceled suddenly.
Father Haley says his only crime is his insistence that homosexual priests, not solely pedophiles, are at the root of the sexual-abuse crisis. The Catholic priesthood is demoralized, he says, by groups of homosexual clerics who control who gets admitted to seminary, which men get nominated for bishop and which priests get the plum parishes.
Based on his 17 years in the priesthood, he estimates that 60 percent of the Diocese of Arlington's 127 diocesan priests are homosexuals, which is high compared with national estimates of 30 percent to 50 percent from other authorities on the priesthood.
As his prospects of returning to life as a parish priest dwindle, he has amassed reams of tapes, videos, photographs, e-mail messages and 1,200 pages of documents for a tell-all book on homosexuality and the priesthood.
"I am astounded the bishops will protect these guys, promote them, even make them bishops," he says. "This is a huge moral issue, and if the bishops aren't clear on this, the pope needs to rule on it.
"People will say there's nothing wrong with homosexual priests as long as they are celibate. Well, that is a totally naive statement and totally wrong."
Backlash
Father Haley, who is living on a $1,700 a month stipend from the Arlington Diocese and relies on his motorcycle for transport, says his troubles began after several confrontations with his bishop over the priest's charges that homosexuals were indulged by the diocese.
Bishop Loverde, in turn, has leveled several charges at the priest, ranging from sexual misconduct to talking with the press. He has turned the case over to the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, overseen by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
The cardinal asked Bishop Thomas G. Doran of Rockford, Ill., to preside at an ecclesiastical court, which has met in three closed sessions this year. Once the case is wrapped up, it will be forwarded to the Vatican for judgment.
Bishop Doran was "supportive," Father Haley says, but he told the priest, "We cannot discuss the homosexual issue because there are people above us who don't think it's a problem."
"He also explained to me: Even if I was to win this hearing, Loverde would appeal this to another [Vatican] congregation. If I lose, I cannot appeal it, but if I win, he can appeal. So three to four years might pass."
Although Bishop Doran's office did not respond to several requests for comment, the Rev. Arthur Espelage, executive coordinator of the Canon Law Society, an Alexandria-based group of 1,500 specialists in church law and court procedures, says Bishop Doran's intervention means that the Vatican is concerned.
"This is a lot more serious than Bishop Loverde being ticked off at Haley," he says.
But Stephen Brady of the watchdog group Roman Catholic Faithful says Father Haley "made Loverde look bad, so they will make him pay a price by dragging this case out as long as they want."
"The bishops defend pedophile priests by saying canon law forbids them from removing them without just cause," he says. "But if someone like Father Haley embarrasses a bishop, the church ignores canon law and throws him out."
War of words
When questioned by The Washington Times on Sept. 8, Bishop Loverde refused to discuss the case and Father Haley's accusations.
"The canonical process is undergoing," he said, "and I cannot comment on it."
However, he has resurrected some 1995 sexual-misconduct charges against Father Haley made when the Most Rev. John R. Keating was bishop of the diocese.
The sexual-misconduct charge, Father Haley says, was from a 1994 conversation with a female friend, who, while describing the effects of her breast cancer, placed the priest's hand on where the surgery had taken place.
Although the woman and her attorney both refused comment when contacted by The Washington Times, the priest says, "There was no sexual misconduct."
"I've never had sex in my entire life," he says.
Bishop Keating found Father Haley not guilty of impropriety and assigned him a post as assistant pastor at All Saints Catholic Church in Manassas, the largest church in the Washington area with 20,000 members.
He was planning to promote the priest into a church pastorship in Sterling, when he died suddenly in Rome in 1998, says the Rev. James R. Gould, former vocations director for the diocese.
Father Haley is "a good man and a good priest," Father Gould said. "I am very concerned for him. It is still my hope to have him back in the priesthood, and he is always welcome with me."
Father Haley never got his promotion. According to a 233-page deposition filed July 24, 2002, in Arlington County Circuit Court, the priest became aware of an affair between a married parishioner, Nancy Lambert, and the Rev. James Verrecchia, then pastor of All Saints and Father Haley's boss. Mrs. Lambert became pregnant with Father Verrecchia's child, divorced her husband, then married the priest in the spring of 2000. Mr. Verrecchia is now parish administrator at Holy Innocents Episcopal Church in Atlanta.
Jim Lambert, the divorced husband of Nancy Lambert, then filed a $5 million suit against the diocese on the grounds that Bishop Loverde knew of the affair months before the priest was ordered to stop seeing Mrs. Lambert.
The person who informed the bishop about the affair in June 1999 was Father Haley.
In the 2002 deposition, which Roman Catholic Faithful has posted at www.rcf.org, Father Haley also revealed sexually graphic details about other priests in the diocese.
"The bishop said there is nothing wrong with these guys," he recalled. "I said, 'You haven't lived with them.' "
The Arlington Diocese is one of a few in the country that refuses — at least on paper — to sponsor homosexual applicants for seminary. Most dioceses admit such applicants with a variety of sexual histories, although the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) will reconsider this policy at its June meeting in Chicago.
Father Haley contends that Bishop Loverde is loath to enforce diocesan policy, which was installed by his predecessor, Bishop Keating.
"I was never asked by my bishop if I was gay," Father Haley said. Bishop Loverde "told me he had no right to ask that question, but I said you have a right to ask that question if you are putting men together [in parish rectories] who are sexually attracted to each other."
Root of the problem
The Rev. Donald Cozzens, author of the 2000 book "The Changing Face of the Priesthood," estimates 50 percent of all Catholic priests are homosexual.
Psychotherapist Richard Sipe, a former Catholic priest who has written and spoken widely on the priesthood, says 15 percent of homosexual priests are sexually active.
If all homosexual clergy were to leave the U.S. Catholic Church now, the church would lose one-third of its bishops as well, added Mr. Sipe, whose new book on priestly sexual abuse dating back to the fourth century, comes out Nov. 15.
Father Haley says homosexuality is at the root of the huge priestly sex-abuse crisis in which 81 percent of the cases involved victims who were males younger than 18, according to a USCCB investigation.
"Isn't the huge amounts of AIDS among the clergy a symptom of the problem?" he asked, citing a 2000 Kansas City Star estimate of the rate of AIDS deaths among priests that is at least four times that of the general population. "These are guys who are supposed to be celibate, virtually chaste and modest.
"But I've seen priests put on cologne, dress up and go on dates with guys."
He wonders whether Pope John Paul II understands this.
"I would ask him, 'Your Holiness, is it proper to hire these men or not?' " Father Haley said. "You have to question whether or not these guys even have the rudiments of the faith."
The Catholic Church teaches that homosexuality is an "intrinsically disordered" condition and, on Oct. 25, released a document saying such behavior "is not consistent with moral law." But it has no formal prohibition against homosexual priests. A Feb. 2, 1961, Vatican directive does say that "advancement to religious vows and ordination should be barred to those who are afflicted with evil tendencies to homosexuality or pederasty."
In March 2002, as the clergy sex-abuse scandal in Boston assumed national proportions, Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls told the New York Times that, "People with these inclinations just cannot be ordained."
He added, "That does not imply a final judgment on people with homosexuality ... but you just cannot be in this field."
That same year, Pope John Paul II told Brazilian bishops to be extremely careful when screening men for the priesthood so as to avoid "deviations in their affections."
"It is an ongoing struggle to make sure the Catholic priesthood is not dominated by homosexual men," Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the USCCB, told the Associated Press.
Father Haley says the problem goes straight to the top.
"Loverde had said to me there's nothing wrong [with homosexuality] as long as you're celibate," he said. "So I said there would be nothing wrong with me living with nuns the rest of my life as long as I am celibate. He just looked at me."
Support from home
Northern Virginia Catholics have demonstrated outside Bishop Loverde's chancery, sent Father Haley 600 letters of support, contributed money to help defer his legal costs and set up a supportive Web site: www.truthinarlington.com.
"I know Father Haley to be a dedicated, holy priest," said a former member of St. Mark Catholic Church in Vienna, Va., where the priest served from 1987 to 1991.
"He impressed me with his reverence during Mass and excellent homilies, which have been always true to the Gospel. He was well-liked and well-respected in our parish," she said in an interview on the condition of anonymity.
She attributed his current troubles to "his zeal for the church," adding, "He wants it pure and holy."
Michael Gray, a parishioner at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Fredericksburg, Father Haley's last parish, said he was "a very good priest."
"He's a brilliant speaker. He's the best. There wasn't anything wrong with him. He just told the truth. He just stood up, and look where it's gotten him. He's been sent to limbo."
Charles Molineaux, a Catholic lawyer from McLean, buttonholed Bishop Loverde about Father Haley when he spotted the prelate at a funeral this spring.
"Loverde told me I needed to have patience," he said. "I said, 'Well, you know, bishop, justice delayed is justice denied.' "
"At that point, he blew his stack. He said I was being judgmental. I said, 'Well, I am a lawyer, and we make judgment calls, and you are being unjust.' "
Many local Catholics were shocked to read about two priests exposed in the deposition Father Haley gave in the Lambert divorce lawsuit, which the diocese unsuccessfully tried to seal.
The Rev. William J. Erbacher of St. Lawrence Catholic Church in Franconia resigned soon after the deposition revealed that he embezzled church funds and collected homosexual pornography featuring young boys. The diocese has never revealed the results of two audits of Father Erbacher, one conducted by the diocese and the other by the Internal Revenue Service.
St. Stephen the Martyr Church in Middleburg, Va., takes phone messages and mail for him.
The Rev. Daniel Hamilton, pastor of St. Mary's Church, resigned after the deposition claimed he kept a collection of sadomasochistic and homosexual pornography in his rectory bedroom. After a psychiatric evaluation for what the bishop termed his "improper activity," he went to live at St. Francis de Sales Church in Kilmarnock, Va.
The diocese lists both men as on leaves of absence. Father Haley said he provided Bishop Loverde incriminating material about six other priests in the diocese, plus additional names culled from e-mails in Father Erbacher's files.
"There were homosexual jokes being sent not only to men around the diocese, but to priests around the country," he said.
Which is why, Father Haley said, he was summoned to the diocesan chancery on that October afternoon in 2001, given four hours to vacate his rectory and ordered by the bishop to remain silent.
The bishop's only public response to Father Haley's charges came a year later — in Sept. 14, 2002, and Dec. 3, 2002, letters defending his actions after the story hit the newspapers and TV.
"I want every parishioner in this diocese to know that allegations by some in the media stating that I have ignored priestly misconduct are absolutely false," he wrote.
"While Father Haley was always free to 'go over my head' and bring his accusations and criticisms to other ecclesiastical authorities, he chose instead to resort to the media."
Several of Father Haley's advocates suggest that Bishop Loverde got advice on priestly silencing from Altoona-Johnstown, Pa., Bishop Joseph Adamec. Bishop Adamec's diocesan newspaper, the Catholic Register, ran a front-page photo of the two bishops on May 5, 2003, and informed readers that Bishop Loverde had been invited to speak in the diocese.
On Sept. 9, 1999, Bishop Adamec forbade a local priest, the Rev. Philip Saylor, from talking about the diocese's track record on sexual-abuse cases. Father Saylor was given a canonical "precept of silence," the same as was given to Father Haley, and threatened with excommunication if he disobeyed.
The bishop posted the order on his Web site, www.diocesealtjtn.org/news, and wrote a March 17, 2003, letter to the Wall Street Journal defending his decision. The bishop was under some pressure, because the Tribune-Democrat in Johnstown had published in June 2002 an investigation saying the diocese had allowed at least 10 pedophile priests to continue working while abusing hundreds of boys.
"There's a point where you have to put your faith on the line," Father Haley said. "You have to put your life at risk. I am willing to die for this. I am willing to stand up for the truth. Someday, this will all come out. The abuse scandal will seem small compared to this."
By Julia Duin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Starting today, 290 of the nation's Catholic bishops will meet at the Capitol Hyatt for their yearly business meeting and to tie up loose ends on the massive sexual-abuse crisis that has shaken the U.S. Catholic Church to its core in the past two years.
Although it's been less than a year since the church revealed that there were 10,667 cases of abuse committed by 4,392 priests in a 50-year period, the message at the meeting will be that the crisis is under control.
But it's far from over, says a local Catholic priest who says the true source of the crisis is a priesthood that is "honeycombed" with homosexual clerics, especially in the Diocese of Arlington.
However, attempts by the Rev. James Haley, 48, to persuade his bishop of the problem have backfired. After hearing from the priest about numerous instances of homosexual activity among diocesan clergy, Arlington Bishop Paul Loverde ordered the priest silenced Oct. 23, 2001. This "precept of silence" — usually only employed during church trial proceedings — is rarely used to silence a whistleblower.
Thus, in the past three years, Father Haley's case, which also involves accusations of sexual misconduct against him, has become a cause celebre among many Catholics in the Diocese of Arlington.
It's also attracted the attention of the Vatican, which summoned him to appear before an ecclesiastical court in March. Church officials held two more hearings on the matter this summer and last week scheduled a fourth hearing in conjunction with the bishops' meeting. Less than 24 hours later, after the priest, now living several states away, had bought nonrefundable plane tickets to Washington, the meeting was canceled suddenly.
Father Haley says his only crime is his insistence that homosexual priests, not solely pedophiles, are at the root of the sexual-abuse crisis. The Catholic priesthood is demoralized, he says, by groups of homosexual clerics who control who gets admitted to seminary, which men get nominated for bishop and which priests get the plum parishes.
Based on his 17 years in the priesthood, he estimates that 60 percent of the Diocese of Arlington's 127 diocesan priests are homosexuals, which is high compared with national estimates of 30 percent to 50 percent from other authorities on the priesthood.
As his prospects of returning to life as a parish priest dwindle, he has amassed reams of tapes, videos, photographs, e-mail messages and 1,200 pages of documents for a tell-all book on homosexuality and the priesthood.
"I am astounded the bishops will protect these guys, promote them, even make them bishops," he says. "This is a huge moral issue, and if the bishops aren't clear on this, the pope needs to rule on it.
"People will say there's nothing wrong with homosexual priests as long as they are celibate. Well, that is a totally naive statement and totally wrong."
Backlash
Father Haley, who is living on a $1,700 a month stipend from the Arlington Diocese and relies on his motorcycle for transport, says his troubles began after several confrontations with his bishop over the priest's charges that homosexuals were indulged by the diocese.
Bishop Loverde, in turn, has leveled several charges at the priest, ranging from sexual misconduct to talking with the press. He has turned the case over to the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, overseen by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
The cardinal asked Bishop Thomas G. Doran of Rockford, Ill., to preside at an ecclesiastical court, which has met in three closed sessions this year. Once the case is wrapped up, it will be forwarded to the Vatican for judgment.
Bishop Doran was "supportive," Father Haley says, but he told the priest, "We cannot discuss the homosexual issue because there are people above us who don't think it's a problem."
"He also explained to me: Even if I was to win this hearing, Loverde would appeal this to another [Vatican] congregation. If I lose, I cannot appeal it, but if I win, he can appeal. So three to four years might pass."
Although Bishop Doran's office did not respond to several requests for comment, the Rev. Arthur Espelage, executive coordinator of the Canon Law Society, an Alexandria-based group of 1,500 specialists in church law and court procedures, says Bishop Doran's intervention means that the Vatican is concerned.
"This is a lot more serious than Bishop Loverde being ticked off at Haley," he says.
But Stephen Brady of the watchdog group Roman Catholic Faithful says Father Haley "made Loverde look bad, so they will make him pay a price by dragging this case out as long as they want."
"The bishops defend pedophile priests by saying canon law forbids them from removing them without just cause," he says. "But if someone like Father Haley embarrasses a bishop, the church ignores canon law and throws him out."
War of words
When questioned by The Washington Times on Sept. 8, Bishop Loverde refused to discuss the case and Father Haley's accusations.
"The canonical process is undergoing," he said, "and I cannot comment on it."
However, he has resurrected some 1995 sexual-misconduct charges against Father Haley made when the Most Rev. John R. Keating was bishop of the diocese.
The sexual-misconduct charge, Father Haley says, was from a 1994 conversation with a female friend, who, while describing the effects of her breast cancer, placed the priest's hand on where the surgery had taken place.
Although the woman and her attorney both refused comment when contacted by The Washington Times, the priest says, "There was no sexual misconduct."
"I've never had sex in my entire life," he says.
Bishop Keating found Father Haley not guilty of impropriety and assigned him a post as assistant pastor at All Saints Catholic Church in Manassas, the largest church in the Washington area with 20,000 members.
He was planning to promote the priest into a church pastorship in Sterling, when he died suddenly in Rome in 1998, says the Rev. James R. Gould, former vocations director for the diocese.
Father Haley is "a good man and a good priest," Father Gould said. "I am very concerned for him. It is still my hope to have him back in the priesthood, and he is always welcome with me."
Father Haley never got his promotion. According to a 233-page deposition filed July 24, 2002, in Arlington County Circuit Court, the priest became aware of an affair between a married parishioner, Nancy Lambert, and the Rev. James Verrecchia, then pastor of All Saints and Father Haley's boss. Mrs. Lambert became pregnant with Father Verrecchia's child, divorced her husband, then married the priest in the spring of 2000. Mr. Verrecchia is now parish administrator at Holy Innocents Episcopal Church in Atlanta.
Jim Lambert, the divorced husband of Nancy Lambert, then filed a $5 million suit against the diocese on the grounds that Bishop Loverde knew of the affair months before the priest was ordered to stop seeing Mrs. Lambert.
The person who informed the bishop about the affair in June 1999 was Father Haley.
In the 2002 deposition, which Roman Catholic Faithful has posted at www.rcf.org, Father Haley also revealed sexually graphic details about other priests in the diocese.
"The bishop said there is nothing wrong with these guys," he recalled. "I said, 'You haven't lived with them.' "
The Arlington Diocese is one of a few in the country that refuses — at least on paper — to sponsor homosexual applicants for seminary. Most dioceses admit such applicants with a variety of sexual histories, although the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) will reconsider this policy at its June meeting in Chicago.
Father Haley contends that Bishop Loverde is loath to enforce diocesan policy, which was installed by his predecessor, Bishop Keating.
"I was never asked by my bishop if I was gay," Father Haley said. Bishop Loverde "told me he had no right to ask that question, but I said you have a right to ask that question if you are putting men together [in parish rectories] who are sexually attracted to each other."
Root of the problem
The Rev. Donald Cozzens, author of the 2000 book "The Changing Face of the Priesthood," estimates 50 percent of all Catholic priests are homosexual.
Psychotherapist Richard Sipe, a former Catholic priest who has written and spoken widely on the priesthood, says 15 percent of homosexual priests are sexually active.
If all homosexual clergy were to leave the U.S. Catholic Church now, the church would lose one-third of its bishops as well, added Mr. Sipe, whose new book on priestly sexual abuse dating back to the fourth century, comes out Nov. 15.
Father Haley says homosexuality is at the root of the huge priestly sex-abuse crisis in which 81 percent of the cases involved victims who were males younger than 18, according to a USCCB investigation.
"Isn't the huge amounts of AIDS among the clergy a symptom of the problem?" he asked, citing a 2000 Kansas City Star estimate of the rate of AIDS deaths among priests that is at least four times that of the general population. "These are guys who are supposed to be celibate, virtually chaste and modest.
"But I've seen priests put on cologne, dress up and go on dates with guys."
He wonders whether Pope John Paul II understands this.
"I would ask him, 'Your Holiness, is it proper to hire these men or not?' " Father Haley said. "You have to question whether or not these guys even have the rudiments of the faith."
The Catholic Church teaches that homosexuality is an "intrinsically disordered" condition and, on Oct. 25, released a document saying such behavior "is not consistent with moral law." But it has no formal prohibition against homosexual priests. A Feb. 2, 1961, Vatican directive does say that "advancement to religious vows and ordination should be barred to those who are afflicted with evil tendencies to homosexuality or pederasty."
In March 2002, as the clergy sex-abuse scandal in Boston assumed national proportions, Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls told the New York Times that, "People with these inclinations just cannot be ordained."
He added, "That does not imply a final judgment on people with homosexuality ... but you just cannot be in this field."
That same year, Pope John Paul II told Brazilian bishops to be extremely careful when screening men for the priesthood so as to avoid "deviations in their affections."
"It is an ongoing struggle to make sure the Catholic priesthood is not dominated by homosexual men," Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the USCCB, told the Associated Press.
Father Haley says the problem goes straight to the top.
"Loverde had said to me there's nothing wrong [with homosexuality] as long as you're celibate," he said. "So I said there would be nothing wrong with me living with nuns the rest of my life as long as I am celibate. He just looked at me."
Support from home
Northern Virginia Catholics have demonstrated outside Bishop Loverde's chancery, sent Father Haley 600 letters of support, contributed money to help defer his legal costs and set up a supportive Web site: www.truthinarlington.com.
"I know Father Haley to be a dedicated, holy priest," said a former member of St. Mark Catholic Church in Vienna, Va., where the priest served from 1987 to 1991.
"He impressed me with his reverence during Mass and excellent homilies, which have been always true to the Gospel. He was well-liked and well-respected in our parish," she said in an interview on the condition of anonymity.
She attributed his current troubles to "his zeal for the church," adding, "He wants it pure and holy."
Michael Gray, a parishioner at St. Mary's Catholic Church in Fredericksburg, Father Haley's last parish, said he was "a very good priest."
"He's a brilliant speaker. He's the best. There wasn't anything wrong with him. He just told the truth. He just stood up, and look where it's gotten him. He's been sent to limbo."
Charles Molineaux, a Catholic lawyer from McLean, buttonholed Bishop Loverde about Father Haley when he spotted the prelate at a funeral this spring.
"Loverde told me I needed to have patience," he said. "I said, 'Well, you know, bishop, justice delayed is justice denied.' "
"At that point, he blew his stack. He said I was being judgmental. I said, 'Well, I am a lawyer, and we make judgment calls, and you are being unjust.' "
Many local Catholics were shocked to read about two priests exposed in the deposition Father Haley gave in the Lambert divorce lawsuit, which the diocese unsuccessfully tried to seal.
The Rev. William J. Erbacher of St. Lawrence Catholic Church in Franconia resigned soon after the deposition revealed that he embezzled church funds and collected homosexual pornography featuring young boys. The diocese has never revealed the results of two audits of Father Erbacher, one conducted by the diocese and the other by the Internal Revenue Service.
St. Stephen the Martyr Church in Middleburg, Va., takes phone messages and mail for him.
The Rev. Daniel Hamilton, pastor of St. Mary's Church, resigned after the deposition claimed he kept a collection of sadomasochistic and homosexual pornography in his rectory bedroom. After a psychiatric evaluation for what the bishop termed his "improper activity," he went to live at St. Francis de Sales Church in Kilmarnock, Va.
The diocese lists both men as on leaves of absence. Father Haley said he provided Bishop Loverde incriminating material about six other priests in the diocese, plus additional names culled from e-mails in Father Erbacher's files.
"There were homosexual jokes being sent not only to men around the diocese, but to priests around the country," he said.
Which is why, Father Haley said, he was summoned to the diocesan chancery on that October afternoon in 2001, given four hours to vacate his rectory and ordered by the bishop to remain silent.
The bishop's only public response to Father Haley's charges came a year later — in Sept. 14, 2002, and Dec. 3, 2002, letters defending his actions after the story hit the newspapers and TV.
"I want every parishioner in this diocese to know that allegations by some in the media stating that I have ignored priestly misconduct are absolutely false," he wrote.
"While Father Haley was always free to 'go over my head' and bring his accusations and criticisms to other ecclesiastical authorities, he chose instead to resort to the media."
Several of Father Haley's advocates suggest that Bishop Loverde got advice on priestly silencing from Altoona-Johnstown, Pa., Bishop Joseph Adamec. Bishop Adamec's diocesan newspaper, the Catholic Register, ran a front-page photo of the two bishops on May 5, 2003, and informed readers that Bishop Loverde had been invited to speak in the diocese.
On Sept. 9, 1999, Bishop Adamec forbade a local priest, the Rev. Philip Saylor, from talking about the diocese's track record on sexual-abuse cases. Father Saylor was given a canonical "precept of silence," the same as was given to Father Haley, and threatened with excommunication if he disobeyed.
The bishop posted the order on his Web site, www.diocesealtjtn.org/news, and wrote a March 17, 2003, letter to the Wall Street Journal defending his decision. The bishop was under some pressure, because the Tribune-Democrat in Johnstown had published in June 2002 an investigation saying the diocese had allowed at least 10 pedophile priests to continue working while abusing hundreds of boys.
"There's a point where you have to put your faith on the line," Father Haley said. "You have to put your life at risk. I am willing to die for this. I am willing to stand up for the truth. Someday, this will all come out. The abuse scandal will seem small compared to this."
posted by dannoynted1 | 4:02 AM
3 Comments:
The reason you ask this question,is because???
you found this interesting because ......newspaper,microfish,
digital broadcasting,until every preying freak warped by the fact that a choice to decide has been made to ride in a vehicle, harper's the uses of religion to promote the guise of "saving souls" to further personal agenda.
Some people might take a much broader, theological, psychological or sociological approach to the problem of homosexual priests and bishops. I prefer to stay on the more specific but lethal problem in the indefensible practice of placing homosexual priests into living situations and associations with other men - thereby creating a double moral standard for heterosexual vs. homosexual priests.
The essay is a brief logical explanation of the inherent conundrum concerning that problem.
The Real Story about Celibacy
Rev. James R. Haley
Let me see if I have this completely “straight” from my Catholic moral training:
Mr. X, a heterosexual man, can only become a priest if he makes a vow of celibacy – if he vows to remain unmarried to a woman.
With his priestly vow of celibacy per se he does not, as is frequently believed and wrongly reported, make a vow to refrain from sex. But since he vows to remain unmarried, he is required by his Catholic faith to refrain from sex. He must remain chaste – he cannot have sex because, according to his Catholic faith, sex outside of marriage is morally wrong.
ü Since he cannot have sex, he is taught by his Catholic faith that he should be modest in his relations with women - he should observe conventional and prudent proprieties in his speech, behavior and dress around women.
ü Since he should be prudent in his associations with women, he is instructed by his Catholic faith that he should avoid the temptations inherent in certain situations, relationships and behaviors – he should avoid the near occasions of sin with women.
ü Since he should avoid the near occasions of sin, he is taught by his Catholic faith that it would be wrong for him, without a compelling reason, to live with women, or to associate exclusively with women in situations outside of his work or the necessities of his ministry, or to develop particularly close, or personal, or secret, or intimate relationships with women. And of course it would be wrong for him to access pornography as a substitute for the sex he cannot have.
If he were to engage in such imprudent living arrangements, associations and behaviors, and if these improper situations were not kept wickedly secret, they would rightly create a scandal for the faithful who would, quite correctly, believe that such imprudent living arrangements, associations and behaviors would naturally lead to serious sins with women in thoughts, words and deeds. And thus these situations would seem to violate the intent and the spirit of his priestly vow of celibacy - to remain unmarried - to remain personally, emotionally and intimately un-associated with a woman.
Such imprudent living arrangements, associations and behaviors could eventually lead to the direct violation of his priestly vow of celibacy by leading to a scandalous and sinful marriage between the priest and "that woman." According to the canon law of the Church, such a marriage would not be recognized as a valid marriage, and the consequence to the priest would be an immediate removal from ecclesiastical office by virtue of the law itself (Canon 194).
I know many heterosexual priests who have suffered such a fate.
Mr. Y, a homosexual man, can only become a priest if he makes a vow of celibacy - if he vows to remain unmarried to a woman.
He does not vow to remain unmarried to a man because, according to his Catholic faith, he can never marry a man - he cannot vow to give up what he cannot have in the first place.
Therefore, Mr. Y's priestly vow of celibacy is an easy, ludicrous and utterly pointless promise for him to make since he does not want to be married to a woman. (It wasn't so easy, ludicrous or utterly pointless, however, for Mr. X.)
With his priestly vow of celibacy per se he does not, as is frequently believed and wrongly reported, make a vow to refrain from sex. He makes a vow to remain unmarried. But since he has vowed to remain unmarried to a woman, and since he cannot validly “marry” another man, he is required by his Catholic faith to remain perpetually chaste - he can never have sex.
ü Since he can never have sex, he is taught by his Catholic faith that he should be exceptionally modest - he should observe conventional and prudent proprieties in his speech, behavior and dress around other men.
ü Since he should be prudent in his associations with men, he is instructed by his Catholic faith that he should avoid the temptations inherent in certain situations, relationships and behaviors - he should avoid the near occasions of sin with men.
ü Since he should avoid the near occasions of sin, he is taught by his Catholic faith that it would be wrong for him, without a compelling reason, to live with other men, or to associate exclusively with men in situations outside of his work or the necessities of his ministry, or to develop particularly close, or personal, or secret, or intimate relationships with other men. And of course it would be wrong for him to access pornography as a substitute for the sex he can never have.
If he were to engage in such imprudent living arrangements, associations and behaviors, and if these improper situations were not kept wickedly secret, they would rightly create a scandal for the faithful who would, quite correctly, believe that such imprudent living arrangements, associations and behaviors would "naturally" lead to serious sins with other men in thoughts, words and deeds.
However, in Mr. Y's case, unlike Mr. X’s, such imprudent and immoral living arrangements, associations and behaviors could not be said to violate the spirit and intent of his utterly pointless and ludicrous priestly vow of celibacy - to remain unmarried to a woman - to remain personally, emotionally and intimately un-associated with a woman.
Such imprudent living arrangements, associations and behaviors could easily, however, lead to many personal, lifelong, secret, exclusive, intimate and emotionally fulfilling relationships with other men – even to many homosexual relationships in which there is no sexual contact and thus those relationships that could be considered “celibate” by using a much more confined and secular definition of that word – certainly not the fuller definition used in the priestly vow of celibacy to which Father X is held bound.
If Father Y attempts to “marry” his homosexual partner, the Church would certainly not recognize the “marriage.” In fact, the Church would not even recognize such a union as an attempt at “marriage.” And since such a union would not be considered a “marriage,” there would be no immediate removal from ecclesiastical office if such a union formed. (Unless, I suppose, the homosexual priest was foolish enough to attempt a “civil union” in the state of Massachusetts.)
Canon 1055, and its frequent application in marriage tribunals, exclusively defines marriage as a covenant between a man and a woman. The reality of a personal, committed, exclusive, intimate, emotionally fulfilling and even non-sexual relationship between a homosexual priest and another man would therefore present a very novel and problematic case, because canon law never mentions homosexual priests at all. Nor does it mention their potential for unions that for-all-intents-and-purposes could be considered quasi-marriages. It is as if neither homosexual priests nor their intense or intimate unions ever existed in reality.
What is the result of this morality in the real world of the Catholic rectory?
The outcome is that Fr Y, the homosexual priest, is potentially allowed to have, certainly not prevented from having, one might even say continually tempted to have, many personal, lifelong, secret, exclusive, intimate and emotionally fulfilling relationships with other men, whom he can even live with, and associate with almost constantly.
Fr. X, the heterosexual priest, on the other hand, is discouraged from having, forbidden to have, and actively prevented from having such personal, lifelong, secret, exclusive, intimate, and emotionally fulfilling relationships with women, whom he certainly cannot live with, nor with whom he can constantly associate.
Said simply: Fr. X, the heterosexual priest, cannot live his life with women. Fr. Y, the homosexual priest, is conveniently "forced" to live his life with other men.
So what is the compelling reason for such duplicitous moral standards? What is the compelling reason that Fr. Y is forced into such imprudent and foolish living arrangements for perhaps the entirety of his priestly life? Well, the direct reason is that he is forced to live in such imprudent arrangements by his shepherd and moral guide, the bishop who assigns him to his rectory, or by the abbot who directs his religious community. And in placing their priests in living situations together, the bishop or abbot is following the dictates and recommendations of ecclesiastical documents and of canon law, which encourage priests to live together, to support one another, and to closely associate with one another throughout their priestly lives.
By assigning religious men to live only with men, and religious women to live only with women, the bishop or abbot is apparently also following the tradition and moral prudence, or one can more properly say, the moral necessity, of keeping religious men and women separated from one another - a very prudent practice because, in the words of an honest speaker concerning human nature and Christian love: “There is nothing more naturally attractive for a Christian man in love with God, than a Christian woman in love with God.”
But that same-sex living assignment quickly and clearly runs seriously afoul when the sexual orientations and desires are reversed from their norm and, even more so, when those sexual orientations remain hidden from the outside world – that leads to the very improper, imprudent and secret situation that the Church was trying to prevent. In other words: There is nothing more “naturally” attractive for a homosexual man in love with God, than another homosexual man in love with God.
So ironically, tragically, inexplicably, it is the Church itself, the model and guide to moral life, that is encouraging, advocating and requiring the perpetual near occasion of sin for homosexual priests, and, in turn, creating an extremely uncomfortable situation for the heterosexual priests who are not interested in forming one of those personal, lifelong, secret, exclusive, intimate and emotionally fulfilling relationships with other men. And this non-interest from the heterosexual priest is a frequent cause of alienation, resentment and bitterness from the homosexual priests who would prefer to live with, and associate with, other homosexual priests, especially when so many other homosexual priests are afforded that “secret” privilege. In simple terms: the straight priest is neither wanted nor welcome among the homosexual priests.
Of course, all of this moral double-dealing leads to many situations of outright hypocrisy and utter dishonesty. For example, how can a homosexual priest who lives with another man, rightly tell the young “couple” in high school that it would be morally dangerous to spend so much exclusive and private time together, or tell the college kids that it would be improper for them to share intimate coed living arrangements, or to instruct the “couple in love” that they should not be living together? A priest should not only be the teacher of correct moral behavior, but should also be the model of that correct moral behavior. What is he supposed to say to these enquiring minds that search for the Catholic truth from their priests and bishops: “Just look at me and my life. It’s perfectly ok to do what you are doing, just as long as you remain celibate?” Or let me now carefully qualify that: “just as long as you have kept celibate for three years, and are willing to keep your sexual orientation and desires secret from others in your public life.”
What nonsense. What utter moral nonsense!
It seems to me that the double celibacy requirement has encouraged homosexual men in larger and larger percentages that, as you describe, are more than happy to "give up" traditional marriage for the priesthood. From what you have described, as power structures have evolved through the years in the Church, homosexual men have become favored. Their tendencies and nature were hidden from the public under the quiet cloak of "celibacy." As the pressure of greater numbers and power of homosexual men in the Church gains, the numbers of heterosexual men further decline.
Your document describes the dilemma and the extreme irony that the current situation is for many - a curtain or front behind which many homosexual priests can hide. Could it be entitled something like: Can a homosexual priest be celibate? [Anonymous]
Why hate women?
Mary Magdalene of course.
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