Catholic World News News Feature

Overexposure October 01, 2003

Michael S. Rose

One shady facet of homosexual culture is the habit of "cruising" for sex in public places" typically parks, public restrooms, and highway rest stops. This appears to be the quickest and most reliable way for overheated gay man to find a partner who will satisfy his disordered sexual appetite in one manner or another. This frequently entails anonymous public sex, usually between consenting adult males who have never previously met one another. By any standard, this is reckless behavior. It is also illegal.

Father Raymond Larger made that startling discovery the hard way. This summer, the Cincinnati priest was arrested and charged with two counts of public indecency in Dayton, Ohio's Triangle Park, some 50 miles from his parish. Father Larger made the mistake of soliciting sex from an undercover police officer. His method: groping the man's groin and exposing himself.

Triangle Park has long been a popular spot for anonymous homosexual encounters. Father Larger was not there by accident. In fact, according to the arresting officer, the priest told the detective that he was a frequent visitor to the park. In other words, the priest had made a habit of regularly "cruising" for public sex--a far cry from fitting behavior for any grown man, let alone for a pastor of a Catholic parish.

Father. Larger pleaded no contest to sexual misconduct charges, was convicted, and was given a 30-day suspended jail sentence and one year of unsupervised probation. He was also temporarily stripped of his priestly faculties and suspended indefinitely by Cincinnati's Archbishop Daniel E. Pilarczyk. It is instructive to note that the convicted priest was not immediately placed on leave. It was only after reporters from Cincinnati's Channel 9 News confronted the archdiocese about the priest's arrest and conviction that the archbishop addressed the issue. An archdiocesan spokesman told the Cincinnati Enquirer that the archbishop's decision to place Larger on paid administrative leave was "a response to loud and numerous complaints from Larger’s flock."

Parishioners at Cincinnati’s Our Lady of Visitation Church, where Father Larger was pastor at the time of his arrest, are understandably upset. Not only is it an insufferable embarrassment to have one's pastor arrested for indecent exposure, it is difficult to imagine one's son (or daughter, or wife) interacting on any level with such a man. Just as the sexual abuse of minors is unconscionable, so too is Larger's "cruising." Both forms of his behavior are sexually predatory in nature (although the abuse of minors is a graver transgression). Both are illegal. Both are reckless. Both are a disgrace to the Roman collar.

NOT AN ISOLATED CASE

American Catholics should steel themselves in anticipation for more of this sort of news. More and more priests are likely to be "outed" for their arrests on morals charges such as public indecency, lewd conduct, and solicitation. The fact that priests are regularly arrested in flagrante delicto is not a new phenomenon. The increased publicity given to these cases is the real news.

Father Larger's case is, unfortunately, all too common. The few examples I cite in this column don’t even scratch the surface of this scandal. Nonetheless, consider:

• Two weeks before the Cincinnati priest's arrest in Triangle Park, Father Wladyslaw Marczynski, 42, was sentenced to ten days of community service for obscene conduct. The Michigan priest was arrested in a Traverse City park for engaging in a sexual act with another man. Father Marczynski was a pastor in the Diocese of Gaylord, Michigan.

• In May, Father Ronald Ashmore, ordained in 1976 for the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, was arrested for exposing himself to an Indiana state trooper at a public rest stop along an interstate highway. He reportedly told the undercover trooper that he was cruising for sex, and asked the detective to join him behind the restroom.

• Last year Father Ed Greiwe, a member of the Crosier fathers, was cited for indecent exposure and disorderly conduct after exposing himself to a male undercover police officer at Pioneer Park in Blaine, Minnesota.

• The Arizona Republic recently compiled a list of priest sex offenders from the Diocese of Phoenix. The list included Father. John J. Hall, who was arrested in 2001 for public indecency and sexual contact in a public park. It was also revealed that Father Robert H. Kelly was arrested on public indecency sex charges twice while an active priest, but those incidents were never made public until last year.

• In 1999, Father Robert Betz, a priest of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, was arrested in a public park for lewd and lascivious behavior, including masturbating in front of an undercover officer.

STILL A PASTOR

This last case is a particularly interesting one. Although the arrest is public knowledge, Father Betz has continued in his role as pastor of two parishes in South Milwaukee. (The parishes were merged earlier this year.) In a letter dated January 27, 2003 to Stephen Brady, president of the Illinois-based Roman Catholic Faithful, a spokesman for Milwaukee's Archbishop Timothy Dolan responded to an inquiry regarding Father Betz’s standing within the Milwaukee archdiocese. Writing on behalf of the prelate who replaced the disgraced Archbishop Rembert Weakland, Father Joseph F. Hornacek explained to Brady that "Father Betz publicly acknowledged his sinful behavior… repented, took advantage of professional counseling and spiritual direction, and promised this behavior would never occur again."

This was the prelude to Archbishop Dolan's justification for allowing the convicted priest to remain a pastor in good standing. Father Hornacek explained that parishioners at Betz’s parishes "asked the archbishop [Rembert Weakland at the time] to allow him to remain their pastor," and that Archbishop Weakland acceded to their wishes because "Father Betz has never been guilty of any behavior which would pose a risk to the children of the parish." In this case Archbishop Dolan, touted hopefully as a "conservative" prelate who might just turn things around in long-suffering Milwaukee, ratified the judgment of his disgraced predecessor.

It is interesting that in Cincinnati Father Larger’s parishioners were angry and demanded that Archbishop Pilarczyk remove the sex offender from ministry, while in Milwaukee Father Betz’s parishioners were so understanding of their pastor’s lewd and lascivious conduct that they asked their archbishop to keep the convict at the altar and in the pulpit. Either Father Hornacek was misrepresenting the situation--which, personally, I doubt--or something is seriously wrong in South Milwaukee. What parent in his right mind would knowingly leave his child alone with a priest who was arrested for masturbating in front of an undercover cop in a public park? It would be nice to believe that the priest has repented and reformed his life. Maybe he has. But what parent is willing to take that risk? What kind of bishop would claim with such confidence that a former sex offender-priest poses no risk to children?

THE ELEPHANT IN THE LIVING ROOM

Last year the Diocese of Lexington, Kentucky, made a similar argument for Father Charles Howell, who was arrested in 1998 on the same charge: masturbating in front of two men in a public park. At the time Father Howell was associate pastor of Lexington's Cathedral of Christ the King. Bishop J. Kendrick Williams--who later resigned after several sex abuse lawsuits were filed against him--directed Father Howell to obtain counseling and placed him on probation before promoting the convicted priest to be pastor of St. William's in London, Kentucky. In a public statement released last year, the Diocese of Lexington explained that Father Howell "underwent a professional evaluation that deemed him no threat to children, youth or the community," and that Bishop Williams (himself an accused sex offender) pronounced Father Howell fit for continued ministry.

Also pronounced "fit for continued ministry," was Father Wayne Ball, ordained for the Diocese of Richmond, Virginia in 1989. After the priest's arrest last December for lewdness in a public park located just two miles from his paris--Father Ball was caught in flagrante delicto in the back seat of a parked car with another man--Bishop Walter F. Sullivan told Richmond's Channel 13 News that he has no plans to penalize the convicted priest. "I support him," said the bishop. "We’re not going to condemn him."

Does the Catholic Church really need priests who set out to solicit sex from male strangers in public parks and toilets? Does the Church really need bishops who "support" such criminal offenders, and pronounce the convicts to be fit for ministry?

As Father James Gould, former director of vocations for the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia states in my new book Priest, "It’s more than obvious that homosexuality in the priesthood is a serious problem. It’s the elephant in the living room. The Church has reached a point where it can no longer ignore this." The US bishops, however, have other ideas. During their landmark meeting held last summer in Dallas, the bishops indicated they were interested only in sexual abuse cases involving minors.

"This was tantamount to giving a carte blanche to all those involved in other lapses in modesty, chastity, and celibacy," points out Father Gould. His suggested remedy is a simple one: Those who cannot or will not maintain the vow of celibacy need to be identified, investigated, and assigned to a sound therapy program. Failing this, he adds, they should be suspended. As he puts it, "God knows we can no longer morally or financially afford to ignore or cover up these problems."

Father Gould is careful to make a distinction between active heterosexual priests and active homosexual priests. The heterosexuals are typically driven by a fleeting passion for an individual woman, he says, while homosexuals are more often driven by a "seriously disordered" sexual appetite that they seek to satisfy with any male who can be used. As in the case with Father Larger et al., it sometimes means prowling about a park at dusk trying to solicit sex amid the shrubbery.

Unfortunately many Catholics, like those in South Milwaukee, do not yet realize that priests arrested in parks are not simply sinners who have fallen in a singular instance. Their actions cannot be chalked up to momentary lapses in modesty, chastity, and celibacy. They are sexual predators who cannot control their impulses: men without self-control. They are men who are actively partaking in a way of life characterized by serious habitual sin, coupled with reckless behavior. They are men who are living a lie.

Can they be forgiven? Of course. Does that mean they are fit for ministry? No way. Just as there is no room anywhere in the priesthood for a man who sexually abuses minors, so too there is no room in the priesthood for the reckless cleric who cruises parks looking for anonymous public sex.

Michael S. Rose is author of several books including Goodbye, Good Men. His latest book is Priest, published by Sophia Institute Press.