The newly elected head of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) said last week following his election he maintains the assertion that a relationship exists between the clergy sex abuse scandal and homosexual priests ordained in the Church.
Archbishop Timothy Broglio, the Archbishop of the Military Services, said in a press conference he continues to stand by his 2018 statement in which he stated the issue of homosexual priests is “certainly an aspect of the sexual crisis that can’t be denied,” LifeSiteNews reported.
“That’s certainly not to point a finger at anyone,” the archbishop added, “but I think it would be naïve to suggest that there’s no relationship between the two.”
In August 2018, military.com reported Captain Antonio Rigonan, a Catholic Air Force chaplain, allegedly stated during Mass that many priests who sexually abused children were “homosexuals,” a remark that prompted the wife of an officer to be outraged enough to contact Broglio, who oversees all Catholic pastoral ministries and services for over 220 U.S. military installations throughout the world.
Military.com reported the reaction of the officer’s wife to Broglio’s response:
Broglio’s response took her aback, she said. While he said he didn’t agree with Rigonan’s word choices, the archbishop wrote that he stood by the chaplain’s comments concerning homosexuality, according to a copy of the email reviewed by Military.com.
Broglio’s office confirmed the email’s authenticity.
“There is no question that the crisis of sexual abuse by priests in the USA is directly related to homosexuality,” Broglio wrote. “[Ninety percent] of those abused were boys aged 12 and over. That is no longer pedophilia.”
While the officer’s wife was offended by Broglio’s response, a spokesman for the Archdiocese for the Military Services said the number of cases of child sexual abuse by priests has “declined markedly” since 2002 but added that “even one case is too many.”
The spokesman also noted that Broglio was “simply reading the facts” when he responded to the officer’s wife.
“The archbishop believes that any abuse of anyone, regardless of his or her age, is a sin,” the spokesman said. “When it involves someone under 18 or a vulnerable adult, it is also a crime.”
According to military.com, the spokesman continued the issue of “homosexual attraction” must be acknowledged since most of the victims of sexual abuse by priests during the 20th century were males, age 12 and above.
“Otherwise,” he asked, “would one not expect that the victims would have included more females?”
As LifeSiteNews observed, Broglio’s comments drew fire from leftwing Catholic journalists, such as National Catholic Reporter’s Josh McElwee and New Ways Ministry (NWM), who tweeted condemnation of the archbishop’s remarks.
Asked about prior comments that gay clergy were responsible for the Catholic clergy abuse crisis, new US Catholic bishop president Archbishop Broglio claims: "It's certainly an aspect of the sexual crisis that can't be denied." Academic studies have found no such relationship.
— Joshua McElwee (@joshjmcelwee) November 15, 2022
NWM mischaracterized Broglio’s remarks, stating the archbishop “repeated the false claim that homosexuality is a cause of sexual abuse in the church.” Broglio, however, did not say homosexuality “causes” sexual abuse. Instead, he said the clergy sexual abuse scandal was “directly related to homosexuality.”
2/4 The newly-elected Archbishop Timothy Broglio continues to promote this false claim despite it being debunked numerous times. This is just one harmful claim within his strident history of opposing #LGBTQ equality. #USCCB22
— New Ways Ministry (@NewWaysMinistry) November 17, 2022
4/4 At a press conference yesterday, Archbishop Broglio was asked about his previous comments on the connection between homosexuality and sexual abuse by priests. He said: "I think it’s certainly an aspect of the sexual abuse crisis that can’t be denied…" #USCCB22
— New Ways Ministry (@NewWaysMinistry) November 17, 2022
Similarly, Kevin Clarke of the Jesuit publication America Magazine wrote:
A study released in 2011 by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, commissioned by the bishops, had found that homosexuality was not a cause of abuse by priests, which researchers argued were crimes of opportunity by pedophiles.
“Claims that professional studies have found that homosexual clergy are not the major source [of] clerical sexual abuse are based on misinterpretations of the John Jay Report,” LifeSiteNews noted, however. “While homosexuality was not identified in the report as the cause of the abuse, the vast majority of abuse cases were committed against young males.”
“Grand jury reports and independent studies have revealed that priests with same-sex attraction have been responsible for 80 percent of clergy sexual predation over the decades,” LifeSiteNews added, pointing as well to its analysis of the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report that found “the vast majority of reported sexual predator priests were homosexuals, most of whom preyed on teenage boys.”
“Nearly three-quarters of the offending priests were homosexual, while only about a quarter were heterosexual,” LifeSiteNews noted. “Fewer than three percent of the victims were adults, and of those, most were young seminarians.”
“The numbers strongly suggested that the sexual abuse crisis within the U.S. Catholic Church stems from homosexuality, not pedophilia,” the news report stated.
In 2018, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the Vatican’s former Apostolic Nuncio to the United States, released an explosive letter that linked both the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse scandal, and subsequent coverups by various bishops, to an extensive “homosexual network” within the Church.
Following the release of Viganò’s bombshell letter, LGBTQ advocate and Jesuit priest Rev. James Martin, editor-at-large of America Magazine, referred to the firestorm that followed as a “witch hunt for gay priests.”
Nevertheless, even Martin admitted:
It is important to say that the majority (but not all) of the clerical abuse crimes were cases of priests preying on male adolescents and boys. Also, the majority (but not all) of the sexual harassment cases were men harassing other men or young men. Prescinding from the complex psychological questions of how much a person’s sexuality has to do with abuse, how much differentials in power do and how much proximity does, we should state clearly: Many priests abusers had a homosexual orientation.
“That is undeniable,” Martin asserted.
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Susan Berry, PhD, is national education editor at The Star News Network. Email tips to [email protected].
