This changes everything.

Or at least it should.

The McCarrick problem exposes what far-right, conservative Catholics have been saying since the publication of The Homosexual Network, by Fr. Enrique Tomas Rueda.  There has been a serious problem of decadence and corruption in the clergy, who are to be sure those who are responsible for 'the filth in the Church' as Pope Benedict called it.  St. Paul VI could well have referred to it in his comment on 'the smoke of Satan'.  In our day, Pope Francis calls it corruption.  Now he must act.

Fraternal solidarity is common among clerics, but some observers point to it as possible evidence of the so-called "gay lobby" or "lavender mafia" at work. These euphemisms — frequently denounced as politically incorrect displays of homophobia in the church — are used by some to describe a perceived protection and promotion network of gay Catholic clergy. 

"There is going to be so much clamor for the Holy Father to remove the red hat, to formally un-cardinalize him," said the Rev. Thomas Berg, vice rector and director of admissions at St. Joseph's Seminary in Yonkers, the seminary of the archdiocese of New York. 

Berg said the church needs to ensure that men with deep-seated same-sex attraction simply don't enter seminaries — a position recently reinforced by the Vatican at large and by Francis in comments to Chilean and Italian bishops. 

Berg said the church also needs to take action when celibacy vows are violated.
"We can't effectively prevent the sexual abuse of minors or vulnerable adults by clergy while habitual and widespread failures in celibacy are quietly tolerated," he said. - ABC News

Looks like I owe apologies to Michael Voris, Randy Engel, and many others who have tried to expose this corruption for so many years.  I truly did not want to believe things could be so bad.  How often when I'd write about so many cases of decadent clergy and religious I would get notes scolding me for having dones so, and frequently I would remove the posts, for fear of slander and detraction.  I'm fine with that - but it suggests to me that sort of censorship is exactly what perpetuates and even constitutes the cover-up.   'Fraternal solidarity is common among clerics' and accounts for the pervasive denial among Catholics, as well as the schizoid perception of Catholic teaching by Catholics and non-Catholics alike.  The confusion in the Church is no accident.

One of the reasons this bothers me so much is because I was not only 'abused' as a kid, I was also 'compromised' or used by religious friends as an adult.  Because of my sexual history, I think guys who tend to be more sexually aggressive, or predatory, really pushed themselves upon me at times.  I have never written about it before, and I don't want to get into it here.

Anyway, I think McCarrick was like that - a little closet queen, more often encountered in bars or public restrooms.  Guys like him were usually kicked out of seminaries, but somehow he got through - maybe he was someone's boy-toy?  I almost think they are men without consciences.  Something is especially perverted, corrupted in them.  It really is such as these Christ referred to when he said they travel to the ends of the world to make one convert who in turn end up more wicked than themselves.

That is scary.