Today, I would like to offer seven reasons why I believe Pope Leo will neither “act” nor “resign,” thereby allowing bishops and priests to escape being disciplined for engaging in or covering up the sexual abuse of children and vulnerable adults.
Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò was excommunicated by Pope Francis after he revealed credible allegations he received, accusing Francis/Bergoglio of preying on Jesuit Novices in Argentina. These allegations were similar to those presented in July 2016 by the late Richard Sipe to then-San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy and Pope Francis in which 12 former seminarians and priests recounted being sexually abused by the late ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. It’s laughable that McElroy dismissed not one, not two, but all twelve allegations as “hearsay.” When Viganò recently appealed his unjust excommunication to Pope Leo, his requests for a meeting and to be reinstated were ignored. It is clear that Viganò, like members of the SSPX, is not a schismatic and that he strongly believes in the teachings of the Catholic Church. Leo’s failure to lift the excommunication imposed by Francis and refusal to meet with Viganò demonstrates that he is part of the problem, and not part of the solution to the Church’s sexual abuse crisis stemming from the plethora of homosexual clergy in the Catholic Church today.
While Leo was serving as the Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, Bishop Joseph Strickland was unjustly removed from the Diocese of Tyler after he spoke out against sexual abuse and clerical homosexual misconduct at the USCCB meeting at which Father Paul Sullins shared his research linking sexual abuse with homosexuals in the episcopacy, priesthood, and seminaries. If Leo has yet to restore Strickland to active ministry, how can one expect him to address clerical homosexual predation and misconduct, the very problems that were responsible for Strickland being sacked?
When one compares what Pope Francis said in Belgium in September 2024 when he was “met with anger” over his mishandling of clerical sex abuse, with what Leo was reported to have said in Spain recently about the “scourge” of sex abuse by Catholic clergy, one sees that their comments are no different than what the late ex-Cardinal Theodure McCarrick hypocritically said on April 26, 2002, when he addressed The City Club of Cleveland. While Leo, Francis, and McCarrick all denounced sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, none of them did anything significant to discipline clerical predators and bishops who cover up abuse. How can a pope discipline a complicit bishop, or a bishop discipline a predator cleric, when he himself is guilty of committing the same offenses?
While the media has reported most of the speeches Leo has given condemning clerical sexual abuse, those same media outlets refuse to investigate and report claims by individual victims like Lisa Roers whose egregious abuse both Francis and Leo are documented to have covered up. Even when police reports have been filed or a cleric has been accused by multiple victims, as in the case of retired Omaha Archbishop George Lucas, the media, church officials, and civil authorities often behave as depicted in this hyperlinked opening scene of the movie Spotlight. If 56% of Americans, and 75% of American Catholics, have a favorable view of Pope Leo, why should he take action and discipline complicit bishops when he, like his predecessor, is supported by a complicit mainstream and Catholic media?
An unjustly treated whistleblower like Archbishop Viganò is not the only cleric who has appealed to Pope Leo. On May 10, 2025, I sent an open letter to Pope Leo stating that I, never having been laicized and canonically still a priest and monsignor, would be willing to return to active ministry on the condition that he disciplines bishops guilty of engaging in abuse, covering up abuse, or retaliating against whistleblowers like myself and other clerics who reported abuse. Because my letter, translated into different languages, was never answered, I can only conclude that Leo will continue siding with predators and complicit bishops over abuse victims and those who report abuse and cover-ups.
Some Augustinians believe that Pope Leo cannot and will not discipline predator clergy for deeply psychological reasons. Predator Augustinian priests, Fathers Reinhard J. Sternemann and Nelson Daniel Rupp, were not reported by Robert Prevost and other novices, many of whom were groomed and introduced to gay sex during their period of psychosexual development at St. Augustine Seminary in Saugatuck, Michigan, Bishops who underwent grooming in high school and college seminaries are less prone to discipline predator clergy than straight bishops who look upon homosexual behavior, including sodomy, as both unnatural and immoral. Based on Leo’s episcopal appointments and his association with certain cardinals, bishops, and priests believed to be homosexuals, this may explain why he has been accused of being “soft on crime,” especially involving the abuse of children and vulnerable adults.
Pope Leo will neither discipline bishops who engage in homosexual predation and misconduct, nor will he resign, knowing that he has the support of almost all the cardinals, bishops, and the majority of priests who are homosexuals. Leo also knows that the mainstream and Catholic media do not want to address how most Catholic clergy outside of Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and parts of Asia, like India, are homosexuals, just as they have avoided addressing the documented link between clerical abuse and homosexuality in the episcopacy, priesthood, and seminaries. As long as the true extent of the abuse problem and the overwhelming presence of homosexual clergy can continue to be covered up, Leo will be under no pressure to resign.
Santa Fe Father Steve Rosera left the priesthood for 28 years, entered into a legally recognized same-sex domestic partnership for ten years, and was restored to ministry in August 2025 by Archbishop John Wester. Rosera did not return repentant of his gay lifestyle, but continues to be very active in the gay-rights movement. When one of my former altarboys, aware of my health problems, petitioned my Ordinary, Bishop Mark Bartchak, to restore me to ministry after being removed for reporting abuse, Bartchak told him that certain members of the hierarchy in his “chain of command” would be very upset with him were he to allow me, an outspoken whistleblower, to minister publicly. Having criticized both Pope Francis and Pope Leo in my writings for their failure to laicize or excommunicate over 160 bishops credibly accused of abusing children and vulnerable adults, one can understand why Bartchak has never returned any of my calls. Familiar with my writings, which he and the priests of our diocese receive weekly, Bartchak knows that I am hated by many of the closeted gay U.S. Bishops for having sent several homosexual predator priests to prison, where, in my opinion, many bishops should likewise be sent.
Even though the body of Chicago Father Daniel Montalbano was discovered connected to a sex machine with gay porn and paraphernalia spread throughout his bedroom, he was still given an elaborate Catholic funeral with many clergy in attendance. The Chicago media, including the Chicago Tribune, covered up the true nature of his death like clerical victims of AIDS who sometimes are reported to have died of “cardiac arrest” or “respiratory arrest.” The Chicago media also misrepresented Father Paul Kalchik and his parishioners as homophobic for burning a rainbow banner that Montalbano had hung inside Resurrection Church. What the media failed to report is that, according to Canon 1171 of the Code of Canon Law, blessed objects such as rosaries, holy cards, and church banners are to be disposed of respectfully, often by burning or burial. The fact that Cardinal Blase Cupich removed Kalchik, insinuating that he disrespected the LGBTQ community by burning Montalbano’s banner, shows that he must have slept through the theology class that addressed proper methods for discarding sacramentals.
Although I was never laicized and canonically am still a priest and monsignor, I recognize that neither Pope Leo nor Bishop Bartczak will allow me, a straight whistleblower priest, to return to ministry like homosexual Father Rosera, or, after I die of Myelomonocytic Leukemia, to be buried in the Church, like homosexual Father Montalbano. After drinking the contaminated water at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, I was later diagnosed with lymphoma, which was treated with radiation therapy and chemotherapy. Unfortunately, one side effect of chemotherapy is leukemia, which I am currently battling.
I doubt that I will live to see a pope elected like St. Pius V who purged the Church of predatory and promiscuous homosexual clergy. While it is difficult to calculate how many faithful left the Catholic Church during the pontificates of 16th-century gay popes, Leo X and Julius III, estimates suggest there are now roughly 800 million Christians globally who are descendants of the Protestant Reformation. Many of these descendants support my writings, believe in the Real Presence of Christ, and are far more pro-family and pro-life than many pro-LGBTQ bishops and synodal Catholics.
“Let any members of the clergy…who are guilty of this nefarious crime, and who are not frightened by the death of their souls…be handed over to the severity of the secular authority which enforces civil law.,,,Any priest or member of the clergy, secular or regular, who commits such an execrable crime by force of the present law, be deprived of every clerical privilege, of every post, every dignity and ecclesiastical benefit, and having been degraded by an ecclesiastical judge, let him immediately be delivered to the secular authority to be put to death as mandated by law as the fitting punishment for laymen who have sunk into this abyss.” St. Pius V
