The Australian ran an article on 16 February headed ‘New book on sex lives of Vatican priests suggests 80 per cent are gay.’ The book In the Closet of the Vatican by homosexual Frederic Martel is ‘based on 1500 interviews with cardinals, clerics and even papal Swiss guards.’ It alleges further that one of the most outspoken prelates against ‘same-sex marriage’ ‘secretly frequented male prostitutes.’ All very sensational.

The article provoked the usual simple-minded, ignorant, anti-Catholic bigotry in the comment section as well as the usual reaction by many Catholics that the anti-Catholic media were at it again. They were, indeed, but they were close to the truth this time. I submitted the following comment:

The Australian media appear way behind the international conversation (especially in the US) over the incidence of homosexuality among the clergy and what it means. Some traditional Catholic groups, like Church Militant, are hammering the hierarchy unmercifully not only over clerical sexual abuse and the cover-up by many bishops, but about the behaviour of some well-known prelates.

Google Cardinal McCarrick and one will find a sensational story of scandal. Cardinal McCarrick is on the point of being laicized – defrocked. There has been a 180 degree turnaround by some traditional Catholics (like me) in their attitude to clerical sexual abuse. They thought it was just a beat-up by an anti-Catholic press. No, we have discovered that the story goes far deeper – and into the past. The huge increase of homosexuals in the priesthood after 1960 was no coincidence. Nor was it a coincidence that the rate of the abuse of male teenagers rose relative to that increase. The figures are there.

The Australian did not print my comment – as I expected. Even Australia’s most reliable newspaper quakes before the power of the far-left homosexual activists.