An independent Catholic newspaper, the National Catholic Reporter, of February 27, 1987, said that homosexual clergy estimated that 50 percent of the U.S. Catholic priesthood is homosexual. This figure is contested. One psychologist, basing his statement on 1,500 interviews, says that 20 percent of the 57,000 U.S. Catholic priests are homosexual, whereas more recent reports make “other therapists think the true figure today may be closer to 40 percent.”

Just over a year ago, newspapers across the country were flooded with reports of sexual assaults on children by Catholic priests. The following report from the San Jose, California, Mercury News, December 30, 1987, is typical:

“At a time of heightened national awareness of the problems of child abuse, the Catholic Church in the United States continues to ignore and cover up cases of priests who sexually molest children, according to court records, internal church documents, civil authorities and the victims themselves.

“Church officials insist that a notorious 1985 Louisiana case in which a priest molested at least 35 boys has taught them to deal firmly with the problem. But a three-month Mercury News investigation reveals that in more than 25 dioceses across the country, church officials have failed to notify authorities, transferred molesting priests to other parishes, ignored parental complaints and disregarded the potential damage to child victims. . . . Millions of dollars in damages already have been paid to victims and their families, and one 1986 church report estimated that the church’s liability could reach $1 billion over the next decade.”

The “notorious 1985 Louisiana case” mentioned in the Mercury News report concerned a priest named Gilbert Gauthe. There has been a “payment of $12 million to his victims.” The homosexual activities of Gauthe were known for many years, but ‘the diocese handled the problem by transferring him from parish to parish at least three times.’ In one instance “parents testified that Gauthe sodomized their 7-year-old son on his first day as an altar boy and for a year afterward, until the priest was transferred.”

The “damage to child victims” was also mentioned in that report. Sometimes the damage is final. One 12-year-old boy took his life, leaving a note saying that “it wasn’t worth living” after having been “made a virtual sex slave of a Franciscan brother.” Another, molested by a priest, hanged himself after telling his brother, “Contact Father S.— and tell him I forgive him.”

The newspaper reports go on and on listing many specific cases of Catholic youths sodomized by Catholic priests, of millions of dollars being paid out to settle lawsuits, of many settlements made out of court, and of insurance companies that “will no longer cover diocesan personnel against molestation charges.”

Thomas Fox, editor of the National Catholic Reporter, says: “There has been a national cover-up of the problem for years by the bishops.” Eugene Kennedy, a former priest and now psychology professor at Loyola University, says: “What you see in the courts is just the tip of the iceberg.” Thomas Doyle, Dominican priest and canon lawyer, declares: “The sexual molesting of little boys by priests is the single most serious problem we’ve had to face in centuries.”