After reading my last article, “The Church’s Grave Prognosis,” a reader sent me a link to this video of Father Mark Payne celebrating Mass for children and adults, as recent as May 31, 2026. I strongly recommend you watch at least the beginning of this Mass. To demonstrate how poorly informed Catholics are about the sex lives of gay priests, one person commented, “I have never come across a more joyful man and priest as this most holy priest, Fr Mark Payne. What a gift he is to all of us." This person, like most Catholics who observed Payne’s Mass and sent in a contribution, had no idea that Payne, the former Judicial Vicar of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, was reported for maintaining a public romantic relationship with a layman with whom he has shared a condo for decades.
Because priests who appear to lead double lives like Payne know that most bishops are closeted homosexuals who rarely punish gay priests who lead very uncelibate lives or get caught using gay dating apps like Grindr, they don’t fear repercussions by posting photos of themselves on social media with their lovers at Pride events, gay bars and clubs, and even on vacations with other gay couples. Catholics, who refuse to admit that most American-born priests are sexually active homosexuals, unknowingly finance the gay lifestyles of Payne and other homosexual priests like Msgr, Jeffrey Burrill, the “tip of the iceberg,” who was tracked using his Grindr app to visit numerous gay bars and bathhouses.
Photos submitted by reader of alleged gay priests whom he claims have “ruined “ his parish
Straight and gay clergy are like oil and water
In addition to refusing to admit that most U.S. bishops and American-born priests are closeted homosexuals whose greatest fear is being outed, lay Catholics also fail to recognize that straight clergy don’t mix with gay clergy, just like oil and water don’t mix because their molecules are incompatible. When straight priests like myself and Fathers Paul Kalchik, Mark White, Michael Briese, Ricardo Coronado, and others are canceled by either being removed from ministry or laicized for reporting clerical sexual abuse or homosexual misconduct, gay priests like Payne, Steve Rosera, Jeffrey Burrill, Battista Ricca, Walter Rossi, Peter Harman, Adam Park, and countless others reported for engaging in non-consensual and consensual sex with other men and boys, are kept in ministry where they lead very, very comfortable lives.
Catholics should be ashamed of the fact that a straight priest like Msgr. Ricardo Coronado, laicized by Pope Leo XIV for defending abuse victims and exposing abuse cover-ups, is denied any financial support after years of service to the Church. On the other hand, countless predator priests who are removed from ministry are often not laicized, but can retire and live very comfortable lives, often cohabitating with other gay priests, all paid for by the same Catholic faithful who are supporting priests like Father Mark Payne.
While canceled straight priests would like Catholics they have served to speak up on their behalf as parishioners of Richmond Father Mark White did when they protested outside the Vatican Embassy in Washington, D.C., the sad fact is that most letters, emails, and phone calls of support go unanswered as most of the Church leaders they are appealing to are heterophobic homosexuals who are part of the problem and not the solution. When a former altar boy of mine asked my bishop if he would restore my faculties that were unjustly removed, Bishop Mark Bartchak, mindful of what happened to Bishop Strickland who likewise spoke out about sexual predation and homosexual misconduct, questioned what those above him in “the chain of command” might do were he to reinstate me.
Link between clerical sex abuse and homosexuality
Watching the video of Payne celebrating Mass with children reminded me of two young priests with whom I worked in State College, PA, shortly after completing my theological studies. Having been tasked by the pastor to train and schedule the altar boys whom I came to mentor and love as if they were my own sons, neither the pastor nor I knew that two other young priests and a parish youth volunteer were preying on teenage boys in our parish. I deeply regret how young, straight priests today cannot interact with and mentor young people as I did before restrictions were put in place as a result of reported sex abuse in which around 80% of the victims are adolescent boys.
While not all homosexuals are predators, studies show that 73% of gay men admit to having had sex with 11-19 year old boys, and the median lifetime number of sex partners of homosexuals aged 35-39 is 60 versus 10 for straight men. Given these statistics, it should not come as a surprise that “the proportion of homosexual men in the priesthood like Payne correlates almost perfectly with the percentage of male victims and with the overall incidence of abuse” in the Catholic Church.
While I am angry at priests who prey on young people like my former altar boys, I have come to discover, both as a supervisory chaplain and as a sex abuse victims’ advocate, that most predator priests were abused themselves during their period of psychosexual development. This abuse led many of them, as studies show, to become homosexuals and to groom and abuse young men and boys as they were groomed and abused.
Canceled clergy often feel unsupported
Straight seminarians and priests, including bishops like former Tyler Bishop Joseph Strickland, will continue to be canceled for refusing to support the LGBTQ agenda as long as the pope, the cardinals, and bishops are, for the most part, closeted homosexuals. One canceled priest, feeling abandoned by the priests and laity of his archdiocese after being unjustly removed by his closeted homosexual cardinal for reporting abuse, recently said to his unsupportive family members, friends, and former parishioners:
“I don’t want to hear you complain if your church is closed because of a shortage of priests, or if your son or grandson is sexually abused and becomes an alcoholic, a druggie, or commits suicide. Don’t say that I didn’t warn you.”
As Father’s Day approaches and I find myself back in State College, where I served over fifty years ago, I have fond memories of camping and road trips with my altar boys, who are now parents and grandparents.
Our Lady of Victory Church Altar Boy Trip to Washington, D.C.
While the pastor and I were straight, and most of the Protestant clergy were married with children in State College in 1975-80, several priests and ministers in this university town today are gay or lesbian who advertise on their websites, “All are welcome,” i.e., people of “all ages and stages; races and ethnicities; all sexual orientations, gender identities, and gender expressions” are welcome.
Ironically, I receive far more support today from the local Missouri Synod Lutheran Church pastor and members of his very pro-life, pro-family, scripturally-based congregation than I do from local Catholic clergy and laity, a number of whom are pro-LGBTQ and not very pro-life in keeping with the belief that “LGBTQ rights and abortion rights are inseparable.”
Excommunication and laicization of straights by gays
Martin Luther had a hard time respecting Pope Leo X who suffered from an anal fistula as a result of having too much gay sex. Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò likewise had a difficult time respecting Pope Francis for similar reasons. Viganò reported, “Bergoglio himself committed the same abuses [as McCarrick] when he was Master of Novices of the Society of Jesus in Argentina, as personally confided to me by one of his former novices.” What Viganò said about Pope Francis was corroborated by an Argentine priest in 2015 who recounted Bergoglio abusing a vulnerable Jesuit novice in Córdoba.
Both Luther and Viganò were excommunicated by popes accused of engaging in homosexual behavior and surrounding themselves with other homosexuals. As Viganò wrote, “The protection and promotions granted to countless corrupt and perverted cardinals, bishops and priests; the buses of transvestites invited on several occasions to the Vatican; private hearings for transsexual and homosexual couples in concubinage; the scandalous LGBTQ+ media spotlight granted to James Martin, S.J.; the shameful promotion of Tucho Fernández to Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith…all confirm Bergoglio’s membership in the lobby [the Lavender Mafia] to which he owes his nomination.”
Based on Pope Leo’s episcopal appointments and promotion of several pro-LGBTQ prelates, as well as his endorsement of events like the scandalous LGBTQ Holy Year pilgrimage to Rome, it is clear that Pope Leo is as similar to Pope Francis as homosexual Pope Julius III was to Pope Leo X.
Friends who read my articles, which support the dogmatic and moral teachings of the Catholic Church but question certain pastoral practices like the blessing and confirmation of same sex couples, and the distribution of the Body and Blood of Christ to pro-abortion politicians, wonder if Pope Leo XIV will excommunicate me like Pope Francis excommunicated Archbishop Viganò and Pope Leo X excommunicated Martin Luther.
Never having been laicized, and canonically still a priest and monsignor, I told my non-Catholic and Catholic friends that I will continue reporting to my dying day what compromised Catholic media like EWTN and Crux will not report including Pope Leo’s failure to discipline over 160 bishops credibly accused of abusing children and vulnerable adults, his cover-up of sexual predation in the Diocese of Chiclayo, his unjust laicization of whistleblowers like Msgr. Coronado, and his cover-up of abuse suffered by certain Augustinians in Rome and Washington, D.C., when Prevost was Prior General of the Augustinian Order (2001-2013).
The appointment of Maria Montserrat Alvarado, the President and COO of EWTN News, as the new Prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Communication, is payback for her production of Pope Leo’s Peru. The production, like much of EWTN’s one-sided reporting, avoided any mention of Leo’s record of mishandling sexual abuse in the Augustinian Order and in the Diocese of Chiclayo. It appears that Alvarado’s job will be more about public relations and protecting the image of Leo and the Church than about Christ’s mission to “bear witness to the truth” (Jn 18:37).
