July 1983

Your Excellency:

We are writing to you upon a topic which is so distasteful that we would not have raised it if the danger it poses to the Church in this country had not been so great. We are referring to the homosexual network within the Catholic Church. The immediate purpose of this letter is to draw to your attention our review of Father Enrique Rueda's book, The Homosexual Network. If Your Excellency does not possess a copy of this book we would be happy to provide you with one. In the 8 December 1968 issue of L'Osservatore Romano Pope Paul VI is quoted as referring to the ''self-destruction" of the Church. In his Encyclical Pascendi, Pope St. Pius X warned that:

Owing to the efforts of the enemy of the human race, there have never been lacked "men speaking perverse things," "vain talkers and seducers," "erring and driving into error." It must, however, be confessed that these latter days have witnessed a notable increase in the number of the enemies of the Cross of Christ, who, by arts entirely new and full of deceit, are striving to destroy the vital energy of the Church, and, as far as in them lies, utterly to subvert the very Kingdom of Christ.

St. Pius X rightly attributed such activity to the "enemy of the human race," and on the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, 1972, Pope Paul VI admitted that the smoke of Satan had entered the Church. Your Excellency, the presence of Satan could not be more manifest than within the Catholic homosexual network; the self-destruction of the Church is nowhere more apparent than in the destruction of Christian morality by men addicted to a sin crying out to heaven for vengeance, "men speaking perverse things," "vain talkers and seducers." The 12 March 1983 issue of the Milwaukee Sentinel included a report on a book written by such men. The book was entitled: A Challenge to Love: Gay and Lesbian Catholics in the Church. It is edited by Father Robert Nugent, a leader of the national Catholic Gay Ministry group. It contains an article by Daniel Maguire, a Marquette University theology professor, advocating "a Catholic concept of monogamous homosexual marriage." The report quotes Maguire as follows: "Marriage is the highest form of interpersonal commitment and friendship available between sexually attracted persons. Nothing in that definition requires that the sexually attracted persons who are conjoined in committed conjugal friendship must be heterosexual. Neither is the capacity for having children required." The report added that: "Maguire acknowledged that the marriage of a gay couple could not be celebrated with public liturgy at this time in the Church's history. However, he said that a 'celebration of private liturgies to conjoin two gays in a permanent and committed love would seem commendable'." Father Nugent also advocated the recognition of such liasons, as did Sister Jeannine Gramick who, together with Fr. Nugent, directs the "New Ways Ministry" based in Mount Ranier, Maryland. They were conducting workshops of homosexuality and family ministry in Milwaukee in March. Gramick revealed that "some U. S. bishops told her they suggested this type of relationship in counselling situations with lay men and women who are homosexuals."

Your Excellency, may we ask you to pause and consider the enormity of these revelations. Homosexuality is a form of unnatural vice crying out to heaven for vengeance! It is not simply contrary to the law of the Church, but to natural law; it is forbidden to all men at all times and under all circumstances. But in the U.S.A., Catholic bishops, successors of the Apostles, are advocating homosexual marriage, and Catholic theologians are allowed to publish books promoting such an abomination while remaining in good standing with the Church.

A similar book was published in 1976 by Father John McNeill, S.J. It was entitled The Church and the Homosexual and received wide praise from the Liberal press, secular and Catholic. Father McNeill published this book with the permission of his Jesuit superiors, a fact which is possibly more scandalous than its content. The book appeared with the statement Imprimi potest ("it may be printed"). Writing in the 24 October 1976 issue of the National Catholic Register, Paul Hallet, one of the most outstanding Catholic journalists and lay theologians in America, commented that this approval could only mean that:

The Jesuit superiors are prepared to admit, against Scripture and Tradition, that the natural law that prohibits the sin of sodomy may one day prove unreal. Otherwise, why allow a book to be printed upholding this thesis?

The publication of the book by John McNeill, S.J., affords a good instance of how a para-Magisterium works against the true Magisterium. It is all very well to say that the Church says this or that, but anyone who reads a book by a priest that has been printed with the permission of his superiors, and finds in it things that are against the Church, is going to suspect that the opinion that is now outlawed may one day gain acceptance in the Church.

As Fr. Kenneth Baker, S.J., has written: "Until the Pope and the bishops (and religious superiors) find a way to define and limit dissent in the Church there is not much hope that the present confusion will be overcome."

Your Excellency, Father Baker has gone right to the heart of the matter here. It seems that our American bishops have not only abandoned any inclination they might ever have felt to uphold Catholic truth against the dissenters, but some of them have become dissenters themselves, if Sister Jeannine Gramick is to be believed. That is why we are writing to beg you to use your position to implore the Holy Father to intervene personally, immediately and effectively. Direct action by the Pope is now the last hope we have of saving something of the wreckage of the Church in the United States. The only appropriate action would appear to be the despatch of an orthodox and courageous Papal Legate, with full power to act in the name of the Pope. If the Legate did come, his mission would appear credible in the eyes of faithful Catholics only if he removed a dozen or more bishops from their posts. We would suggest that the first candidate for removal should certainly be Archbishop Rembert Weakland of Milwaukee. The edition of the Milwaukee Sentinel which has already been quoted also reported that: "Nugent and Gramick praised the sensitive and balanced approach Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert G. Weakland took when he wrote about homosexuality in a 1980 column in The Catholic Herald. The column is used by the gay ministry group as a model of how homosexuality should be addressed by church leaders, they said."

As our review of Father Rueda's book points out, Archbishop Weakland actually used arguments taken from homosexual apologists to defend proponents of this terrible perversion. It also notes that sixteen American bishops have made pro-homosexual statements, and that the militant Catholic homosexual group Dignity boasts that seventy-five percent of its meetings are held on Church property. Is it not reasonable to argue that ordinary Catholics will conclude that groups allowed to use Church property must be acceptable to Church authorities? In a number of dioceses such as Seattle, "Gay Masses" are permitted by the bishop. Can we seriously expect non-Catholics to believe that the Church represents Christ in the world when its bishops permit such abominations?

Your Excellency will certainly recollect the stern words of Our Saviour addressed to those who permit the young to be scandalized. You have a particular responsibility in this respect to protect young Catholics from corruption. In his column in The Wanderer for 29 November 1980, Father Robert E. Burns warned that many chapters of Dignity "have been established in Catholic colleges, and in Newman clubs or Catholic student centers at state universities and non-Catholic colleges." What this means is that young Catholics attending such institutes face the possibility of moral corruption through the presence of an officially approved organization of homosexual activists.

While we would not wish to pass judgment on you, we feel bound to remark to Your Excellency, in the true Catholic spirit of fraternal correction, that not one of us could sleep at night in your position while a single chapter of Dignity was allowed to operate within any Catholic institute for young people!

Equally alarming is the spread of the perversion among priests and religious. We have reached the situation where homosexuality and the Catholic priesthood are coming to be identified. Lest you should accuse us of making an outrageous and irresponsible generalization, we must point out that we did not make it. You will certainly know of the National Federation of Priests' Councils (NFPC), a body which is the official advisor to the Bishops' Committee on Priestly Life and Ministry. In its November/December 1982 Newsletter, it is stated that:

There is an awareness that some priests are committing themselves to non-celibate relationships. This happens among both heterosexual and homosexual priests. Of more recent and urgent concern is the number of priests who have a homosexual orientation. The heterosexual priest worries because he fears that the priesthood will gradually become equated with homosexuality and such identification frightens him.

As far as we know, the Bishops' Committee on Priestly Life and Ministry has not repudiated this statement. It certainly corresponds with an alarming trend noted by Professor James Hitchcock in the 25 May 1980 National Catholic Register, in which he revealed that seminarians who rebuff the homosexual advances of other students can find themselves dismissed from the seminary as "unfit for the priesthood." We could also cite disquieting cases of priests convicted of homosexual offenses, even against children, being allowed to retain their positions, or of being transferred to other parishes.

One matter in which it is vital that you intervene concerns the handing over of the steps of St. Patrick's Cathedral to Dignity each year, on the occasion of "Gay Pride Day" in New York City. This has been taking place since 1980, and appears to have become an established tradition. The Cathedral authorities permit Dignity activists to occupy the steps of the Cathedral holding banners, proclaiming that "God is gay," "Nowhere does God come so close to man as in man," and one pervert, dressed to resemble Our Lord, wearing a lavender gown, proclaimed that he was the "Gay Messiah." Each group of perverts in the parade made a point of stopping outside the Cathedral to indulge in blasphemous or obscene words and antics, to be greeted by waves and applause from their Catholic counter-parts on the steps. The Rector of the Cathedral had promised that this outrage would not take place in 1982, but it did. Your Excellency, we beg you to use your power to prevent it happening in 1983.

We would also remind you that the Church must be concerned with the common good of society. There is no doubt that this common good is threatened by the proliferation and increasing organization of the homosexual network in America. They have even reached the stage in some cities of using sophisticated computerized mailing lists to influence the outcome of elections. For the good of the Church and the good of the country an immediate and vigorous counter-offensive must be launched against the homosexual network. We would suggest that this is a far more urgent task for our bishops than attempting to undermine the defences of our country. If present trends continue we shall not fall to an aggressor through military action, we shall have collapsed as a Church and as a country through internal corruption, the "self-destruction" spoken of by Pope Paul VI. Can you, as the Pope's representative, stand by and see this happen?

Finally, we would like to make it clear that our own attitude to homosexuals as individuals is identical to that expressed by the Holy Father during his visit to our country. As individuals they should be treated with understanding and compassion by their confessors, who should do all in their power to help them overcome their weakness. But, at the same time, it must be made clear that all homosexual acts are contrary to the natural law and can never be accepted as compatible with the Catholic faith.

In the hope that you will be moved to act in the interests of our Church, of our country, and particularly of our young people, we remain your obedient servants.

The Editors.

The Most Reverend Pio Laghi
The Apostolic Delegation
3339 Massachusetts Avenue, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20008