Denials by Cardinal McCarrick’s colleagues are ‘not credible’ : Canon lawyer

July 30, 2018, (LifeSiteNews) – “Who calls the fondling, groping, and sex with young seminarians and young priests ‘consensual sex between adults’?” asked a canon lawyer speaking out about the Cardinal Theodore McCarrick sex abuse scandal last week.  

“These are our sons,” she exclaimed.

“These are the young men in formation who we’ve encouraged to go to seminary,” she continued. “We as mothers, and family members, have raised our sons in the church and encouraged them to the priesthood.”

Canon lawyer Marjorie Murphy Campbell spoke with Raymond Arroyo on EWTN’s The World Over about an open letter she penned to the United States Conference of Bishops (USCCB) in The Christian Review, titled an Open Letter to the USCCB Regarding the Cardinal McCarrick Scandal.

A crisis in the episcopacy of this Church

“To call it ‘improprieties between adults’ instead of ‘predation by a person in a position of trust and authority’ is the work of PR and the work of attorneys,” said Campbell, “and it sounds to me like, when I read [the bishop’s statements that are being issued], that the bishops are going to try again to hide behind PR firms and lawyers, and treat this as a canonical problem when it is not. It is a crisis in the episcopacy of this Church.”

Arroyo kicked off their conversation by noting that in the early 2000s, there was a delegation of Catholics who went to the Vatican to warn about McCarrick’s reputation for preying upon seminarians. Despite that, McCarrick was allowed “to proceed in a very quick pace up the hierarchical chain of command and became one of the most influential cardinals in the world.”

“And following that,” noted Arroyo, “he becomes a kingmaker, and his proteges are now going on to higher careers and they become bishops.”

“Why didn’t somebody in the U.S. Conference of Bishops stand up and say, ‘Wait a minute’?” asked Campbell. “We have a problem that is much bigger than just our priests. We have a problem at the Episcopal level. And if something was said to Rome, and there was non-responsiveness from Rome, then all the more reason why our bishops should have taken the matter into their hands, within the community that is created by the Episcopal conference. They meet, they discuss, they talk formally, they talk informally, and this is information that was here and available.”

Denials by Cardinal McCarrick’s colleagues are ‘not credible’

Bishops who worked in close collaboration with McCarrick, including Cardinal Kevin Farrell, head of the Vatican’s Dicastery of Laity, Life and Family, and Cardinal Donald Wuerl, Archbishop of Washington, D.C., have issued statements denying they had any inkling of McCarrick’s predatory sexual behavior toward young men.  

Farrell in particular was a very close collaborator of McCarrick and also his housemate for six years.

Campbell said that “based on all of the reports,” recent statements by McCarrick’s former and current colleagues are “not credible”  

A new, ominous chapter

In her open letter to the USCCB, Campbell appealed to the bishops:

With this shameful exposure of Cardinal McCarrick’s history, the USCCB enters a new, ominous chapter. The bishops must confront serious questions about the role and credibility of the conference itself. I urge you toward disclosure, transparency, and communication. I urge you to commission a third study with a focus on how a sexually abusive bishop not only remained immune from scrutiny that our priests underwent during the sexual abuse crisis but advanced in [his] Episcopacy.

Laity must be in charge of the investigation

Campbell added:

I also urge the USCCB to promptly appoint a commission of laity to work with the USCCB and...to formulate independent observations and recommendations regarding procedures for exposing, reporting and addressing sexual misconduct by our bishops. It is critical to Catholics – who are called upon to encourage our sons toward the priesthood – to understand the scope of sexual predation, and its enabling, among our Bishops. The voice of the laity must be included and heard, for the voice of our Bishops has failed us.

“We need an internal factual audit of which bishops knew what,” asserted Campbell. “This has to be a laity-led solution. The credibility at the episcopal level is shot.”

“This commission can’t be urged to dig a trench with handcuffs on,” she said. “This has to be a commission that is given complete and full access to the records of the USCCB, and every bishop is obligated to cooperate with.”  

Regarding the notion that since McCarrick is 88 years old, the Vatican will just wait for him to die rather than put him on trial, Campbell said, “No matter what the response of the Vatican is, the laity in the United States are demanding that we be given access and control of the solution to this.”  

Campbell said that McCarrick should be laicized and stripped of his title as a cardinal, and that “bishops who know that they participated in concealing this information, I believe they should resign. I believe there should be a period of reflection, resignation, and repentance.”

Read More At LifeSiteNews

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📢  Personally, I have sent this information of great severity to many Catholic websites. 
I am still waiting to see which if any are that brave Catholic to defend out Church from the greatest concealer of sexual predators Jorge Mario Bergoglio; who while in Argentina protected and concealed the pedophiles who sexually abused our Catholic children and young seminarians with impunity and to whom many of them still call him pope. No mafia ends up eliminating one of its members but it will eliminate the capo.

⚑ Bergoglio covered up and protected the homosexual predator Juan Carlos Maccarone within the Catholic University of Argentina (UCA) 

William Wilberforce: 'You may choose to look the other way but you can never say again that you did not know.'

This is not a 'crisis of the Church', it is a homosexual infiltration that has taken control of the hierarchy.

NJ Bishop John Myers Protects Predator Priests, Retires in Luxury

by Christine Niles, M.St. (Oxon.), J.D.  •  ChurchMilitant.com  •  July 28, 2018 

Abp. John Myers of Newark paid off sex abuse settlements on behalf of Cdl. Theodore McCarrick and others

When New Jersey Abp. John J. Myers retired in 2017 — with a career scarred by sex abuse settlements and protection of predator priests — he went to live in a lavish estate in upscale Hunterdon County — a 4,500-square-foot home on 8.2 wooded acres, with five bedrooms, two elevators, a swimming pool, whirlpool, three-car garage, three fireplaces, and a gallery that took up the whole of the third floor — all of it funded by Church money.

Myers paid out two sex abuse settlements on behalf of Cdl. Theodore McCarrick in 2005 and 2007 (Newark was named in both lawsuits) based on claims that McCarrick had sexually assaulted seminarians while bishop in New Jersey. The settlements were kept from the public, McCarrick's rise to power left to continue unhindered in Washington, D.C.

Following these and other reports that McCarrick was a serial sex abuser, and amid growing calls for the Vatican to act, Rome announced Saturday he had resigned from the College of Cardinals and the pope had imposed a life of prayer and penance until the canonical process was complete.

A Lavish Retirement

The Hunterdon estate, with build-out under construction

After Myers announced a $500,000 renovation in 2013, two years before his retirement — adding a 3,000-square-foot, three-story building to the existing mansion — Catholics were so outraged they led a boycott of the bishop's annual fundraising appeal.

"I'm disgusted," said Newark Catholic Joe Ferri at the time. "The archdiocese is not going to get another penny out of me."

"This is extreme," said Charles Zech, "way beyond what you'd expect to happen. I can't believe the parishioners of Newark are going to allow this to happen."

"To ask people to make sacrifices and then to live in a sumptuous residence, it makes me very annoyed," said Joan Rubino. "In plain English, I feel like people are getting screwed."

But a tone-deaf archdiocese justified the expense. Spokesman Jim Goodness claimed the expansion was necessary because Myers would continue to work in retirement and needed more "office space" — office space that would include an indoor pool, three fireplaces, a hot tub, elevator and a library, among others.

In a piece titled "A Church So Poor It Has to Close Schools, Yet So Rich It Can Build a Palace," The New York Times called out the archdiocese for shuttering Mater Dei Academy in Kearny while spending half a million dollars for the bishop's renovations. The archdiocese at the time cited declining enrollment and "unstable finances" for its reasons to close the school.

The faithful delivered a petition with 17,000 signatures in April 2014 to the bishop demanding that he stop using Church funds to build out his mansion and set an example by choosing more modest retirement quarters. Myers ignored their pleas.

A Troubling Track Record

His comfortable retirement followed tenures in New Jersey and Illinois, where he left a troubling track record of reinstating and even advancing credibly accused priests.

Newark, New Jersey

In 2013, laity demanded that the Church launch an investigation into Myers for allowing a convicted sex abuser access to children, in violation of an agreement with the prosecutor's office as well as the U.S. Bishops' Dallas Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.

Fr. Michael Fugee, convicted for fondling a 14-year-old boy

Father Michael Fugee, a self-admitted homosexual, was convicted in 2003 of criminal sexual contact, admitting to police he had fondled a 14-year-old boy's genitals twice, and that the contact had sexually excited him. He was found guilty by a jury and sentenced to five years probation.

An appeals court overturned the verdict in 2006 over concerns that admitting evidence of Fugee's homosexuality might have drawn "an unfounded association between homosexuality and pedophilia." The rest of the evidence, including Fugee's confession, was not contested.

Instead of retrying him, the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office in 2007 entered into an agreement with the archdiocese, which allowed Fugee to attend a rehabilitation program under the strict condiction that he would never be permitted to work "in any position involving children."

But in 2013, it was discovered Fugee had had frequent access to children for years through an informal association with St. Mary's Parish in Colts Neck, where he attended youth retreats on Lake Hopatcong in Mount Arlington, joined adolescents and teens in their annual pilgrimage to Canada, and heard minor's confessions in private — all with the knowledge and approval of Abp. Myers.

After public outcry, the archdiocese rejected any wrongdoing, the diocesan spokesman saying that Fugee had been under supervision throughout his time spent with minors.

"We believe that the archdiocese and Father Fugee have adhered to the stipulations in all of his activities, and will continue to do so," said Jim Goodness. "The fact is, he has done nothing wrong."

Worse, it came to light that Myers had appointed Fugee in 2009 to be chaplain at St. Michael's Medical Center in Newark without telling hospital officials about his criminal past. As soon as the hospital learned, he was removed as chaplain.

And in 2012, Myers drew heat for making Fugee co-director of the Office of Continuing Education and Ongoing Formation of Priests.

Parishioners at St. Mary's in Colts Neck were furious when they discovered the news of Fugee's criminal record.

Fr. Michael Fugee posing with two teens
at St. Mary's youth group in Colts Neck

"Finding this out later has left me completely flabbergasted," said Deacon Paul Franklin at the time, whose children were part of the youth group attended by Fugee. "If I had known, I would have objected immediately."
"It's complete craziness that the church can let this happen," said John Santulli, who went to St. Mary's with his children. "I'm a softball coach, and I need a background check just to get on the field. Every single person I spoke to today said, 'Oh my God. I didn't know about this.' It's incomprehensible."
Both the dioceses of Trenton and Paterson, where the retreats and parish activity took place, insisted Fugee participated without their knowledge or permission, the bishop of Trenton barring the priest from further activities at St. Mary's. 
The pastor of St. Mary's along with two youth ministers — close friends with Fugee, who knew about his past and never informed parishioners — were removed from the parish. 
The Newark archdiocese, however, remained unapologetic.

"Father Fugee remains a priest who is allowed to be in ministry," said spokesman Jim Goodness. "There is no change in his status at this point."

Father John Bambrick, a priest in the Trenton diocese and himself a survivor of clerical sex abuse, had sharp words for Myers.
"Essentially, Abp. Myers has erased 10 years of hard work by the church in the United States to ensure people are safe," he said. "He has called into question the integrity of all of us who work so hard to ensure the safety of children, and it's really disheartening."
Noting the "body count" of those forced to step away from public ministry, Bambrick asked why Myers was not being held accountable.
"The person who caused all this upset is Abp. Myers, and he's still in office," said Bambrick. "It seems like the archbishop needs to take responsibility for his own actions, as everyone else has in this crisis."
After a victims' advocacy group petitioned the Vatican to force Myers to resign, Pope Francis appointed Co-Adjutor Bp. Bernard Hebda to the archdiocese, but allowed Myers to serve out his remaining tenure until the mandatory retirement age of 75. Instead, Msgr. John Doran, Myers' second-in-command, and the one who had signed the 2007 agreement with Bergen County, took the fall, forced to resign.
Fugee was eventually laicized in 2014, but only after Bergen County decided to drop criminal charges in exchange for his laicization and on agreement that the County — not the diocese — would supervise Fugee's whereabouts, as it no longer trusted Myers to be vigilant over the priest's movements. The Vatican acted with uncustomary speed — four months — in completing the process.

Peoria, Illinois

Before Newark, Myers was head of the diocese of Peoria, Illinois from 1990–2001, where he placed at least one priest accused of sex abuse in a position of power.

Bp. Daniel Jenky of Peoria, IL., who suspended seven priests
in 2002, some who had been previously suspended, then reinstated
and promoted by his predecessor, Bp. John Myers.

Father John Anderson was removed from ministry in 1993 after an accusation of abuse. Not only did Myers reinstate him years later, he made him director of the diocese's Office for the Propagation of the Faith.

When his successor, Bp. Daniel Jenky, was installed in 2002, among his first actions was removing Anderson from ministry, along with six other credibly accused priests.

Myers was soon afterwards dumped from the U.S. Bishops' Committee on the Protection of Minors, having only served five months. His spokesman claimed at the time it was because his work on the committee was complete, but critics claim it was because of the mess he'd left in Peoria.

Among the priests removed by Jenky was Fr. Francis Engels, who had resigned in 1993 after several allegations of sex abuse. As bishop, Myers later tried to reinstate him, but reversed course after victims threatened to go to the media.

"I didn't realize they would be so upset," the archbishop said.

In 2013, the diocese settled a $1.35 million lawsuit brought by Andrew Ward, who claimed that a priest friend of Myers, Fr. Thomas Maloney, had abused him when he was in second grade, when Myers was bishop of Peoria. In a 2010 deposition, Myers was shown evidence that his diocese had received complaints of Maloney's sex abuse from at least five others. Myers — who had received multiple gifts of cash, coins and other items from Maloney, with whom he had attended seminary — denied knowledge throughout.

#CatholicMeToo

Revelations that men in power in the Church have abused their authority and experience virtually no accountability, while the laity are left to foot the bill, have spurred a growing movement to boycott the bishops' fundraising appeals and demand their resignations. Much like the 2014 boycott of Myers' fundraising campaign in light of his extravagant spending and checkered clerical career, Catholics are hoping the boycott goes national, and that bishops — funded and supported by a laity they have too often failed — are finally called to account.

Gay church: "You Speak, We Will Crush You”

en.news Cardinal Theodore McCarrick's sexual advances and activity have been reported by “numerous seminarians and priests", Richard Sipe, 85, wrote already in summer 2016 in a dossier published on his website awrsipe.com.

Sipe is a former priest married to a former nun. He worked and wrote as psychotherapist and has been a witness in 57 lawsuits against Catholic clergy.

He writes in the dossier about a settlement between McCarrick and a priest which speaks about McCarrick's homosexual activity involving three priests.

Sipe explains, that priests usually don’t speak about the homosexual activity of a superior because they would risk losing everything – employment, status,

“If they were a partner in the [homo]sexual activity and ‘come out’, they become a pariah and are labelled as traitors.”

Sipe quotes one priest in the McCarrick framework who was told by McCarrick's liberal chancery office, “If you speak with the press we will crush you.”  This article in Spanish was censored by the Hispanic moderator who controls  the forum in the Spanish-language of Gloria TV. Now after we complain to the administration  the article in Spanish is Back. This is not the first time  that the moderator takes control and censors and deletes the articles and news inside Gloria TV. This News was also censored:  ⚑ Bergoglio protected in the UCA the homosexual predator Juan Carlos Maccarone

Bergoglian Sect controls the Spanish forum inside Gloria TV. 

More than half of the seminarians in Tegucigalpa are homosexually active. The former Bishop Pineda in the center.

en.news In Honduras, 48 out of 180 seminarians stated in a letter that there is a widespread and entrenched pattern of homosexual practice in Tegucigalpa’s seminary, reports Edward Pentin on NcRegister.com (July 25).

The seminarians speak of “irrefutable evidence” that a homosexual network pervades the institution and is being protected by its rector.

Pentin has obtained graphic photographic evidence of homosexual pornography exchanged on WhatsApp between seminarians.

He is in the possession of a suicide note of a seminarian who tried to take his life in April, after his male accomplice turned to another seminarian.

According to Pentin, Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa accused the whistleblower seminarians of being “gossipers” who wish to portray their fellow seminarians in a bad light.

Rodríguez is a close friend of Pope Francis, therefore it is unlikely that these shocking revelations will harm him. 

Monsignor Athanasius Schneider :

“When we arrive at a point in the Church where the faithful, priests and bishops are afraid to say something, as in a dictatorship, this is not the Church.”

In his book on Heaven and Earth, Bergoglio lied to deny the existence of cases of sexual abuse that he covered up in his diocese

BishopAccountability.org

In On Heaven and Earth (first published in Spanish in 2010), a wide-ranging collection of conversations with Argentine rabbi Abraham Skorka, he suggested in fact that the problem did not exist in his archdiocese:

In my diocese it never happened to me, but a bishop called me once by phone to ask me what to do in a situation like this and I told him to take away the priest’s faculties, not to permit him to exercise his priestly ministry again, and to initiate a canonical trial.

Bergoglio covered up pedophile priests as Cardinal and president of the Argentine Episcopal Conference. 

⚑ Bergoglio covered up and protected the homosexual predator Juan Carlos Maccarone within the Catholic University of Argentina (UCA) 

Grassi, the pedophile protected by Bergoglio is still a priest.

Diario 7 Francis believes - and says privately - that Father Julio César Grassi is innocent, a victim of a plot or vendetta carried out by one of the largest media groups in the country.

Condemned: The Argentinean Supreme Court confirmed a 15-year prison sentence for Father Julio César Grassi for abuse of minors. Grassi became famous for his work for children, he had his own radio show and was well connected to politics. After Grassi's first condemnation in 2010 he was not stripped of his priestly faculties. The Argentinean Bishops' Conference headed by Cardinal Bergoglio even commissioned four books that strongly defended Grassi.

Bergoglio covered for and hid pedophile Rubén Pardo in the Condarco 581 Priestly Home

Six cases where the sexual abuse scandal touches Francis 

Honduran Seminarians Allege Widespread Homosexual Misconduct

More than half of the seminarians in Tegucigalpa are homosexually active. The former Bishop Pineda in the center.

en.news In Honduras, 48 out of 180 seminarians stated in a letter that there is a widespread and entrenched pattern of homosexual practice in Tegucigalpa’s seminary, reports Edward Pentin on NcRegister.com (July 25).

The seminarians speak of “irrefutable evidence” that a homosexual network pervades the institution and is being protected by its rector.

Pentin has obtained graphic photographic evidence of homosexual pornography exchanged on WhatsApp between seminarians.

He is in the possession of a suicide note of a seminarian who tried to take his life in April, after his male accomplice turned to another seminarian.

According to Pentin, Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa accused the whistleblower seminarians of being “gossipers” who wish to portray their fellow seminarians in a bad light.

Rodríguez is a close friend of Pope Francis, therefore it is unlikely that these shocking revelations will harm him. 

Jul. 25, 2018 But to date, Cardinal Maradiaga has not responded publicly to the allegations regarding his archdiocesan seminary.

Edward Pentin

TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras — Nearly 50 seminarians in Honduras have protested against what they say is a widespread and entrenched pattern of homosexual practice in Tegucigalpa’s major seminary.

In a letter written to the seminary’s formators that was subsequently circulated in June to the country’s Catholic bishops, the seminarians asserted “irrefutable evidence” exists that a homosexual network pervades the institution and is being protected by its rector.

“Heterosexual seminarians are scandalized and really depressed,” one of the seminarians who drafted the letter told the Register.

“Many are thinking about leaving the seminary,” the seminarian said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of a fear of reprisals. “I fear that many will leave.”

The disturbing Honduran allegations have particular resonance in the United States because they echo some key aspects of the current scandal in the Church in the United States, surrounding alleged sexual abuse by Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the archbishop emeritus of Washington.

Similar to the charges surrounding Cardinal McCarrick, who reportedly engaged in a long-standing practice of pressuring seminarians into sexual activity with him while he was serving as bishop in two New Jersey dioceses during the 1980s and 1990s, Auxiliary Bishop Jose Juan Pineda Fasquelle of Tegucigalpa has been accused of engaging in homosexual interactions with Tegucigulpa seminarians.

And, just as the revelations regarding Cardinal McCarrick have provoked troubling questions about what his brother U.S. bishops and the Vatican knew about his interactions with seminarians and about why nothing was disclosed publicly for so long, the Honduran allegations call into question the actions of Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa.

While Cardinal Maradiaga — a key confidante of Pope Francis who is coordinator of the “C9” group of cardinals advising him on reforming Church governance and the Roman Curia — is not himself the subject of allegations of sexual misconduct, he is now under fire for appearing to have disregarded a wealth of evidence of homosexual misconduct by Bishop Pineda, whose resignation as auxiliary bishop was accepted by Pope Francis July 20.

The Honduran seminarians’ letter reportedly was not met with praise for having come forward in June; Cardinal Maradiaga instead accused the seminarians of being “gossipers” who wish to portray their fellow seminarians in a bad light, according to sources in Honduras.

The Letter

The Register has obtained the text of the unsigned letter, which was a joint effort undertaken by 48 seminarians (of the 180 who are enrolled there) who stated they could not “hide any more the magnitude of this problem in the seminary.”

“We are living and experiencing a time of tension in our house because of gravely immoral situations, above all of an active homosexuality inside the seminary that has been a taboo all this time,” the seminarians wrote, “and by covering up and penalizing this situation, the problem has grown in strength, turning into, as one priest said not so long ago, an ‘epidemic in the seminary.’”

The letter called on seminary formators to follow what the Church teaches about such conduct and requested a new “formative process” that is more up to date and represents a “holistic” and “prophetic” vision. And it asserted that any seminarian who engages in homosexual activity should be removed from the seminary, even if he is a friend of the formators, because such a person clearly is “not suitable for pastoral ministry” and will “cause pain to the Church sooner or later.”

“Not everyone who wants to can be a priest!” the letter stated. “The ministry is a gift that should be lived and received from the conviction of the Gospel and radical and jealous love.”

The seminarians insisted their letter was not carrying out a “persecution” or exemplifying “homophobia,” accusations that some local Church leaders have leveled when seminarians raised similar concerns on earlier occasions. “Neither is it gossip or a lack of manliness,” they said.

And, the seminarians noted in the letter’s concluding paragraph, their submission was not the product of merely a single concerned party, but instead was written “by a group of seminarians” who had been urged by spiritual directors and other priests at the seminary to make their concerns known.

“We humbly ask forgiveness if our words offend you or make you uncomfortable, but we are convinced it was necessary to express with freedom, respect and charity this reality,” the seminarians told their formators. “We express our brotherly affection and pray for you who are the head of this house and who also have a difficult mission. We put you in the hands of Our Lady of Suyapa, patroness of this seminary, and St. Joseph, patron of all the seminarians of the world in the universal Church.”

Part of the impetus for the letter to bishops was that a seminarian from the Honduran Diocese of Santa Rosa de Copán tried but failed to take his own life in April, after he had discovered his male lover in the seminary was in another relationship.

The Register has obtained a copy of the seminarian’s suicide note. “I am going to my Father’s house,” the handwritten letter reads. “I never believed that my friend, my brother, the one that I trusted everything and which I gave too many things,” would have “betrayed me that way.”

The Register also obtained graphic photographic evidence of homosexual pornography, exchanged on WhatsApp between seminarians who did not sign the letter, as well as other obscene messages. The exchanges have been verified as authentic by computer specialists at the Catholic University of Honduras who searched computer memory and handed the exchanges to the country’s bishops.

The Bishops’ Response

In early June, during the permanent assembly of the Honduran bishops’ conference, Bishop Hector David Garcia Osorio of Yoro, who is in charge of vocations and seminaries, asked that the matter of homosexuality in the major seminary be discussed. The seminarians’ letter was then circulated among the bishops at the meeting.

According to sources, when the letter was read out at the assembly, Cardinal Maradiaga and Bishop Angel Garachana Pérez of San Pedro Sula, the president of the bishops’ conference of Honduras, immediately started attacking the letter’s authors.

Bishop Guy Charbonneau of Choluteca confirmed to the Register June 29 that the permanent assembly received the letter. He said the bishops’ conference is carrying out an investigation to see if the allegations are true. “We are currently in this process,” said Bishop Charbonneau. “Each bishop has to deal with it by interviewing the seminarians from their own diocese.”

“This is a new problem,” he added. “Perhaps it happened in other years, but not like the dimension that is being talked about now.”

The Honduran bishops met again July 23 to discuss the seminarians’ protests. A source close to the discussions told the Register it is likely no immediate action will be taken to respond to the alleged problems within the seminary. 

The Register contacted the offices of Cardinal Maradiaga, the Honduran bishops’ conference and each of the country’s individual bishops, requesting further comment about the matter. None of the bishops had replied to the Register’s queries at the time this article was published.

“Homosexuality in the seminary is a problem which has proliferated in the past few years,” said the seminarian who spoke with the Register under condition of anonymity.

“Another big problem is that when someone speaks differently than what the bishops or cardinal are saying, they are censured and expelled,” he added.

“The bishops have been meeting and speaking about this,” he said. “When the problem was discovered, people at first said ‘No’ and denied it. The problem is that this problem [of homosexuality] has appeared, and it is denied. The cardinal, sadly, has denied it. But the problem is here.”

Added the seminarian, “If people come and investigate here, they will find worse things than were found in Chile.”

Bishop Pineda’s Resignation

The news of the seminarians’ protest came after months of allegations involving homosexual abuse and financial misconduct by Bishop Pineda.

Since last December, Cardinal Maradiaga has been accused of allowing Bishop Pineda to continue to serve in his post, and even placing him in charge of the archdiocese during the cardinal’s absence to receive medical treatments for prostate cancer in Houston, despite a body of allegations against Bishop Pineda of homosexual relationships — including with seminarians.

Bishop Pineda was also accused of financial impropriety, which came to light in a papal investigation last year. The findings of that investigation reportedly were submitted to Pope Francis in May 2017, but have not been publicly disclosed.

In March, the Register obtained the text of two testimonies from seminarians submitted to the investigation, detailing allegations of serious sexual misconduct by Bishop Pineda.

The Vatican did not disclose the specific reason Bishop Pineda had resigned. In a statement released immediately after his resignation was announced July 20, the bishop also provided no explanation and expressed little contrition. In his statement, he said he had tried “with all my heart to serve … the archbishop, clergy, seminarians and People of God” of the Archdiocese of Tegucigalpa.

“If I succeeded, blessed be God,” Bishop Pineda said. “If I failed you, I apologize.”

While the Vatican did not disclose whether the allegations of sexual misconduct with seminarians were decisive in the Pope’s acceptance of Bishop Pineda’s resignation, both Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis have emphasized that men who engage in homosexual activity or who have “deep-seated” homosexual inclinations should not be admitted to seminaries.

In 2005, shortly after Pope Benedict’s election, the Congregation for Catholic Education released its “Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocations With Regard to Persons With Homosexual Tendencies in View of Their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders.”

That Vatican document affirmed the Church “cannot admit to the seminary or to holy orders those who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called ‘gay culture.’”

Stated the document, “Such persons, in fact, find themselves in a situation that gravely hinders them from relating correctly to men and women. One must in no way overlook the negative consequences that can derive from the ordination of persons with deep-seated homosexual tendencies.”

Speaking to Italy’s bishops at an audience in late May, Pope Francis unequivocally reaffirmed that men with “deep-seated tendencies” or who engage in “homosexual acts” are not suitable candidates for seminary admission.

Regarding such men, “If you have even the slightest doubt, it’s better not to let them enter,” Francis said, according to Vatican Insider, because their admission can lead to scandals and compromise the community life of the seminary.

Cardinal Maradiaga

Cardinal Maradiaga had not responded to questions submitted by the Register regarding the allegations of widespread homosexual misconduct at the Tegucigalpa archdiocesan seminary by the time this article was published. But an informed source said he views them as inventions.

“He looks out for the guilty but doesn’t realize that over half the seminarians are homosexuals,” the source said, adding that some formators recently refused to participate in priestly ordinations because of the candidates’ alleged homosexuality. “The cardinal ordained them himself,” the source said.

To date, Pope Francis has declined to accept Cardinal Rodriguez Maradiaga’s resignation, which the cardinal was obliged to submit last December, upon turning 75, the mandatory retirement age for bishops.

But in light of the Pope’s action taken in Chile over clerical sex abuse, and Vatican involvement in the restrictions placed on Cardinal McCarrick following a “credible” allegation of sexual abuse of a minor in the early 1970s in the Archdiocese of New York, observers are suggesting Cardinal Maradiaga now could be held more accountable for the problems that have surfaced in his own archdiocese.

A July 20 Associated Press article specifically linked the situation in Tegucigalpa with the question of how Pope Francis might respond to the Cardinal McCarrick revelations.

Noted the article, “Auxiliary Bishop Juan José Pineda Fasquelle, 57, was accused of sexual misconduct with seminarians and lavish spending on his lovers that was so obvious to Honduras’ poverty-wracked faithful that Maradiaga is now under pressure to reveal what he knew of Pineda’s misdeeds and why he tolerated a sexually active gay bishop in his ranks.”

Edward Pentin is the Register’s Rome correspondent.

Register correspondent Sabrina Arena Ferrisi contributed to this report.