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  Wrestler Priests and Lapdog Editors
Cincinnati's West-Side Story

By Michael S. Rose
New Oxford Review [Cincinnati OH]
Downloaded June 13, 2005

Cincinnati's west-side is considered one of the most staunchly Catholic, family-oriented, and prolife neighborhoods of any urban area in the country — such as it is. Ironically, the slowly unfolding drama of priestly sex abuse scandals has tested the mettle of the faithful here like in few other places. Just a few years ago, Elder High School, arguably the primary icon of cultural Catholicism in this part of the city, was identified as a bastion of macho conservatism. For example, the all-boys Catholic high school, named after Cincinnati's 19th-century Archbishop William Henry Elder, consistently fields one of the most formidable football teams in Ohio, having recently won back-to-back state championships, and has produced professional athletes such as the New England Patriot's Dan Stricker. The parishes that feed into the school are home to blue-collar families who still consider the Church an integral part of their existence.

Since 2002, however, Elder's reputation has been tarnished by the revelation that five priests who formerly taught at the Cincinnati high school, including two former principals, have been suspended for substantiated allegations of sex abuse. One of them has since gone to jail, and a sixth abuser has since left the priesthood. Allegations from angry west-side Catholics charging that Elder High School was a "dumping ground" for abusive priests were met with a forceful rebuttal from the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. Dan Andriacco, spokesman for the Archdiocese, is himself an Elder alumnus. He suggested that the reason so many priests from his alma mater have turned out to be homosexual abusers stems from the fact that so many diocesan priests, at one time or another, have served at the school, a point that singularly failed to reassure the faithful.

Of course, by now, tales of the sexual abuse of minors by Catholic priests, and of bishops who look the other way, are commonplace. But in the majority of instances the scandal has been ill-defined as one of pedophilia, the sexual abuse of pre-pubescent boys and girls. It is no coincidence that the U.S. bishops and their consultants, many of whom are well-known advocates of advancing a homosexualist agenda in the Church, have made a concerted effort to package the sex abuse crisis as a "pedophile scandal" rather than what it truly is: a product of predatory homosexuality.

This is a reality that can only be understood by way of illustration. The Archdiocese of Cincinnati is led by two bishops who have for many years been open proponents of so-called homosexual rights and "gay" tolerance programs. Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk, for example, has repeatedly spoken out in support of a city charter amendment which bars the city of Cincinnati from passing a law that would exclude homosexuals, lesbians, and bisexuals from being considered "protected minorities."

Bishop Carl Moeddel, Auxiliary Bishop of Cincinnati since 1993, has served as a veritable posterboy-bishop of the National Association for Catholic Diocesan Lesbian and Gay Ministries for the past five years. Speaking to the group's national convention in Oakland, California, on September 8, 2000, Bishop Moeddel recounted the advances the Archdiocese of Cincinnati has made in the normalization of homosexuality in the Catholic schools. He bragged, speaking in an affected lisp: "I was pretty proud of the fact that we were starting…a youth group for gays and lesbians at the secondary school level…. Our priority in the coming year is to try to get into all of our high schools. Talk to our teachers. Hopefully to move from there into our elementary schools, but starting with our high schools." He also explained how he's been giving in-service day workshops to Catholic school teachers to help promote the U.S. bishops' document Always Our Children, a pronouncement on "ministering to gay and lesbian persons" that was later revised at the request of the Vatican.

Moreover, under the leadership of Pilarczyk and Moeddel, the Archdiocese of Cincinnati has introduced and zealously promoted its Catholic ministry to "gays and lesbians," supports the presence of PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), a homosexualist propaganda group in the Catholic schools, all in an effort to "eliminate bias and discrimination and support inclusion" of homosexuals in Catholic parishes and schools. Pilarczyk named Fr. Mike Leshney, chaplain at the all-boys Moeller High School at the time, as the leader of the new ministry. Fr. Leshney had served as chaplain to the Cincinnati chapter of Dignity in the 1980s before the Vatican ordered bishops to withdraw all support from organizations opposing Church teaching on human sexuality — namely, Dignity.

Shortly after the homosexual priest scandals hit the media in 2002, Fr. Gerald Haemmerle, then-Rector of Cincinnati's Mount St. Mary's Seminary of the West, made it clear that the local Catholic Seminary would not discriminate against homosexual men who desired to enter priestly formation for the Archdiocese. Despite the fact that the Vatican had just reiterated that homosexual men should not be ordained to the priesthood, Fr. Haemmerle said, "We look at everyone and try to determine whether or not they can live with their own sexuality…. That's either homosexual or heterosexual." Fr. James Walsh, former Executive Director of the Cincinnati Seminary (now a pastor on Cincinnati's west-side), backed Haemmerle's approach. He said he knows "gay" priests who were ordained under his watch, and they turned out to be "fine ministers," he emphasized. "It's really commendable how it's handled here" (Cincinnati Enquirer, April 15, 2002).

Thus, the Archdiocese of Cincinnati provides a telling example of the wholesale move toward the normalization of homosexuality in the Church and society, even in the midst of the biggest sexual scandals the Church in America has ever known. The case of Cincinnati's Elder High School priests provides specific evidence of the problem of predatory homosexuality and fanatical lavender clericalism. All the victims were teenage boys and all allegations were vigorously covered up, denied, or downplayed.

The Wrestler Priest

Asked in November 2003 by WCPO-TV reporter Laurie Quinlivan if he ever covered up the sexual crimes of his priests, Archbishop Pilarczyk answered with an unconditional and emphatic "no." Documents made public earlier this year, however, show that Pilarczyk, Archbishop of Cincinnati since 1982, was lying — or that he was unconscionably confused.

The Archbishop assured WCPO's "I-Team" reporter that he has "always" reported felony child abuse by Cincinnati priests to police as required by Ohio law. Yet, letters from the personnel file of Fr. David Kelley prove that Archbishop Pilarczyk was well-aware that the priest had multiple allegations of sexual abuse against him. Again, it is instructive to note that all the alleged victims were teenage boys, many from Elder High School, where Fr. Kelley formerly taught religion from 1974-84.

 
 

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