KRAKOW, Poland, March 31, 2021 (LifeSiteNews) — A Polish priest and professor has suggested that a Synod of Bishops be called together to address the increasing number of homosexual prelates in the Church’s most prominent roles.
“The Church now needs to not pass over in silence the issue of homosexuality of many of her members (including highest-ranking), but rather a Synod devoted to the problem of homosexuality of her leaders,” writes Fr. Dariusz Oko in his most recent book.
“Things have gone so far that this truth cannot be kept a secret.”
Oko, the author of With the Pope against Homoheresy, has produced a sequel entitled Lavender Mafia: With the Popes and Bishops against the Homoclique in the Church.” The book, as yet unavailable in English, is a bestseller in Poland, where 32,000 copies have already been printed. The author kindly made the first chapter of his book available to LifeSiteNews in essay form.
Much of what Oko has written in “On the Need to Curb Homosexual Clans in the Church” will be distressingly familiar to readers. As he points out, both Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and Cardinal Maradiaga, among others, have admitted that there is a homosexual lobby in the Church. Unfortunately, says Oko, its members currently occupy the most important positions in the Church.
“Experts in the field know well that an essential ‘prerequisite’ to becoming a bishop is … belonging to the ‘clan,’ having homosexual tendencies or, at least, guaranteeing that one will not impair the rights of the Church homosexuals,” Oko writes. “These are unwritten yet necessary conditions that a candidate must fulfill …”
Oko, who spent 10 years outside Poland as a priest and is personally familiar with 70 countries, says that he has amassed ample evidence that the problem exists throughout the Church, thanks to a wide acquaintance with Catholics around the world, in different but relevant fields (like law enforcement), who tell him what they know of clerical homosexual misconduct.
Homosexual cliques are formed at the seminary level and either develop, or strengthen established “clans”, in the diocese and, especially, in the Vatican. Oko notes that men with deep-seated same-sex attraction are not supposed to be ordained at all, but that the seminary has been a tempting refuge for them, as well as a path to the establishment. Sadly, this involves the pretense that they have selflessly sacrificed marriage and fatherhood, beginning their clerical journey with a falsehood.
Unfortunately, even if they have a sincere desire to remain chaste, remaining so is difficult for these seminarians when they live with other men with same-sex attractions. Also, seminarians whom homosexual superiors perceive to be like them are promoted and protected. In this situation, it is unlikely that the same-sex attracted seminarians are going to develop spiritually, Oko believes.
The problem continues after ordination. Oko believes that fully 40% of American priests and 50% of American bishops have homosexual inclinations, leading to the priesthood being known in the U.S. as “a gay profession.” However, the priest believes that the prestigious Vatican diplomatic service has the worst reputation for men living a double-life: “It is due to the fact that staying in apostolic nunciatures in various countries makes hiding one’s unrestrained homosexual life quite easy,” he writes.
Oko also says that “honest bishops” are able to recognize “this kind of Vatican diplomat” and understand that they must protect boys and seminarians from him. However, the priest-professor believes that even the appointment of new bishops has begun to “lie in the hands of people who act against the basic teaching of the Church, her anthropological and moral norms.” This leads to corruption from the top down.
“When such people are put in key posts in the Church then the homomafia can, [as it were], renew and multiply more comfortably,” Oko writes.
“What is more, its members may treat the post of a bishop and other significant positions as a trophy which they deserve most of all,” he continues.
“Thus, the most significant posts in the Church belong to the people who are least fit for them. The higher the post, the worse the situation may be — in many high-profile positions such clergymen may even be a majority. Then terrible hypocrisy begins to rule on top of the Church and she starts to decay from the very core.”
The author believes that this is why nobody should expect action to be taken if homosexual abuse is reported to a nuncio or the Vatican, unless a journalist or civil prosecutor takes an interest. The evidence will be “lost” or destroyed and the overused rule of the “pontifical secret” will be used “to cover up serious offenses.”
A pastoral catastrophe
Oko does not mince words. He refers to the “homomafia” as a “parasite on the Church” which fattens itself at her expense. However, the priest also shows concern for the spiritual downward spiral of homosexual priests, as well as the “pastoral catastrophe” they are for their flock:
We must realize what it implies for themselves and the Church, what processes take place in them and in her. This is a crucial issue which has not, till now, been thought over by theologians or ministers. For those clergymen such a lifestyle implies a gradual process of spiritual self-destruction, increasing moral downfall — living in sin becomes a norm for them while ordinary decency is, at most, naivety and stupidity. Anyone, including a priest, can rationalize any evil they do, making up a theory that will justify their sin. However, in this way he reduces his chances of conversion even more, as he negates the very need for it. Despite their theories, such clergymen still realize how much their behavior is in contrast with the teaching of the Church and with what they preach (or should preach). They are aware that even a partial disclosure of this discrepancy may entail the loss of their position and various benefits. That is why they try to hide the truth about themselves under the guise of pious speeches and gestures (however artificial and dead they may be). They come down with a disease typical of clergy — hypocrisy; they live more and more like regular pharisees. Thus, they easily become “blind leaders of the blind” (Mt 15:14). They know well how much they may be reproached and accused, so they rarely present the requirements of the Gospel and teaching of the Church in a clear manner. Thus, they become a pastoral catastrophe: there is a spiral of downfall in which fallen priests and fallen laity pull each other down. This is a moral and doctrinal degradation, as especially now it seems that many heresies result from the clergy and laity being blinded and enslaved by appetites, sexual ones in particular.
The author is also not afraid to name names, and those of some notorious figures crop up often in the essay. Ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick; Archbishop Rembert Weakland; the late Cardinal Keith O’Brien of Edinburgh; and the late Cardinal Hans Groër of Vienna represent “the peak of the hierarchy” for Oko. He mentions also such influential figures as the Legion of Christ’s Marcial Maciel Degollado, Bishop Gustavo Oscar Zanchetta of Argentina; Archbishop Juliusz Paetz of Poland; Archbishop Robert Bezák of Slovakia; and Bishop Juan Barros Madrid of Chile.
Oko reminds his readers of the scandal caused by Poland’s Fr. Krzysztof Charamsa, who apparently was “on the verge” of being named a bishop when he outed himself to the media.
“What is publicly known is only the top of the iceberg,” the author writes, implicating homosexual bishops in the cover-up of the sexual abuse of children and teens.
“Almost all major scandals of the Church in recent decades, and those which are most discrediting, have been stirred up by clergymen who succumbed to their homosexual inclinations,” Oko states. “It is they who are most responsible for the impunity of many clergymen who are ephebophiles and pedophiles.”
Oko alleges that clerical abusers of boys were shielded by the homosexual mafia in the Church because they were members of the clan.
“Their homosexual colleagues and superiors found the lot of ‘the friends from the club’ far more important than that of the abused boys,” he writes.
“And yet we talk of people whose offenses have been disclosed by the victims, the media or the administration of justice whereas criminology suggests that only a minority of such cases is revealed, while real numbers are even greater,” he continues. “It is such people who contribute to a situation where many Church areas instead of salvation bring to mind hell.”
The cover-up would not have happened if the “clans” had not “overrun the structure of the Church,” Oko writes, and he deplores the “complete impunity” of the criminals and their enablers. Victims who confront the Church and the honest priests who fight for them “almost always end up powerless and defeated,” he says.
Meanwhile, Oko also believes that thousands of good seminarians have been slandered by the mafia so that they are never ordained, and that good priests and monks have been “humiliated, intimidated, and blackmailed” into silence. This has been a “great wrongdoing” to them and a “great loss to the Church.”
Role in the cover-up extended to Vatican meeting
Oko believes that the influence of the “gay lobby” in the higher echelons of the Church is so strong that it even covered up the role homosexuality plays in clerical sexual misconduct during an emergency Vatican meeting on the subject:
A graphic example of the power of homosexual clans in the Church was the Vatican Meeting on the Protection of Minors in the Church in 2019. Even though ca. 80 per cent of ephebophilic and pedophilic crimes committed by clergymen are carried out by clergymen with homosexual tendencies (that is why they concern male adolescents and boys), it was prohibited to emphasize this obvious link, this overrepresentation of homosexual clergymen and laymen [among] ephebophiles and pedophiles.
This is insolent, it is as if one organized a conference devoted to adult rape and forbade to say that the vast majority of offenders here are men, not women (so as not to stigmatize men). It is against reason and elementary sense of justice. It is yet another fiasco of the Church in front of the whole world, yet another “feat” of [the] homolobby, and at the same time a proof that what they have in mind is protecting themselves and not minors.
Oko recommends calling together a Synod to deal with the problem of clerical homosexual leaders in the Church. He believes that if nothing is done, they will make a serious attempt to change Church doctrine on homosexuality, as is already apparent in Germany. If the Church gives way on this, he warns, she “will destroy her authority herself, as many will begin to ask why [they should] listen to the Church at all, if she is going to yield to the world anyway, sooner or later succumbing to the atheistic sexual revolution.” He believes that some of the Catholics who will go along with this will do so not because they are homosexuals themselves but because they have yielded to propaganda.
“Learning about homosexuality under the tutelage of homosexual people is like learning about communism under the watchful eye of communists,” he writes.
“We, the citizens of Eastern Europe, know well what this means and observe with terror how Western media’s humbug becomes even more vicious — being more sophisticated — than that of the communist media,” he continues. “But the naive Western clergymen often do not realize the grievous consequences of their decisions. Perhaps they do not understand yet that to give in to sexual revolution is like giving in to the communist one.”
Oko envisions that the “Synod on the homosexuality of clergy” would create a safeguarding policy for such adults “vulnerable” to rapacious clergy as laymen, seminarians, and other clergy. It would also ensure that homosexual bishops should not be given positions of high authority, including oversight of a diocese. He believes that there should be a “fast track” to report prelates who abuse men subordinate to them, and that these adult victims should receive care from the Church. He believes that a bishop caught harassing “a cleric, priest or Swiss Guard ought to be removed from his post straight away” — just like the company manager who harasses a female employee.
Any regulations to stop such homosexual abuse and the homomafia must have teeth, however. Oko points out that the Church’s prohibition on men with deep-seated homosexual attractions entering seminaries has not stopped such men from being ordained and advancing through the ranks. He derives hope from those dioceses which have held the line, and writes that “this will be possible in the whole Church probably only when this control takes institutional form, a regular Office of the Holy See that will include zealous and righteous clergymen who [are] not members of the Lavender mafia.”
But right now, Oko believes that the clergy is divided into two categories: “The first, dominant class includes homosexual priests and bishops together with their acolytes (subordinate to them out of naivety, ignorance, fear or cynicism),” he writes.
“The second class comprises ‘workers’ that [are] non-homosexual priests,” he continues. “The members of the first class fill almost all crucial posts while the latter are intended to serve them and work in the most difficult and risky manner.”
He believes that the second group will decrease, for it is unlikely that anyone would like to enter the seminary or the religious life to live “in this servile way,” or that his parents would agree to it.
The state of the hierarchy today
Oko likens the situation in the Church to a serious disease, but says that it cannot be cured at once, and that right now some compromises must be made. He puts top priority on reserving the leadership of the Church to those men who are elevated for their true worth and sincere faith, not because they belong to the club. Again, Oko does not pull any punches when he declares that the existence of the homomafia
… explains why people from the top of [the] Church hierarchy sometimes appear to be on such low intellectual, moral, spiritual and ministerial level. What is more, they occasionally turn out to be criminals that ought to have spent many years in jail. This is also a reason why now and then they seem so weak, so unconvincing — they are of so little faith and conviction and as such hardly faithful. The fire of evangelical zeal rarely springs from the slough of double life. Such miracles scarcely happen. This often explains why such clergymen are so afraid of taking a clear stand and opposing those who attack Christianity. They have gone so far not because of their alleged merits but because of their faults and sins for which the lobby promoted them. As a result of their inclinations and faults they have many bad deeds on their conscience. This may deepen their fear that if they vigorously defended the Church and entered a major conflict with her enemies, certain disgracing facts would come to light. That is why they often choose to keep silent and be bland. Thus they seem more like frightened upstarts and opportunists than valiant Apostles of Jesus Christ who could risk a lot for Him. This is [a] great misfortune and loss for the whole community of believers who are being led by weak, inept and mendacious “apostles” and leaders. The Church which is so attacked from the outside and so rotten from the inside may all the more fall prey to her enemies.
Writing in a more hopeful vein, Oko then reminds readers that the “Lord Jesus did not create the Church as a gay club.” He counts upon the support of the Mother of God, the “countless saints,” and good clergymen. He compares the presence of the clerical mafia in the Church to organized crime, saying that just as the value of millions of Sicilians and their culture are not “nullified” by the Cosa Nostra and other organizations, so the value of the Church is not wiped out “by the power of the homosexual mafia.”
He also takes hope from the renewal of the priesthood in the USA, where corrupt seminaries were closed and a new generation of men inspired by St. John Paul II entered the good seminaries that remained. Oko observes that society has changed so much that fewer men with homosexual inclinations want clerical careers: they no longer want to hide, and they have many new opportunities in life. Finally, Oko says that now that the lavender mafia is no longer a secret, the problem can be dealt with.
The priest-professor offers some suggestions for beginning to solve the problem. He advocates extreme caution and not relying on ecclesiastical authorities to do anything about complaints of homosexual activity. He also dissuades readers from trying to convert the obdurate clerics but also from being intimidated by them. He suggests, instead, that faithful Catholics obtain and safeguard recordings and documents proving the clerics’ “criminal behavior authoritatively”
“Committed lay Catholics may use these materials skilfully as they wait for an opportunity that yields the best fruit,” Oko suggests. “Their actions may be particularly needed when a homosexual lobby endeavors to change [the] Church’s teaching on homosexuality, to turn homosexual heresy into a dogma, and dogmas into heresies.”
“These actions may also be especially useful when a member of this ‘club’ becomes aggressive, insolent and ruthless, menacing others, or when he is just about to shuffle up the ladder. Then one can describe in detail the history of his life and motives behind his actions.”
Oko reminds readers that even if she is ill, the Church is our mother, and we should fight for her. He ends his introductory essay by telling readers that anyone who does not oppose or “unmask” clerics who are involved in homosexuality is part of the problem.
“Opposing the homosexual mafia in the Church bravely and consistently derives not only from the care for people who are hurt, tormented and humiliated by the lobby of homosexual clergymen,” he writes. “Neither does it only derive from the concern about the Church as the community of Jesus’s disciples which is meant as a place of the truth, love and justice.”
“It also derives from the duty of one’s conscience to admonish those who sin gravely and hurt heartlessly. Anyone who knows about certain clergymen entangled in homosexuality, or about homosexual cliques’ activity in the Church, and is capable of opposing them and yet does not unmask them, might incur moral fault and contribute to the devastation of the Church by people who destroy her in a most horrifying manner.”