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November 8, 2018, (LifeSiteNews) – National Public Radio (NPR) has attempted to saddle traditional Catholics with blame for the Church’s clerical sex abuse problem while dismissing the presence of homosexual priests and prelates as the source of the Church’s current crisis. 

In a short, four-minute segment which aired Wednesday morning, the government-funded broadcaster said, “traditionalist Catholic media” which publishes articles “blaming sex abuse on gay priests” are wrong to do so because “researchers in the field say they’ve found no evidence linking clerical pedophilia to sexual orientation.”

Instead, “The only way to eliminate sex abuse is to wipe out the sense of entitlement and unaccountability enshrined in that culture so dear to conservatives: Clericalism,” declared NPR. 

NPR wants its listeners to think that clericalism is a trait of orthodox Catholics who embrace the teachings of the Church — including what it refers to as an “old boys network” of Catholic clergy — simultaneously inferring that progressive Catholics are above reproach. 

Wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong. 

But NPR didn’t stop there.

Evidently, the source of all the Church’s woes are “traditionalists.” The entire segment seems to serve no purpose other than to shift attention away from the current pontificate while protecting the agenda of progressives and homosexualists within the Roman Catholic Church. 

According to NPR, conservative, traditional Catholics are to blame for, well, everything, for every evil facing the Church inside and out. 

“Many of the Pope’s most vocal opponents are in the U.S., attacking him in tweets, blogs, and conservative media,” because, according to NPR, they have been “emboldened” by this year’s sex abuse revelations.

“Blame escalated this summer after ‘disgruntled’ former Vatican diplomat, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, accused Francis of covering up abuse and called for his resignation,” asserted NPR. 

“That’s kind of a perfect storm that has really tossed the Pope’s pontificate around,” said David Gibson, Director at Fordham University’s Center on Religion, during the NPR segment. 

“This conservative opposition which is very much based in the United States has been able to use the anger — the widespread anger — over the sex abuse crisis to create even more difficulties and opposition to Pope Francis,” added Gibson. 

“Now there is no shame in launching attacks that were unthinkable under John Paul II, or Pope Benedict,” said Massimo Faggioli, professor of theology at Villanova University.  

Faggioli lamented to NPR via skype that only a handful of bishops defended Pope Francis against Vigano’s vitriolic attack. “There is some kind of undeclared schism. As a church historian, I don’t remember anything like that happening in these last six centuries.” 

“So much of this scandal was seeded and sewn in the pontificate of Pope John Paul II,” said Gibson. There’s a reluctance among many to go unearth all of that because, obviously, the Pope has been canonized and he’s Saint John Paul II.”

While, of course, the pontificate of St. Pope John Paul II must be held to the same standard of scrutiny as every other pontificate when it comes to the mishandling of sex abuse, but this is clearly a ploy to deflect attention away from Pope Francis. It was Francis who, at the outset of his pontificate, restored known homosexual predator Theodore McCarrick to high-profile public ministry, installed Fr. James Martin, SJ, America’s chief promoter of the normalization of homosexuality in the church as a consultant to the Vatican office of communications, has appointed homosexual-friendly bishops and archbishops and cardinals, and has accused sexual abuse victims of slander.   

NPR is wrong 

The problematic “sense of entitlement and unaccountability” which NPR points to comes not from clericalism, but from the narcissism which is a hallmark of homosexuality, and which plagues homosexual priests and prelates in a particular way.

One only has to think of abusers like former cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who without pangs of conscience, brazenly abused young men and seminarians for decades, thinking only of his own sexual fulfillment.  He risked bringing horrific scandal on the Church while endangering the souls of the young men for whom he lusted, while utterly abandoning his role as pastor and shepherd.  

To this day, McCarrick’s narcissistic self-love chooses pride over repentance.  He remains the prime example of the church’s narcissistic homosexual clergy problem.

Properly attributed, clericalism — that “sense of entitlement and unaccountability” — applies not to those priests who honor the magisterium of the Church, but to those who flagrantly disregard the magisterium, asserting their own interpretations of Church teaching.  They do not hold themselves accountable to God.  

NPR’s assertion that there is “no evidence linking clerical pedophilia to sexual orientation,” is objectively false.

A recently published study titled Is Catholic clergy sex abuse related to homosexual priests? by the Ruth Institute and authored by Fr. Paul Sullins shows that there is a correlation between the presence of a high proportion of homosexuals in the priesthood and the incidence of clergy sex abuse.  

The landmark report also examines how “homosexual subcultures” within Catholic seminaries may have contributed to creating an environment where homosexual clergy were more likely to abuse minors. 

With 80% of all clergy sexual abuse perpetrated on young males, the source of the problem is clearly neither clericalism nor the “traditionalist” Catholics NPR seeks to indict.  Active homosexual priests along with their prelate protectors are the epicenter of this earthquake rocking the Church.   

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Doug Mainwaring is a journalist for LifeSiteNews, an author, and a marriage, family and children's rights activist.  He has testified before the United States Congress and state legislative bodies, originated and co-authored amicus briefs for the United States Supreme Court, and has been a guest on numerous TV and radio programs.  Doug and his family live in the Washington, DC suburbs.