Officials within the Vatican hierarchy have gone into panic following a new report that revealed a large number of priests in the United States and internationally using the gay dating app Grindr.
The New York Times now claims that a series of studies performed by the Catholic blog The Pillar have already prompted at least one priest to resign his position: Msgr. Jeffrey Burrill, the former general secretary of the U.S. bishops’ conference. The Times further reports that Catholic officials now worry about privacy concerns of their priests, and of the potential ramifications of journalists and muckrackers tracking their cellular data.
“If someone who has made promise of celibacy or a vow of chastity has a dating app on his or her phone, that is asking for trouble,” said Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin said in a statement of the reporting by The Pillar. “I would also say that I think there are very questionable ethics around the collection of this data of people who allegedly may have broken their promises.”
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The reports published thus far by The Pillar only mention Grindr by name, though they do allude to use of other dating apps as well. Thus far, Jeffrey Burrill is the only clergyman mentioned by name.
Editors of The Pillar, J.D. Flynn and Ed Condo, have also refused to reveal just how they obtained the cellular data in the first place.
“Immoral and illicit sexual behavior on the part of clerics who are bound to celibacy, but also on the part of other church leaders, could lead to a broad sense of tolerance for any number or kinds of sexual sins,” Mr. Flynn said in a recent podcast.
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Fahd
Short of just disbanding the whole church operation, which I guess the Roman Catholic church won´t do soon, it is long past time for it to rethink the chastity requirement for its clergy. Even though priests on Grinder might be embarrassing, it is relatively harmless compared to some more unsavory outlets clergy may seek out if they can’t use Grinder. Repression is not a good long term solution to anything.
Joshooeerr
The Catholic Church is a criminal organisation and should be disbanded – legally and forcibly.
cuteguy
@Josho
Well so is Fox News but that’s not going to happen anytime soon…unfortunately
eeebee333
At least these priests are pursuing consenting adults.
Harley
Wow. That many. That’s got to be a record.
dave3137
I can hardly resist being sarcastic now. As one of those thousands of altar boys way back when the “Church” was, oh, well, transfer the priests or send them to the rehab in New Mexico and deny, deny, deny, it seems they’ve run out of altar boys and excuses. YOU overlooked it and denied it for centuries. So deal, peeps. Deal with what you’ve actually fostered. Deal with the fact that YOU protected those offenders all these years. You want the “faithful” to accept responsibility, but oh, that’s for YOU, not for US.
De Gueb
I was a lucky alter boy they threw me out for drinking the wine. 🙂 so of my mates weren’t so lucky.
marshal phillips
OMG priests on Grinder?! Who knew?
Ken A.
Priests were allowed to marry before Borgia, the pope after Borgia, Medici, because he hated Borgia and his family made the declaration claiming religion and devotion to the church, can’t have divided attention after all, also any family members were not allowed to inherit the priests earthly possessions, the church had to be heir. I think that has changed. I’m just glad I’m not Catholic.
Tony
Your history is faulty. Chastity and/or celibacy were promulgated in the 900s and 1000s. They were put in place, as you said, so that the wives and children of priests and prelates wouldn’t/couldn’t inherit Church property. While Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander VI (1492-1503) had a family, he was not married to the many women, who were the mothers of his children. Because his children couldn’t inherit Church property he put his sons in charge of the papacy’s army so that they could conquer land for themselves, and he married off his daughters to Italian nobles. Moreover, his papacy was in the middle of a scandalous period that lasted almost two centuries. The scandalous behavior of priests and prelates of this time period were partially responsible for the Reformation that started in 1517 more than a decade after Rodrigo’s death. Actual reform in the Catholic Church (known as the Counter-reformation) did not begin until 1534 and continued on through the reforms that were promulgated by the Council of Trent (1545-63) and not fully implemented until the end of the 16th century.
humble charlie
Tony – Great info. Thanks.
wvwrangler
Just curious here: How do you think they respond to all the scam accounts on Grindr seeking pay? Do you think they leave 30 pieces of silver on the nightstand ?
I find it humorous but valid. ?
AJAnders
Interesting how the Catholic Church is in freakout mode about this but they barely bat an eye when their priests sexually assault a child. When that happens, they just transfer the priest to a new church, which any sane person will tell you DOESN’T solve the problem. It just gives him an entire new group of kids to assault.
It’s a shame you don’t actually got into freakout mode about that.
BoomerMyles
I knew a VERY sexually active priest who insisted his vow of celibacy meant he would never get married, not that he would abstain from sex.
I guess that’s how all these clergymen justify their continued sexual behavior.
wikidBSTN
That is 100% correct. Being celibate means being unmarried. Being chaste means abstaining from sex. Unfortunately for this priest, they take vows of BOTH celibacy and chastity.
Cato
My uncle was a late vocation, becoming a priest in his 40s. He half-joked that the other guys in the seminary were planning to mumble so they could get away with making vows of celibacy and charity.
SamB
Cato: Why’d you uncle join if it’s all a joke to him?
wikidBSTN
Well, no one other than the Vatican is surprised by this.
Tony
The problem with the Pillar and its founders and editors, J.D. Flynn and Ed Condo, is that they’re anti-gay conservatives. Their stated goal is to reform the Catholic clergy. Their first focus is to purge the clergy and episcopacy of gays. The next step is to purge liberal priests and bishops who embrace and/or overlook the “sins” of their divorced, pro-choice, and/or gay parishioners. Yes, the stuff these a-holes publish is titillating and hypocrisy-revealing, but their intentions are completely and totally malign. They, like Trumpsters, want to return the world to the 1950s.
Marco
Pillar’s right wing cannon lawyers [redundant] may cause change opposite their desired retrograde church. They may force a liberalizing reformation due to a lack of qualified priests and unmasking of the internally accepted secret of “closeted” gay priests. Let it be so.
Mattster
The Pillar and those behind it are awful, yes. But unless they are being very selective with whose info they expose, it’s just as likely to destroy conservative voices in the church as liberal ones.
I’m curious how they got ahold of this info. Grindr has lost suits in Europe before about sharing customer data without consent, perhaps this is an instance of it.
Kangol2
In addition to the hypocrisy these right-wing Catholic fanatics have revealed, there is the deeper and to me far more disturbing issue that they are tracking people using supposedly anonymized data, in order to expose them. We know that our phones are essentially GPS tracking devices, but this suggests that both phones and apps make people even more vulnerable to surveillance, for potentially very nefarious and dangerous purposes. The other issue that the Pillar’s exposé has revealed is that someone or various entities with large amounts of money are able to purchase this data and then undertake data sorting, etc., to track various people. Who or what is the source of this money? If they’re going after closeted/DL gay priests now, what or what else are they tracking? As we’re learning, some very rich funders allegedly may have provided the seed money for the January 6, 2021 attempted coup. Who knows where some of these rich, far-right entities’ anti-democracy, anti-LGBTQ, racist, etc. goals intersect, and what they might be willing to fund right now and in the future?
letthemeatcake
At least there has been no mention of sexual activity involving minors (so far), which is surprising considering all the scandal that has rocked this corrupt organization for decades, and been swept under the rug by its corrupt leadership.
Cozmo2
I’m not surprised
Silversmith
The Catholic church has been trying to control what goes on in people’s underwear for almost 2000 years and still haven’t learned their lesson.
GlobeTrotter
Well, speaking from personal experiences, I once hooked up with a cute young priest I met in a darkroom years ago during my wild days. Shortly after, I met another priest online on ICQ (remember that?), who used to come over to my apartment to get the Bejesus screwed out of him. He told me he’d just finished seminary, where a LOT of boinking was going on behind closed doors.
A friend of mine hosts regular sex (fisting) parties. There’re too decadent for my taste, but among his guests is a certain high ranking Monseigneur and an appeals judge. And yes, we’re in Europe, so I have no idea what the gay clergy sex scene is like in the US.
tigg3rtam
Everybody is eager to kick, church is an institution formed with a purpose it is managed by humans who are corruptible, not to be mixed with it’s divine mandate.
rphillips4165
I’m sorry to tell you this. But there is no divine mandate for the Catholic Church. It was created hundreds of years after the supposed death of Jesus Christ. It was created to control the followers of the gospel. It was not spoken about in the bible . In fact the catholic church is the one who brought together and edited the bible. Leaving out anything that would infringe on their power. All religions are against the teachings of their prophets. If you want a relationship with God, Jesus, Allah or any other diety. Just find a quiet place and pray. Then do the hard part and be quiet and listen. That seems to be the part most people leave out.
humble charlie
rphillips4165 – great info. thanks.
Heywood Jablowme
Those priests would have better luck on Scruff. If you’re older than about 35 and you’re trolling Grindr you are just a chicken hawk. … Oh wait….
GayEGO
Oh my! We need a new investigation by SPOTLIGHT who found Catholic Priests molesting Children, now on Grindr! :>)
Openminded
So how many is a “litany” or a “very large number”? Obviously one higher ranking church member has resigned, but I’d like to see an estimated number or percentage of priest who are alleged to be using dating apps. One is too many, but where’s the info showing that this is a widespread problem or just a publicity stunt on the part of the Pillar.
Den
Right wingers like you are always such a laugh. So simpleminded. The Pillar is a news website SERVING the Catholic church and the catholic community. Are you so stupid as to think they engage in “publicity stunts like the National Enquirer or some right wing rag(oh wait we know you are that stupid)?
And what exactly does the exact number matter? Had you any connection to reality you would recall that Catholic priests are caught with their pants down (literally) almost daily, and all too often it is with adolescents or recently post pubescent boys. Hearing about them hooking up with adults is rather refreshing. But had you the intellect to actually follow a link (assuming you understand what a link is), you could easily have assuaged your curiosity about the number of priests involved. BUT HERE IS IS NARROWMINDED (a better name for you): WITHIN AREAS OF VATICAN CITY OFF LIMITS TO TOURISTS OR NON-CLERICS, 32 INDIVIDUAL DEVICES SHARED DATA WITH GRINDER IN 2018. Since that is a little complex for you, that is individual devices, not specific instances which means at least 32 Vatican officials were cruising for man sex. This is the cream of the catholic crop, who should be enforcing their stupid celibacies rules not flouting them by trolling for dick or ass.
winemaker
As a practicing Roman catholic gay man I ‘ve always wondered why the Catholic Church forbids its priests to marry while other Christian denominations, Protestants and Orthodox allow their clergy to get married. maybe it’s about time for the church to rethink this issue. Fewer and fewer men are going into the seminary resulting in shortages of parish priests. Over the years attendance at Sunday Masses has dwindled due to this issue
GlobeTrotter
It has nothing to do being holy (Jesus’ own disciplines were married), but with protecting church property. If priests were allowed to get married, then their children could stand to inherit church property, which centuries ago in the past included vast lands and domains. Don’t forget, many priests were powerful, sovereign Prince-Bishops that ruled sizable territories, for example the Prince-Bishop that ruled Salzburg (setting for the Sound of Music and part of present-day Austria). To keep these territories and their enormous wealth under the influence and ownership of the church, priests were forbidden to marry. That didn’t stop many of them from having sex – Cardinals in Rome were infamous for having young protegés of both sexes in centuries past – but at least their property couldn’t be legally inherited by any wives or children.
humble charlie
Globetrotter – Great info. Thanks.
cuteguy
Is thr Catholic cult still a thing? Can’t it just go away. It’s like trying to make fetch happen.
humble charlie
The best way for priests to remain celibate is for them to marry.