Cardinal Levada Advises Priests to Cover Up Their Homosexuality

William Cardinal Levada of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), who has a reputation for covering up priestly sex scandals, calls for in essence another cover-up, and this in broad daylight. In a homily in Rome on February 26 (Catholic News Service, Feb. 27), Levada mentions “the situation of the gay priest who announces his homosexuality publicly….” Levada says: “Does such a priest recognize this act [revealing his homosexuality in public] places an obstacle to his ability to represent Christ the bridegroom to his bride, the people of God? Does he not see how his declaration places him at odds with the spousal character of love as revealed by God and imaged in humanity?” Catholic News Service makes it crystal clear what Levada means: “a priest who publicly announces he is homosexual makes it difficult for people to see the priest as representing Christ, the bridegroom of his bride, the Church.”

Levada says a homosexual priest in effect cannot be a bridegroom, and this is certainly correct. But Levada, a master politician and compromiser, says homosexual priests should stay in the closet, so the laity won’t know they’re not bridegrooms.

Last September, Fr. Rich Danyluk announced from the pulpit that he is a homosexual. It happened at St. Joseph Basilica in Alameda in the San Francisco Bay Area. It was reported by the Oakland Tribune and five other major dailies in the Bay Area in January. In Fr. Rich’s homily, according to the report, he recounted this story: “About two years ago his [Fr. Rich’s] aunt was dying…. He arrived at her deathbed. He sat next to her and she started to cry, finally telling the priest, her nephew, she was gay. ‘I’m so afraid I’m going to hell,’ the priest remembered her saying. ‘That’s not how God works,’ he replied.” Apparently, the aunt wanted to repent. No repentance needed, said Fr. Rich. What a betrayal!

In his homily, according to the story, Fr. Rich said: “‘This good news is for everybody or it is for nobody,’ he told his congregation. The Gospel has to be for his aunt, too. For all lesbians and gays, the priest said with conviction.” (If the good news is for everybody or it’s for nobody, then everyone goes to Heaven and nobody goes to Hell.) Then Fr. Rich announced that he is “gay.” According to the story, “the basilica erupted in applause, and pew by pew the parishioners stood. Their priest was a homosexual and they greeted the news with a standing ovation.”