LEO WANTS MENTAL HEALTH BUT NO JUDGMENT OF SIN

To comment please open your gmail account or use my email address, FB Messenger or X.

And Trad Inc doesn't like it  

Only the oh-so-plausible pretender 'Pope Leo XIV' could call for a mental health ministry when his antichurch refuses to judge sin. Only a pretend pope could get together with Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and Protestants to commit the Catholic Church to "shared spiritual and educational goals with non-Christian religions", as Leo did in Metz, France. Or sign the Golden Book inside Algeria’s Great Mosque - forging his mentor Francis' Vatican-Islam super-alliance - and declare it "a space proper to God".

But wait for it. Trad Inc will leap to the defence of Robert 'FtR' Prevost. While suffering the Vatican's wicked deprivation of the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM), Trad Inc discovers excuses for abandonment by the 'Holy Father' of the Catholic doctrine preserved by the perennial liturgy of the Church.  

They oohed and aaahed at the crowds Leo fetched in the Champs Elysee, where he presented the bloodied, martyr-making Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité as "universal ethical demands" that find in the Gospel "an inexhaustible source of inspiration". He elevated the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights to the status of a "milestone" in moral progress, described by Archbishop Vigano as "the exact opposite of the Magisterium up to Pius XII." And as Archbishop Lefebvre said: "it was by means of its slogan that the Revolution penetrated the Church "through religious liberty, collegiality and ecumenism".

 

But the conservative establishment points to the postconciliar bishops' longanimity in not yet having closed down every Latin Mass parish in the world. They gobble up the bones of quasi-doctrine that Leo tosses them. Even after he'd set the scene for this spectacle at his ordination as 'Pope' when he told new priests, “You will make his words your own in every Eucharist: it is ‘for you and for all.’"

That distortion of the liturgy, prated in the Novus Ordo (N O) for nearly 40 years, contradicts the teaching of Christ and Church. Corrected by Benedict XIV to conform to pro multis: “for many”, it was presented by the newly-elected 'pope' as Gospel truth and Trad Inc, telling themselves they'd dodged a bullet and seemingly dazzled by his beautiful vestments, took it like lambs. 

By now it seems Trad Inc is operating out of Stockholm Syndrome. Stuck with the homoheretical hierarchy, Trad Inc appear to have made friends with its enemies in Rome while waiting out the natural process of attrition - for decrepit Boomer cardinals and bishops to die off. 

"The experience of our members is that hostility to the old Mass is found above all in the older generation age of bishops and senior clergy,” says Joseph Shaw, chairman of Foederatio Internationalis Una Voce (FIUV) and the UK-based Latin Mass Society. "For a wise and pastoral end to this confusion, we must continue to wait, and to pray."

February 10, 2026

Meanwhile Jesus Christ in the Most Holy Sacrament of the altar (in most N O churches actually the Most Holy Sacrament in a cupboard) continues to suffer insults infinitely more grievous even than clerical sex abuse, and millions of souls proceed to their eternal damnation. 

Not only do uber-conservatives often support Robert 'FtR' Prevost, they go after arguably the most traditional body within the Catholic Church: the Society of St Pius X (SSPX). A conference in Denver, US, for traditional Catholic women called 'Restore Tradition', had last week been discussing spiritual warfare, the postconciliar crisis, feminism and Tradition when it was interrupted. 

One Rachel Mastrogiacomo, a famous survivor of clerical abuse, had just spoken in praise of  the TLM, making invidious comparison of the Old Mass with the N O. She quoted Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger’s famous description of the postconciliar reform as a “fabricated liturgy” and a “banal product of the moment.” And she was silenced. 

Significantly, Mastrogiacomo had also praised the Society of St Pius X (SSPX). So had another speaker, The Remnant's Michael Matt, whose invitation to speak at the conference had been disputed among the organisers simply because of his public record of defending the SSPX. https://bigmodernism.substack.com/p/exclusive-womens-conference-cut-off 

Latin Massgoers let loose on social media can wax hysterical about the Society, in particular its past record of clerical sex abuse. However Wikipedia doesn't even rate the SSPX a mention. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_abuse_scandals_in_Catholic_orders_and_societies   It's ironic, but the reason for any loosening of restrictions on the TLM would not be the silence of the conservative lambs but a strategy to lure people away from the SSPX, because they have maintained the Faith and still teach it.

One wonders why so many traditional Catholics expend emotional energy and animosity on the Society. Could they be spiritually envious of men who faced fake  'excommunication' from the Ape of the Church in Rome by defending Christ and His Mystical Body in His renewed, Mystical Passion? Does Trad Inc perhaps wish to justify  pusillanimity by finding fault with the Society in the only way it can, by dredging up historical clerical abuse?

To sacrifice the truths of the Catholic religion on the altar of the Traditional Latin Mass - dumbly acquiescing in Rome's horrendous heresies in the vain hope that the TLM will be allowed a look-in, sometime - is to make a god of the ancient rite. That is, to break the First Commandment of the Decalogue (as Prevost already has in bowing before the demon god Pachamama). 

Not silent - Cardinal Robert Sarah

In her savage piece below, instancing Antipope Bergoglio, Antipope Prevost and other mens, Fr. James MartinAntipope Bergoglio, Antipope Prevost, Fr. James Martin,  , American blogger Ann Barnhardt declares: "Not only do these men not actually believe what The Church teaches, a significant percentage of them actually hate The Church itself, and they hate God Himself.  

"Should I not hate, O Lord, them that hate Thee, and be consumed with anger at Thy enemies?" (Ps 138). 

 

Ann Barnhardt tells Trad Inc a Thing or Two:

Sodomites and Power: Either You Let Us Destroy The Church, or We Will Destroy The Church

 

I have received many, many emails over the years from folks thanking me for discussing the Bergoglian and now Prevostian Antipapacies and the ascendancy of the apostate anti-church, and how consoling it is.  I hear you.  The truth is a soothing salve, and sometimes the more horrible the truth is, the more consoling and edifying it can be to hear it proclaimed.

 

This Antipapacy and eclipse of the Church by the Antichurch is second only in horror to the Death of Our Lord on the Cross in this paradoxical mystery of faith.  But as the Catechism clearly states, the Church will undergo her own Passion before Our Lord returns in Glory, and it is simply irrational at this point to deny the possibility that we are, right now, living through the Church’s Passion in the run-up to Our Lord’s return in glory to judge the living and the dead.

 

https://x.com/CarloMVigano/status/1810243329969230155

The first thing I want to discuss is a theme that I have been desperately trying to convey for years, namely that “they don’t actually believe any of that Catholic bullsh*t“.  Still, after all of this, so many comment boxes and written commentary pieces still simply can’t understand how it is that Antipope Bergoglio, Antipope Prevost, Fr. James Martin, Ethh Jay (the notorious faggot priest who is aggressively pushing sodomy), and all the rest could possibly, possibly be saying and doing the things they are doing, and why other men are NOT doing the things that they SHOULD be doing.

 

After all, the things they are saying and doing (or not doing) are literally destroying the Church and driving souls into eternal damnation.

 

Um, I’ll go ahead and repeat myself if it will help.

 

Not only do these men not actually believe what The Church teaches, a significant percentage of them actually hate The Church itself, and they hate God Himself.  They are consciously at war with God and His Holy Church.  They are consciously trying to destroy it, and to “hurt God” as much as they can. Folks, it is nothing less than this.

 

I have an anecdote sent in by a friend of the blog who, while on pilgrimage a while back was able to have a good conversation with someone who is very close to the liberal religious orders.  The contact said, in no uncertain terms, that the aging-to-death religious orders are HAPPY that they are dying out because they HATE the Church and view The Church and their own orders as they were founded as “unjust”.  

 

These orders not only do not lament that they have no new incoming vocations, but they consciously, actively drive away any young people who come inquiring, because they consider any young person joining a religious order OF ANY KIND as a “waste of their life”.  

 

Needless to say, these auto-destructing religious orders hate with a fiery passion the traditional orders, which have young vocations out their ears, because THEY WANT THE CATHOLIC CHURCH TO DIE.  They view young people joining a religious order or even the diocesan priesthood as “the perpetuating of an unjust system”.  

 

These groups consider it their vocation to once and for all rid the world of the unjust, patriarchal Catholic Church. Every nun, monk and priest that dies and is not replaced by a new vocation is a VICTORY to these people, an advance, moving them one step closer to their goal of totally eradicating The Church.

 

Don’t believe me? Here’s proof. https://twitter.com/i/status/1562073453490061315

“I despair of young priests. I’d prefer we had nothing.”

 

But, but, but Ann! If they eradicate The Church, they won’t have a matrix within which to operate!

 

Ah, this is why what is happening now is a unique historical pivot and not merely “the same-ole-same-ole” corruption that the institutional Church has always suffered.  Up until now, corrupt elements in The Church did not desire the destruction of the One True Church, precisely because the One True Church was, in fact, the legitimate entity that they were happy to use as the front for their racketeering organizations.  

 

 But now, what these people see is that there is a “replacement” for The One True Church being built and prepared, and, they all hope, will soon be unveiled, and The One True Church will be eradicated.

 The replacement is, of course, the apostate Freemasonic sodomitical anti-church, which Antipope Bergoglio and now Antipope “FtR" Prevost is the frontman and his claque of demon faggots are busily preparing, and will serve as the ultimate, perfected racket.

 

The reason the enemies of Christ and His Church are no longer content to subsist quietly within the One True Church is because they know that a “better” matrix is coming soon – a matrix that will be even more conducive to their agenda of acquiring power, money and sex/sodomy, and for fighting their unholy war against God Himself.  

 

That matrix is Antipope Bergoglio and Antipope Prevost’s post-modernist, Freemasonic sodomitical apostate anti-church.

 

Let’s now talk more about power, specifically in the context of sexual perversion.

In my research on Diabolical Narcissism, one of the first concepts I came across was the Diabolical Narcissist’s hatred of God.  Naturally, given my focus, I was immediately VERY interested in this notion.  Why, I had always wondered, would all of these arch-heretic and sodomite priests and nuns become priests and nuns in the first place if they hated God and His Church?

 

It seemed that the answer must lie in the psycho-spiritual pathology of Diabolical Narcissism. Since the Diabolical Narcissist is essentially the human version of a demon, a fallen angel, it makes perfect sense that eventually a Diabolical Narcissist will turn on God, and declare war on Him, because this is the defining action of the demons.  There is no greater subject to declare oneself “above” than God.

 

The demons, when shown the eternal plan for God to incarnate as a Man, a Man born of a woman, were filled with prideful rage at the notion of not just worshiping and serving God Incarnate, but also of having above them, as their Queen, a human woman – the Blessed Virgin Mary.  

 

That’s right.  It wasn’t just Our Lord that they so resented, it was also His Mother, the Co-redemptrix, Mediatrix of All Graces, and Queen of Heaven and Earth.

 

What we see here is the explanation as to why male sodomites hate and despise good women, and tend to associate with train-wreck women.  Male sodomites want to surround themselves with women to whom they can point and say, “See? THAT is why I engage in sodomy with other men.  Who in their right mind would want to wake up next to that crazy hag, or ANY woman, every day for the rest of his life?”

 

Good women are kryptonite to fags because good women are a living indictment and reminder of the sodomites’ own crippling depravity.  Bad women are a ratification of the sodomite’s depravity. Hence life rule #72 for women: If the fags don’t hate you, you need to examine your conscience.

 

In somewhat the same vein, albeit on an infinitely higher level, sodomites hate God because God will never, ever ratify their sick, perverted lusts.  So, it becomes a power play.  The sodomite, hating God, wants to try to gain the upper hand on God.  Sound crazy?  Let’s put it in the context of what is going on right now inside the Vatican.  And let’s personalize it.  

 

Let’s take as an example a sodomite priest operating inside the Vatican - it is almost a pre-requisite for the job).  He is well-known inside the Vatican and Roman Curia as someone to call for sodomy.  Let’s call this priest… just making something up here… Luigi Capozzi. Why in the world would anyone in their right mind WANT to engage in genital acts with such repulsive old men as, say, Cardinal Coccopalmerio, or Archbishop Paglia, or any of the rest of them?  These are NOT physically attractive men.  What is the draw?

 

POWER.

 

This Vatican sodomite (of which there are many) could write out a list as long as his arm of all of the priests, monsignors, bishops and even cardinals that he has engaged in sodomy with over the years.  He could, in theory, by going public, bring down the institutional Church.  THIS is his satisfaction.  

 

This knowledge that he holds not only these men’s reputations and careers in his hands, but even more than that, that he COULD, if he so chose, rock the entire institutional Church to its very foundations, and God, endowing and respecting every human being’s free will, would be, in a sense, ‘helpless’ to stop it.  

 

In this, the sodomite believes himself to literally have power over God Himself. But power is addictive, and there is never enough.  So, very rarely does the sodomite “go public”, because to him, the greatest satisfaction comes not from the sodomitical acts per se but rather from the entire LIFE of luxuriating in the feeling of power, not just over other people, but even over God Himself. 

 

What about the seminaries?  There is a non-trivial number of young sodomite men who enter seminaries with the specific goal of hustling sodomy with the seminary rector and/or professors, the local bishop, and visiting prelates, with the conscious goal of acquiring blackmail power and sodomizing their way into a cushy career, with eventually a new generation of cute boy hustlers lining up to offer themselves to them.

 

But it isn’t just the Vatican.  It is everywhere: government, Hollywood, the business world, anywhere that there is a matrix of power, there are Diabolical Narcissists, both homosexual and heterosexual, looking to leverage sodomy or fornication into power, even if that power is never explicitly wielded, and is used only as a source of Narcissistic Supply.

 

And it isn’t exclusive to homosexuals.  There are women who chase and try to seduce priests – they are referred to as “chalice snatchers”. These women luxuriate in the thought that a priest, when given a choice between being a priest of Jesus Christ, and having sex with her, chose to have sex with her.  

 

Thus, the woman “beats God”, and sadly today, some of them go out of their way to make sure that no one forgets it. There are women who chase married men.  Homewreckers.  There are women who chase powerful men within the business world to advance their careers.  There are women who chase rich men.  Golddiggers.  There are women who chase men of a different nationality in order to gain citizenship to said country.  Mail order brides.   There are women who chase mentally retarded professional athletes.  Kardashians.

 

And, obviously, the power dynamic works the other way with regards to sodomites.  Older men will seek out younger, or less-powerful men, in order to feel a sense of power and control over them, and to tell themselves that they are so powerful and attractive that cute, young guys line up.

 

This is why sodomy is rightly called “vampiric”. Men who were raped or sexually abused as children or teenagers will often become sodomites themselves precisely because they want to exert power over others, oftentimes over men or boys younger than themselves (in order to “undo” the powerlessness they felt when they were raped or abused as children or teens).

 

Or  they will seek out older men in order to feel the sense of blackmail power outlined above in order to avenge the sense of powerlessness they felt when they were abused as children or teens.

 

So, back to the Vatican.  What we see now is a claque of God-hating Freemasons and faggots who, enabled by the silence, fear and inaction of the steadily-dwindling number of believing Catholics inside the Vatican, have brought the chessboard to nothing less than this:

 

“Either you let us destroy The Church, or we will destroy The Church.”

 

Either you shut up and go along with our agenda to destroy the institutional Church and establish the Freemasonic apostate anti-church, or we will destroy the institutional Church by exposing that most of the Curia, and more than 75% of the Novus Ordo priests today are faggots, which will destroy the institutional Church.

 

It is the ultimate catch-22, conceived in the mind of satan himself.

 

One press conference, by one of the dwindling few remaining faithful Catholic prelates, could change the world in a matter of seconds, and open up a clear path out of the catch-22 described above.

“Significant canonical irregularities have been identified with regards to the putative resignation proffered by the late Pope Benedict XVI in February of 2013. Pending further investigation, I (we) hereby declare a state of emergency suspense.”

Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us. 

Christ, have mercy on us. https://www.barnhardt.biz/2026/03/06/sodomites-and-power-either-you-let-us-destroy-the-church-or-we-will-d

 

St Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face




St Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face, please pray for the Church

CANON LAW KEEPS SODOMITES IN PRIESTHOOD

 

To comment please open your gmail account or use my email address, FB Messenger or X. 

 

 

 

How can an antipope betray Christ? Let me count the ways. 

thousands of paedophiles in the Catholic church but if they had got rid of them all there would have been a shortage of priests and the business would have been in trouble.

ow can an antipope betray Christ? Let me count the ways. 

He can allow pederast priests who sexually abuse children to use a diagnosis of paedophilia to argue that they deserve less punishment. He can permit church courts to accept this argument. Guilty pedophiles have avoided laicization and continued to serve as priests - in public ministry - by promulgation  of the 1983 Code of Canon Law under John Paul II. 

Would logic not mean that any adult male who robs children of their innocence is a paedophile? Apparently not. The 'Spirit of Vatican II' protects priestly paedophiles who rape children in 'the heat of passion'. In Leo's Vatican, paedophilia is no longer a sin, but a psychological disorder. And because a man acts like a paedophile he can be diagnosed as a paedophile and because he's found to be a paedophile he can be allowed to remain in the priesthood. As a paedophile. This is Canon Law, people. Canon law which says people with mental disorders are not culpable or fully culpable. 

Once upon a happier, more rational because more Catholic time, in 1568, St. Pope Pius V issued Horrendum illud scelus, which stripped sodomite clerics of offices and privileges and required their removal from clerical rank, while handing them to secular authorities, who were empowered to enact capital punishment. 

But fret not, folks: Leo has just reaffirmed his ​"commitment to ending abuse ‌by priests" in Lourdes with ​seven survivors of abuse ⁠by French clergy. The Vatican reports that he "thanked them for their painful testimony and reaffirmed his ​commitment to ensuring ​that the harm they experienced is ‌not ⁠repeated for others". So he's going to change that canon law. Obviously. Instanter. Er ... don't hold your breath, people.

An antipope is not going to rush to judgment on pederast priests. Think of how he'd manage with the subsequent severe shortage of priests. The business would be in trouble.

An antipope and his clergy can betray Our Lord and Saviour by trashing the Mass which perpetuates Christ's Passion and Death on Calvary. 

Cardinal Joseph 'Nighty Night Baby' Tobin

In Hackensack, New Jersey, US, a Catholic church began offering a Sunday traditional Massin February. It was going rather inconveniently well. The pastor wrote that the parish had welcomed new people and that the Mass had deepened its liturgical life.

This required intervention. Apparently. On September 20 Cardinal Joseph Tobin requested a meeting and ordered the Latin Mass celebration “paused until further notice”.

The Joseph Ratzinger–Benedict XVI Vatican Foundation announced that its 2026 Ratzinger Prize will go to Notre Dame theologian John C. Cavadini. Leo approved the selection. Cavadini has attacked the restoration of the traditional Mass. He called it “liturgically unfortunate and doctrinally unacceptable.” Benedict had “unwittingly employed a hermeneutic of discontinuity.” Church Life Journal

Marvelous.

The Ratzinger Prize now honors a theologian who explained why one of Ratzinger’s signature acts was an ecclesiological mistake.

At this rate, next year’s Pius X Prize can go to a modernist.https://bigmodernism.substack.com/p/leo-reduces-the-mass-of-ages-to-a (Redacted)

An antipope betrays Christ by encouraging people in the sin which cries out to heaven for vengeance: sodomy.  And allows a US newspaper with $4.3 million in annual revenue in 2013 to call itself the National Catholic Reporter, while notoriously promoting the heretical New Ways Ministry and the LGBTQ agenda.

[T]he NCR editorial staff urge readers to consider the bigger picture when thinking about the future of LGBTQ+ Catholic life.

 

Pope Leo XIV answering questions from journalists at news conference on plane ride back to Rome.

This picture includes the fact that Pope Leo has consistently– in his comments on the plane and elsewhere– emphasized two significant themes: how change occurs in the Church and that matters of morality cannot be limited to issues involving sexuality. His words from the plane interview:

“First of all, I think it’s very important that the unity or division of the church should not revolve around sexual matters. We tend to think that when the church is talking about morality that the only issue of morality is sexual. And in reality, I believe there are greater and more important issues such as justice, equality, freedom of men and women, freedom of religion that would all take priority before that particular issue.” 

 

These comments indicate  Pope Leo is calling for a refocusing of what it means to follow Christ and seek justice, the editorial says, and “intentional or not, Leo’s response poses a major challenge to a segment of U.S. Catholicism that uses sexual issues — opposition to abortion and to LGBTQ+ initiatives, to name two — as proof of Catholic bona fides.” 

 

With this framing, “Leo is challenging Catholics across the spectrum of liberal to conservative to take what might be a discomfiting step of engaging the fullness of the Gospel,” says NCR. This challenge entails a world of possibilities for the future of LGBTQ+ Catholic concerns. 

 

Pope Leo upheld the informal blessings for same-sex couples approved by Pope Francis. This continuation of Pope Francis’s engagement with LGBTQ+ ministry is another source of hope, the editorial states, as it suggests greater possibilities for openness and dialogue.

 

As an example of such possibilities, NCR points towards New Ways Ministry’s recent series of private gatherings of bishops, LGBTQ+ Catholics, theologians, scholars, and scientific experts. Over the course of the three gatherings held since 2023, 17 U.S. bishops heard from LGBTQ+ Catholics, theologians, and pastoral workers.https://www.newwaysministry.org/2026/05/20/pope-leo-opens-door-to-greater-lgbtq-equality-says-catholic-newspaper/

Pope Francis with New Ways Ministry staff, October 12 2024.

Figures disclosed by the Vatican in May 2014 confirm that approximately 75 percent of priests sanctioned for child abuse received penalties short of dismissal.

 

Australia’s government conducted an inquiry into institutional child sexual abuse, known as the Royal Commission, and documented its results in a 2017 report that found abusive priests have had dismissals overturned because they were diagnosed with pedophilia. 1

 

Disciplinary figures disclosed by the Vatican in May 2014 confirm that approximately 2,572 out of 3,420 or 75 percent of priests sanctioned for child abuse cases up until that point received penalties short of laicization. 2

 

The Royal Commission subsequently asked the Vatican to amend the canons (c. 1341, c. 1321–1324) that protect pedophile priests. The Vatican refused and the same system remains in place with its 2021 revisions. 3

 

These canons, which have been successfully used by guilty pedophiles to avoid laicization, were established with the promulgation of the 1983 Code of Canon Law under John Paul II. 4

 

How the defense works

 

The key word is “imputability.” In plain English, it means how responsible a person is for an offense. Church law distinguishes between establishing what a priest did and deciding how fully responsible he was for doing it.

 

A common defense tactic will use this distinction in order to argue that psychological disorder reduces a priest’s ability to control himself in certain situations around young children and/or minors. If the court accepts that argument, his responsibility can be reduced, bringing a lighter punishment than laicization. The abuse remains established in fact but the offender may remain a priest and even return to public ministry per the Code of Canon Law. Below is the key excerpt taken from Code 1324:

 

The perpetrator of a violation is not exempted from penalty, but the penalty prescribed in the law or precept must be diminished, or a penance substituted in its place, if the offense was committed by:

1° one who had only an imperfect use of reason;

2° one who was lacking the use of reason because of culpable drunkenness or other mental disturbance of a similar kind, without prejudice to the provision of Can. 1326 § 1 n. 4;

3° one who acted in the heat of passion which, while serious, nevertheless did not precede or hinder all mental deliberation and consent of the will, provided that the passion itself had not been deliberately stimulated or nourished … (emphasis added).

 

Canon 1324 thusly not only permits but requires a reduced penalty such as a simple penance like prayer or fasting for priests who acted “in the heat of passion” or who suffered from a “mental disturbance of a similar kind,” under which pedophilia can be classified.

 

This arrangement creates a dangerous circular argument. Abuse is used to help support a diagnosis of attraction to children. The diagnosis is then used to support reduced responsibility for repeatedly acting on the attraction. Reduced responsibility can then justify lesser punishment for the abuser. Evidence of danger to children becomes part of the argument against dismissal.

 

In 1995, a 1,060-page commentary titled The Canon Law: Letter & Spirit was published. It was issued by the Canon Law Society of Great Britain and Ireland. It said the following about cases pertaining to child abuse under Canon 1395 §2:

 

When the facts of a particular case are examined carefully, it may well emerge that the cleric did indeed commit a sexual offense, or a number of them, with a minor; as such, he may be liable to punishment by the criminal law of the State; nevertheless, because of the influence of paedophilia, he may not be liable, by reason of at least diminished imputability, to any canonical penalty, or perhaps to only a mild penalty, to a formal warning or reproof, or to a penal remedy (emphasis added). 5

 

Similarly, a 2019 commentary titled Canon Law of Evidence in Penal Cases argues that the practice of decreasing penalties for pedophiles and other gravely disordered individuals should continue:

The presence of a proven grave psychic personality disorder in a person diminishes the imputability of the offender. ‘The older presumptions that any sexual act is a matter of the will have generally given way to evidence to the contrary.

 

This evidence has shown that in situations involving a disorder, the person has a seriously diminished ability to control his or her actions. [This person] experiences a much higher and more intense level of compulsion for sex than one who is not afflicted with a disorder … The fact of the higher level of compulsion must be considered by ecclesiastical superiors as they deal with pedophile clergy. Because of the reduced ability for self-control, it would seem that this [disorder] would diminish imputability for a canonical crime.’ 6

 

The 1983 Code lowered the bar

 

Under Canon 2200 of the 1917 Code of Canon Law, an outward violation of the law created a presumption of deliberate wrongdoing. That presumption stood until contrary evidence proved otherwise. 7

 

The 1983 Code, however, changed the wording. Responsibility was presumed unless it appeared otherwise. A 2025 study by canon lawyer James Clark explained that a well-founded doubt can defeat this newer presumption. Responsibility must then be established through evidence. 8

 

But according to The New Commentary on the Code of Canon Law, the changes ushered in by the 1983 Code directly enhanced “the penal rights of alleged offenders” (Beal, Coriden and Green, p. 1541):

 

The current burden of proof is less stringent than in the former code, which required that the presumption of criminal intent be overturned by moral certitude, i.e., beyond reasonable doubt. The present code states simply that the presumption of imputability is verified unless the contrary is otherwise evident. Hence any evidence posing reasonable questions about such imputability suffices to overturn the presumption … This legal change reflects the present code’s somewhat more pastoral thrust, since it enhances the penal rights of alleged offenders. 9

 

Marko Rupnik, excommunicated, then un-excommunicated

 

In previous centuries, Church discipline imposed severe consequences. Canon 71 of the regional Council of Elvira, traditionally dated to 306, denied communion even at death to men who sexually abused boys. 10 On August 30, 1568, St. Pope Pius V issued Horrendum illud scelus. This broader law against sodomy stripped offending clerics of offices and privileges and required their removal from clerical rank, while handing them to secular authorities, who were empowered to enact capital punishment. 11

 

The ‘spirit’ of Vatican II protects pedophiles

Below is an excerpt from The Canon Law Letter & Spirit (1995, pg. 770) quoting and then commenting on Canon 1341 and explaining how “Vatican II itself introduced a new outlook and a new spirit into the penal law of the Church.”

 

Can. 1341: ‘The Ordinary is to start a judicial or an administrative procedure for the imposition or the declaration of penalties only when he perceives that neither by fraternal correction nor reproof, nor by any method of pastoral care, can the scandal be sufficiently repaired, justice restored and the offender reformed.‘

 

This opening canon voices an essential element in the philosophy of the Church concerning the application of penalties — a philosophy given its initial thrust by Pope Pius XII, 1 and subsequently endorsed by Vatican II which itself introduced a new outlook and a new spirit into the penal law of the Church.

 

This canon stresses two major principles of the revised penal law: restraint in the use of penalties, and discretion in their application. In a situation where a person has behaved in a reprehensible fashion, the law urges caution: penalties are to be imposed only as a last resort. When the Ordinary is made aware of such behaviour, he is to seek to redress the situation by fraternal correction or by a more formal reproof, or by some other means of pastoral care.

 

He is obliged to explore every reasonable measure whereby, without having recourse to penal action, a satisfactory pastoral resolution may be found. To ignore this obligation would in many cases be to run the risk of achieving none of the three objectives listed in the closing words of this canon.

 

Should all other efforts to repair scandal, restore justice and reform the offender fail to produce the desired effect, then and only then may the Ordinary institute a formal procedure (judicial or administrative) for the imposition or declaration of the appropriate penalty. It is also to be noted that, should a formal judicial penal procedure be selected — as indeed, on occasion, it may have to be — the outcome will no longer be within the control of the Ordinary: it automatically transfers to the (normally) collegiate tribunal entrusted with the case. (see Can. 1425 §1 2°, §2) (emphasis added).

1 Cf. Pope Pius XII allocutions 5.XII.1954 and 5.II.1955: AAS 47(1955) 60–71, 72–85: The Pope Speaks II 1955 17ff. (Canon Law Letter & Spirit, 1995 c. 1341, pg. 770)

 

Canon 1341 was eventually revised in 2021 under Pope Francis. It retains the earlier code’s framework but more explicitly requires the competent Church authority to begin penal proceedings when pastoral measures, including fraternal correction, warnings, and reproof, cannot sufficiently restore justice, reform the offender, and repair scandal. 12

 

Tracing the psychological argument

 

One connection runs through Washington, D.C. In 1985, Thomas Doyle, then a canon lawyer at the Vatican embassy, prepared an abuse manual with psychiatrist Michael Peterson and lawyer Ray Mouton. It included clinical writing about pedophilia. 13

 

Both The Canon Law Letter & Spirit (1995) and Canon Law Evidence of Penal Cases (2019) reference Tom Doyle’s work to support decreasing responsibility and punishment for guilty child abusers who are pedophiles. Doyle has notably since changed his position and claims this was prior to Canon Law Evidence of Penal Cases (2019) continuing to rely on his past work. In a statement published in October 2023, Doyle now rejects these theories himself:

 

For many years, I have totally disagreed with the canon that says those with mental disorders are not culpable or fully culpable. I believe that should apply to those who have active psychiatric disorders that truly impede their will. Pedophilia is a paraphilia. I now know that pedophiles, no matter how compelled they are, can make a choice.

 

For the record, and something you probably don’t know, I am a recovering alcoholic with almost 31 years of sobriety. I am also a licensed addictions therapist. Through all that, I learned a lot and, among other things, that the Vatican curia guys know very little about addictions, mental illness, psychiatric disorders, personality disorders, etc.

Former Catholic BishopChristopher Alan Saunders, 76, found guilty on 13 charges including unlawful and indecent assault and penetration without consent in August of young Aboriginal teens

 

Although this whole issue was decided in 2002 for the United States with the zero-tolerance policy … [it] could well go that way for the whole Church if Francis gets his way. Under no circumstances should a priest who has sexually violated someone be allowed to minister and, contrary to the opinions of some, they should be laicized. 14

 

Examples of guilty child abusers benefitting from the 1983 Code

 

In Cameroon, Fr. Hilary Ngome Enang was accused of raping a thirteen-year-old girl in August 2018. The newly-installed Bishop Michael Bibi forwarded the case to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In August 2022, the Vatican ruled that Ngome was to receive fourteen months of penance. He was also required to live at the diocesan cathedral and have restrictions placed on witnessing marriages, hearing confessions, and holding Church office, though he could still participate in public liturgies.

 

Bibi noted in a public letter to the Diocese of Buea in August 2023 that the Vatican had determined that “proof of [the guilt of the cleric] has been verified from the judicial confession made by the accused himself and the confirmation by the victim.” Instead of Ngome being dismissed from religious life for his crime, Bibi explained that according to Canons 1322-1326 his punishment had been completed and he was “rightfully due the full restoration of his faculties.” 15

 

Belgian priest Luk Delft confessed in 2001 to assaulting two boys previously. Child pornography was discovered on his computer in 2009, according to CNN. 17 Other reporting found that a Belgian court convicted Delft in 2012 of child abuse and possession of child pornography.

 

The conviction resulted in a ten-year ban on contact with children from the Salesian Order, though not a dismissal from the clerical state. One year later, in 2013, he was sent by the Salesians to the Central African Republic to work for the Catholic non-profit Caritas, later becoming its national director. 18

 

Catholic News Service reported in November 2019 that a therapist had warned Michel Roy, former secretary-general of Caritas Internationalis, about Delft in 2017. According to CNN reporter Nicole Winfield, in 2019 “the Vatican’s Caritas charity admitted that it knew for two years of pedophilia concerns” about him “but Caritas only removed Delft after CNN began investigating.” Delft was eventually dismissed from the priesthood but not until September 9, 2021. 

 

In Ireland, Fr. Patrick Maguire confessed to assaulting dozens of minors between January 1972 and June 1980. “In 1997, he admitted to having abused about 70 young boys in a number of countries and he abused at least one young girl as well,” a report published on the Bishop Accountability website reads.

 

That same report found that in September 2000, the Dublin Metropolitan Tribunal decided that Maguire should be dismissed from the clerical state. However, in June 2002, “the Roman Rota tribunal decided that, rather than be dismissed from the clerical state, Fr. Maguire should be suspended from the priesthood for nine years.” 16 The 2017 Australian Royal Commission report identified a diagnosis of pedophilia was the reason his laicization was overturned.

 

Irish priest Fr. Tony Walsh admitted abusing boys during the 1980s. Church officials decided to dismiss him in 1993 but in June 1994 the Vatican substituted a punishment of ten years in a monastery. The 2017 Australian Royal Commission report links that reversal to a diagnosis of pedophilia as well. Walsh’s defense ensured he remained a priest until John Paul II dismissed him in January 1996. 17

 

Diagnosis, treatment, and restoration to ministry

Protections don’t just apply to pedophilic clergy. They can apply to any diagnosed sexual disorder, including ephebophilia, which is an attraction to adolescents roughly between the ages of 15 and 19.

Pittsburgh priest Fr. William O’Malley’s case illustrates how diagnosis and treatment of ephebophilia can be used as a pathway to restored ministry rather than laicization or punishment for predatory behavior.

The 2018 Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report noted that O’Malley had been repeatedly accused of inappropriate conduct with minor males in the 1970s and 1990s. In the report, O’Malley was quoted as having acknowledged that one particular alleged incident of him committing child abuse “probably happened.” The report indicated that then-Bishop Donald Wuerl granted him a leave of absence for psychological treatment.

 

After learning on January 12, 1998 that O’Malley had been diagnosed with ephebophilia, and that he remained at high risk of seeking emotional gratification with adolescents, Wuerl expressed support for bringing him back into ministry on advice from a psychiatrist who was working with O’Malley.

 

Wuerl met with O’Malley on January 15, 1998 and told him he wanted to help him “in whatever way we can to do all things that are necessary to present [you] for priestly ministry.” Following residential treatment, O’Malley was appointed by Wuerl as a diocesan tribunal consultant in November 1998. 22

 

Leo XIV is responsible for changing Canon Law

 

The 2017 Australian Royal Commission inquiry recommended making a pedophilia diagnosis irrelevant to prosecution and punishment for child sexual abuse. The Vatican’s revised 2021 penal law ignored this advice and still allows for reduced punishment instead, making dismissal from the priesthood highly unlikely, which is at variance with previous Church disciplinary norms.

 

To end the abuse crisis, Leo XIV should require dismissal from the priesthood for every priest found responsible for sexually abusing a child after a fair process, with permanent exclusion from ministry and Church administration rather than rehabilitation. A report to law enforcement should also accompany removal. Protection of children must take precedence over preserving an offender’s priesthood.  integritymagazine.org/2026/09/23/how-the-1983-code-of-canon-law-protects-pedophile-and-abusive-priests-

1. Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, Final Report, vol. 16, Religious Institutions, book 2 (December 15, 2017), printed pp. 716–717, especially Recommendation 16.13. The discussion reports the Irish Murphy Commission’s findings and Doyle’s evidence. Final report. ↩︎
2. Dan Kedmey, “Vatican Reveals It Punished Thousands of Priests for Sex Abuse,” Time, May 6, 2014. Vatican figures for the preceding decade; calculation: 2,572 ÷ (848 + 2,572) = 75.2%. These totals do not identify individual grounds for mitigation. Report. ↩︎
3. Holy See, “Observations of the Holy See to the Recommendations of the Royal Commission,” enclosure to Letter N. 484.110, February 26, 2020, pp. 3–4, responses to Recommendations 16.11 and 16.13. Holy See response. ↩︎
4. “Vat. II which itself introduced a new outlook and a new spirit into the penal law of the Church,” “In a situation where a person has behaved in a reprehensible fashion, the law urges caution: penalties are to be imposed only as a last resort.” (Canon Law Letter & Spirit, 1995, pg. 770 regarding c. 1341). Also: Canon Law Society of Great Britain and Ireland, The Canon Law: Letter & Spirit: A Practical Guide to the Code of Canon Law, ed. Gerard Sheehy et al. (1995), p. 770, commentary on the original canon 1341; passage reproduced in Michael Hichborn, “Legal Loophole in Canon Law Protects Pedophiles,” Lepanto Institute, January 24, 2022, archived by BishopAccountability.org, January 26, 2022. Reproduced commentary. ↩︎
5. Canon Law Society of Great Britain and Ireland, The Canon Law: Letter & Spirit: A Practical Guide to the Code of Canon Law, ed. Gerard Sheehy et al. (1995), p. 805; passage reproduced in Commission of Investigation, Report into the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin (Murphy Report, 2009), chapter 4, §4.59, pp. 71–72. Reproduced commentary in the Murphy Report. ↩︎
6. Peter O. Akpoghiran, Canon Law of Evidence in Penal Cases: A Commentary on Canons 1526–1586 of the Code of Canon Law (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2019), p. 154; ISBN 9781543113846. The page reference and quotation were supplied by the author; “33” is the book’s own note marker. Bibliographic record.  ↩︎
7. Codex Iuris Canonici (1917), c. 2200 §§1–2. Latin text; English explanation in the article. Canon 2200. ↩︎
8. James Clark, The Presumption of Imputability and the Presumption of Innocence: Two Presumptions in Conflict? (doctoral thesis, 2025), pp. 121–122; Code of Canon Law, original c. 1321 §3, now c. 1321 §4. Clark discusses both the drafting history and the distinction between rebutting the presumption and proving its contrary. Thesis. ↩︎
9. John P. Beal, James A. Coriden, and Thomas J. Green, eds., New Commentary on the Code of Canon Law (Paulist Press, 2000), p. 1541; passage reproduced in Matthew David, “Cameroonian Rapist Priest Rehabilitated,” October 16, 2023, archived October 19. Reproduced commentary.  ↩︎
10. Council of Elvira, canon 71, traditionally dated to c. 306; English translation in “81 Canons of the Synod of Elvira.” The exact date of this regional council is disputed. Canon 71. ↩︎
11. St. Pius V, Horrendum illud scelus, August 30, 1568, §§2–3; English translation reproduced by RK Documenten, citing Bullarium Romanum, vol. 4, part III, p. 33. Constitution.  ↩︎
12. Code of Canon Law, c. 1341, as revised in 2021; compare the original and revised texts in the Holy See’s official synoptic comparison of Book VI. Current canon 1341. 1983 and 2021 comparison. ↩︎
13. Thomas Doyle, “A Short History of The Manual,” account of the 1985 project by Doyle, Michael Peterson, and F. Ray Mouton. Doyle identifieshis Washington appointment and the inclusion of clinical literature. Doyle’s account.  ↩︎
14. Thomas Doyle, statement reproduced in Matthew David, “Cameroonian Rapist Priest Rehabilitated,” Church Militant, October 16, 2023, archived by BishopAccountability.org, October 19, 2023. Doyle rejects the sweeping claim that pedophiles cannot choose otherwise. Published statement. ↩︎
15. Michael Miabesue Bibi, “Restoration of the Faculties of Fr. Hilary Ngome for the Full Exercise of Ministry,” Diocese of Buea, DB/B-BOL-329/2023/7, August 15, 2023, pp. 2–3; Matthew David, “Cameroonian Rapist Priest Rehabilitated,” October 16, 2023, archived October 19. The published report supplies the rape allegation, age, and offense date; Bibi’s letter records the Church’s findings and decisions. Published report.  ↩︎
16. Murphy Report (2009), chapter 4, §§4.79–4.80, p. 76; chapter 16, §§16.62–16.65, pp. 235–236, for Patrick Maguire’s offense dates, criminal sentence, and canonical proceedings. Chapter 16. Chapter 4. ↩︎
17. Commission of Investigation, Report into the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin (Murphy Report, 2009), chapter 19, §§19.79, 19.86–19.89, 19.94, and 19.102–19.103; portions released December 2010. “Fr. Jovito” is Tony Walsh. Chapter 19. ↩︎

Graham Lapp

Graham Lapp is a Certified Management Accountant and Certified Fraud Examiner who holds a Master of Science in Digital Forensics. He operates In The Box Services LLC, specializing in forensic accounting, digital forensics, and technical information gathering.

 

 “The priests, ministers of my Son, the priests, by their bad life, by their irreverences and their impiety in celebrating the holy mysteries, by love of money, love of honor and of pleasures, the priests have become cesspools of impurity."

Our Lady of La Salette, please pray for priests