The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 84 - It's Time for the Church to Ruthlessly Root Out Sex Abusers

00:00:00.000 A grand jury report about the sex abuse of children by priests in Pennsylvania was released

00:00:05.460 yesterday. Over 300 predator priests are named in the document. The specifics are graphic and

00:00:11.500 horrifying. They do involve, of course, violent sexual assault and rape, and sometimes the

00:00:17.320 coordinated abuse of children by multiple priests in the same parish. And of course, the opportunity 0.59

00:00:22.780 for abuse, as we have seen in so many other cases, was furnished by bishops and other church

00:00:28.460 officials who either looked the other way or actively helped to cover up the crimes. Now,

00:00:34.380 I want to mention just a few specific details from this report of specific crimes that occurred

00:00:40.540 against children. And of course, I should warn you that these details are extremely, extremely

00:00:45.500 disturbing and graphic and certainly not suitable to listen to if you have kids in the room right

00:00:51.180 now. So if that's the case, then turn off the video or the podcast, come back to it later.

00:00:54.840 But I do think that we should look at a few of these examples just so we understand how

00:01:00.960 evil this is. All right. In one case, a boy was forced to stand naked, posing like Christ

00:01:11.060 on the cross, while priests took pictures of him and added them to a collection of child pornography

00:01:17.880 that they produced and distributed on the campus of the church.

00:01:24.080 That quite literally sounds like something from a horror movie. It sounds like something from...

00:01:30.800 It sounds made up. It sounds fictional, but it's not.

00:01:33.780 But it gets worse. These priests would actually mark boys who are being groomed for abuse and who

00:01:47.520 are desensitized to abuse and thus are easier to abuse. They would mark them so that other predator

00:01:53.920 priests would know and could then abuse them as well. And the way that they would mark them is that

00:01:57.860 they would give these boys a gift of a gold crucifix to wear around their necks. And if other predator

00:02:03.920 priests saw that gold crucifix around the necks of a boy, they knew that he would be vulnerable to

00:02:11.360 abuse. In another case, a priest raped a young girl and then arranged for her to get an abortion. 0.98

00:02:18.000 And his bishop heard about the situation and wrote a letter of condolence 0.98

00:02:21.540 to the priest who had raped the girl. In another case, a priest molested a boy over the course of 0.91

00:02:30.120 a couple of years. He admitted to church officials that he had engaged in naked, quote, horseplay

00:02:39.780 with the boy. And yet he was sent for treatment for a few months, and then he was allowed to continue

00:02:48.020 in ministry for seven more years. In another case, a priest raped a little girl while he was visiting 0.95

00:02:55.100 her in the hospital after she had gotten her tonsils removed. He visited her in the hospital and raped 1.00

00:03:00.960 her. In another case, a priest forced a boy to give him oral sex and then afterwards washed the boy's 1.00

00:03:09.840 mouth out with holy water to, quote, purify him. In another case, a priest molested a 12-year-old boy, 0.99

00:03:15.900 admitted his crime to a church official, but the diocese ruled that the abuse wouldn't, quote,

00:03:22.360 necessarily be a horrendous trauma to the victim. And so they didn't do anything else. And on and on

00:03:29.540 and on. There are over a thousand victims in this report, so there are many more cases like this.

00:03:34.120 But I just, I physically can't read any more than that. And I doubt you could physically listen to

00:03:40.200 any more than that. The point that I'm trying to get to here, and I think you'll understand now,

00:03:44.640 this is demonic, straight up. This is Satanism. What else can you call it? There is a virus in

00:03:53.360 the Catholic Church, and it has to be rooted out and crushed. There has to be a purge in the church. 0.97

00:04:02.020 And I don't think that purge has really happened yet. I think very clearly it has not. And I don't

00:04:08.260 see any way for this purge to happen unless it is ruthless and brutal and uncompromising.

00:04:15.220 If we have to err on the side of being merciless or being tolerant, then I think we need to err on

00:04:22.960 the side of being merciless every time when it comes to this. Now, unfortunately, the laws in our

00:04:29.760 country won't allow us to take these priests and hang them, which they so richly deserve. 0.97

00:04:36.020 Even less will it allow us to burn them at the stake, which I think would be poetic in many ways. 0.98

00:04:41.980 But we can't do that. But we can expose them, we can shame them, rebuke them, and hopefully they can

00:04:47.800 be locked in cages for the rest of their mortal lives. See, you know, I think Catholics are tempted 1.00

00:04:54.500 to believe that the scandals are kind of behind us, and that that was then, this is now. But

00:05:00.160 the Cardinal McCarrick case, which is just coming out in the last few weeks, and now this in

00:05:04.680 Pennsylvania, I think they clearly show that this is not behind us. The cancer has not been completely

00:05:09.760 removed. And what happens when you don't completely remove a cancer? It grows back. So it must be

00:05:15.820 completely, totally removed. It has not been. And I think when you see the reluctance of most priests

00:05:22.960 and bishops to come forward, even now, and speak passionately and publicly against these crimes,

00:05:29.620 that yet again shows that the problem is not in the past, because the predators and the cowards

00:05:35.180 who aid and abed them remain. And so that's one thing, you know, the average Catholic goes to church,

00:05:41.280 they're not necessarily going to know if abuse is going on, they can't, it's not something they can

00:05:45.780 see for themselves, obviously, but they can see moral cowardice among their leaders, and there is a lot of it.

00:05:52.960 A lot in the American church. They can see that. And I think it's a pretty safe bet. As long as the

00:06:00.180 church is infected by these spineless, gutless cowards, as long as they are there, the predators 1.00

00:06:08.620 will remain as well. Because that is the environment in which the predators thrive. So what can be done 0.99

00:06:15.020 to root out this problem? Well, there are many steps that can and should be taken. I want to focus on

00:06:20.740 just three of them right now. Okay. The first step, as I've already argued, and I'll argue again,

00:06:25.780 homosexuals must be banned from the priesthood, no exception. They must be banned. I said this has to 1.00

00:06:32.960 be ruthless, brutal, uncompromising. And so that's one of those steps. Every homosexual priest, banned. 0.92

00:06:40.860 Now, I know that not every victim in Pennsylvania was a boy. I even mentioned a few cases where girls were

00:06:48.240 abused, but most of the victims were boys. And across the country, over the last several decades,

00:06:54.560 a vast majority have been boys. I've written in other places that the most reliable study that's

00:07:02.040 been done on this has shown that over 80% of the victims, over 80% are boys, which means that a vast

00:07:10.040 majority of the predators are males attracted to other males. Now, you can, if you want, you can come back

00:07:17.080 with silliness about how men who molest boys aren't gay. But I don't think that claim even warrants a 0.78

00:07:23.340 response because it is so idiotic. It is so contemptible. And it is contemptible because the 1.00

00:07:29.280 person who makes that claim knows what they're saying is stupid, yet they make it anyway in an 1.00

00:07:34.340 effort to prevent measures that could protect children from being raped. And so that's why they're 1.00

00:07:40.200 saying these are people who care more about protecting the LGBT community than they do about 0.79

00:07:47.740 stopping children from being raped. And there are a lot of people out there like that. And every 0.79

00:07:52.300 single person right now who might be trying to make a comment in the comment section saying something,

00:07:56.240 well, just because a man molests a boy, that doesn't mean he's gay. That's stupid. That's idiotic. 1.00

00:08:01.720 It's contemptible. You know it. You know what you're saying makes no sense. You damn well know 1.00

00:08:07.040 that a man who goes after a boy is gay. If a man is not gay, he's not going to be going after boys. 0.99

00:08:14.420 This is a very simple equation. There's no getting around it. It's very simple. 0.78

00:08:23.100 Do I think that every homosexual is a child molester? No. But here's the thing. We all have to 0.96

00:08:29.720 understand. Most child molesters in the church are gay. The vast majority are gay. That's a fact. 1.00

00:08:39.300 That's not my claim. That's not my argument. That's not my deduction. That's just empirically proven

00:08:45.920 fact. The only question now is whether or not we will do something about it. And we have to understand

00:08:53.620 the problem of homosexuals in the church goes beyond the abusers. This is, as I say, 1.00

00:08:59.320 an environment, a culture that has been constructed. There is an actual conspiracy in the church among

00:09:07.240 homosexual priests and bishops. A conspiracy. This is not the stuff of Hollywood. This is real. This is 0.99

00:09:13.960 actual conspiracy. Those who, if you haven't read into this, if you're not paying attention,

00:09:19.160 then you might not know this. But anyone who has read about it and has paid attention knows

00:09:22.480 that this is the case. The homosexuals in the priesthood conspire with each other to intimidate 1.00

00:09:31.340 and blackmail others into silence. That's what they do. And as I just read one example of it, 1.00

00:09:38.880 they even conspire with each other to coordinate their abuse of boys. Now, just for an example,

00:09:45.380 for an illustration of this, there was a sermon delivered by a Father Edwin Palka at a church in

00:09:51.760 Florida a few weeks ago. And this man, Father Palka, is one of the good and courageous priests.

00:09:58.580 And as a courageous priest, he is, I fear, in a very small minority in the American church.

00:10:03.920 But he actually got up in front of his congregation a few weeks ago. And I have this sermon because they

00:10:08.460 posted it in the bulletin, in their church bulletin, which was then put online. He got up in front of

00:10:13.260 his congregation. And apparently, he's been doing a series of sermons on this. But he explained how

00:10:20.260 this works and how the actively homosexual priests and bishops operate. Now, I want to read just the 0.78

00:10:26.180 first couple of paragraphs of this to set it up, and then I'll summarize the rest of it. But so here's

00:10:32.040 a little bit of what he said. He said, one question that was asked after last week's homily was,

00:10:37.460 why don't good priests and good bishops blow the whistle on the abuse of priests and bishops?

00:10:41.800 Many people still don't, and I believe most priests still don't, understand just how evil the active 0.91

00:10:48.760 homosexual or homosexual activist priests and bishops are. Not understanding the extent of their 0.97

00:10:55.260 depravity and wrongly thinking that they are simply normal men who just struggle with their sexual

00:10:59.880 desires and sometimes might fail to remain chaste, but are really, truly repentant when it happens and

00:11:04.340 strive to confess their sins and do penance. They cannot possibly grasp the hellish depths to which

00:11:10.720 the active homosexual clergy will go, to persecute, lambaste, punish, humiliate, and blackmail anyone 1.00

00:11:17.760 who stands in their way or threatens their way of life. Let me be clear. The active homosexual 1.00

00:11:22.940 priests and bishops treat their sexual mortal sin as if it is a good, and a God-given good at that, 0.96

00:11:28.940 if they even believe in God, something of which I am very doubtful, at least in the Catholic 0.87

00:11:32.320 understanding of who God is. Nay, more than a good, they are convinced that it is the good to be able

00:11:38.020 to go to any, repeat any length, to force others to engage in it, to accept it, or to, at the very

00:11:43.120 least, ignore it and pretend that it doesn't exist or that it's not harmful enough to mention or try to

00:11:47.740 eradicate. They do not struggle with their disordered sexual desires, as so many others do, but rather

00:11:52.740 they revel in them. With that as my premise, let me explain why few good priests and bishops will

00:11:58.660 openly challenge their brother priests and bishops when it comes to this particular sin, and I won't

00:12:03.660 read the rest of it verbatim, but he explains, he explains, he gives just one example of how this

00:12:08.860 happens. He explains that when men enter into the seminary, as part of this process, they are asked to

00:12:21.440 reveal a lot of very personal information about themselves, which makes sense. It makes sense that,

00:12:27.660 and this, this is, this is one thing that the church should be doing. It's like, we need to know

00:12:31.360 about this man who's coming in and wants to be a priest, and especially because he's about to take

00:12:35.840 on, he's about, he's about to take on a huge amount of responsibility. He's going to be sacrificing quite

00:12:40.620 a bit, theoretically, and so they, they need to know about it. So he tells them a lot about their

00:12:48.180 information, a lot of information about, about, about themselves, and this information is kept in a file.

00:12:53.080 Now, ostensibly, that file is, is there for a good reason, so that he can be, you know, so that his

00:12:58.440 superiors can, can help him and, and guide him, and they know what he struggles with, so they can kind of

00:13:04.240 look out for him. That's the idea behind this file. And that file can grow as he continues to struggle

00:13:09.440 with things, and he makes mistakes, and whatever, things end up in the file. Well, now you see how, what can

00:13:15.680 obviously happen here. Now there is a file of very personal information about this man, and the

00:13:23.680 homosexual priests and bishops can use that file to blackmail him. What's more, he gives one 0.99

00:13:29.760 basically theoretical example, but an example that represents things that actually happens. So he, he

00:13:37.600 mentions, um, one thing that, um, that the active homosexual bishops can do to use this file against 0.94

00:13:46.320 the priest. He mentions, okay, well, in fact, let me just read it. He says, suppose a priest file reveals

00:13:51.360 that as a teen, he was sexually abused by an adult male. As a result of this formative abuse, he struggled

00:13:57.440 with homosexual desires as an adolescent and into his early adulthood, but always remained chaste. Once

00:14:03.480 ordained as a priest, he spoke out fervently against the acceptance and promotion and legalization

00:14:07.580 of homosexual activity and other sexual sins. His active homosexual bishop, knowing his past, 0.96

00:14:13.100 makes him the Boy Scout chaplain, where he will be working closely with the bishop's hand-picked 0.92

00:14:18.560 and openly active homosexual lay diocesan scout leaders, hoping and even encouraging him to finally 0.98

00:14:25.520 fall to his boyhood abuse-induced homosexual desires and sexually abuse one or more of the scouts. 0.99

00:14:31.340 While a continual perpetuation of this sin is most greatly desired by the homosexual bishop, 0.99

00:14:36.220 even one close call is enough for a lifetime of blackmail. So you see what happens. They know 0.91

00:14:43.260 the darkest secrets of these priests so they can use that against them to try to induce them into sin

00:14:49.960 so they can then use it against them. This is a priest getting up in front of his congregation and

00:14:55.680 revealing this. He has nothing, let me just tell you, he has nothing to gain by saying this,

00:15:01.520 nothing at all. He is putting everything on the line by saying this. So there is no reason to doubt him

00:15:07.120 whatsoever. He has risked quite a bit. And this is in line with what other priests have in moments of

00:15:12.400 candor said, whether anonymously or speaking out publicly, which rarely happens. But when they do,

00:15:17.480 and they're honest about it, these are the kinds of stories we heard. There's another example,

00:15:22.380 maybe it was from this priest or another that I recently heard, where priests who are actively gay 0.97

00:15:31.100 and who have abused boys, they will seek out heterosexual priests for confession. And so they'll 0.97

00:15:40.780 go, even though they're not really repenting at all, but they'll go to confession and they will tell

00:15:49.280 all of their horrible crimes to this heterosexual priest, knowing, and the only reason they do it 0.87

00:15:55.140 is so that they know that now that priest can't go and tell anyone. Because according to church law,

00:16:01.100 there is a seal in the confessional and whatever you say in the confessional, the priest cannot ever

00:16:06.400 repeat it to anyone, which is a rule that of course makes a lot of sense. Otherwise nobody would ever go

00:16:11.200 to confession. But these homosexual priests will use that. They will use it like a weapon. 1.00

00:16:19.280 To seal other priests into silence. So these are the kinds of things that happen. Again,

00:16:23.520 it is just demonic. Number two, what else can be done? The good priests and bishops have to come out

00:16:30.840 and rebuke with righteous fury. Okay, they have to be heroes like Father Palka. And even with,

00:16:38.500 and it's understood now that some of them are being blackmailed, they're being pressured,

00:16:42.060 horrible things are happening. But still, they need to come out like Father Palka and be heroes,

00:16:48.220 be courageous. Even if it means they're going to be personally destroyed because their own secrets

00:16:52.800 are going to come out. At a certain point, you got to do the right thing. And, you know,

00:16:57.800 these various bishops who have issued statements about how sad they are, how grief stricken,

00:17:03.940 that's not going to do. Cardinal Worrell, who was bishop in Pittsburgh while these things were

00:17:09.140 happening, and is guilty of coverups himself, he came out with a very limp-wristed kind of lament

00:17:14.500 about the tragedy of sexual abuse. But no, this is not a tragedy. It is wickedness straight from the

00:17:21.900 pit of hell. That's what it is. It's not just a tragedy. It is wickedness from hell. And that's

00:17:27.820 what needs to be said. We don't want to hear about tragedies anymore. We don't want to hear about your

00:17:34.780 sadness. We want to hear you call down the wrath of God on the perpetrators. That's what we want to

00:17:42.400 hear. We want to hear fire and brimstone. We want you to show us, if you're a priest or a bishop,

00:17:49.260 we want you to show us that you are disgusted and enraged by what's going on. Or else we'll suspect

00:17:57.840 that you don't care. Or worse. I mean, I just don't, if you're a priest, how could you even,

00:18:05.760 how could you do anything but get up there on Sunday at the pulpit and just rail against this?

00:18:11.200 As I say, fire and brimstone, righteous anger. That's what's needed now. Nothing else will do.

00:18:19.380 Nothing else is going to solve it. And we have to name names. Because for every priest who raped a boy,

00:18:26.320 there could well be at least one more priest who knew about it and remained silent. And those priests 0.98

00:18:30.920 are guilty as well. I'd say they're as guilty as the actual rapist. Because cowardice is a moral evil. 0.99

00:18:39.360 And there has been quite a lot of that kind of evil. And that is the evil that, as I said, that is the

00:18:44.820 evil which creates kind of the foundation and the environment and the structure upon which these

00:18:51.300 other things happen. Third thing, last thing. The lay people in the church have to start to use the

00:19:00.080 power that they have. And they do have power. They have power because they have money. So churches that

00:19:06.360 have been involved in abuse and cover-up must be starved of money by the parishioners unless and

00:19:12.920 until the church can come forward, beg for forgiveness, rebuke those who committed those sins

00:19:19.160 and those acts, and rebuke them convincingly, and then clearly outline what steps they have taken to

00:19:26.240 rectify the problem. There has to be full transparency and full accountability. Any church that will not be

00:19:33.400 fully transparent and fully accountable when it comes to this issue deserves to die. And the faithful 1.00

00:19:39.440 will just have to drive a bit further to a different church. So I think those are three steps that can and

00:19:44.140 should be taken. I'm under no illusion that any of them actually will be taken.

00:19:48.060 But they need to be. And if they are not, then I don't see how this problem gets solved.

00:19:56.140 Thanks for listening, everybody. Thanks for watching. Godspeed.

The Matt Walsh Show - August 15, 2018

Ep. 84 - It's Time for the Church to Ruthlessly Root Out Sex Abusers

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