Church Militant The Vortex Feed

TRANSCRIPT

This past week, Church Militant had the pleasure — and honor — of hosting the man whose case ensured that former cardinal McCarrick is now Mister McCarrick.

You'll recall that even after the revelations last June 20 of McCarrick's decades of evil, the Vatican was playing coy about how to deal with him.

The original case that was brought to light involved a 16-year-old altar boy in the sacristy of St. Patrick's Cathedral decades ago, where McCarrick groped the boy as he was vesting for midnight Mass.

That case was ready to be dismissed by McCarrick allies in Rome who were steering it down the path of saying since the boy was 16, he didn't fit the definition of a minor and therefore McCarrick could be charged with that according to canon law.

But waiting in the wings was the case which would bring McCarrick down: his accuser, James Grein, whose story first came to light in The New York Times shortly after the news broke about McCarrick.

James remained anonymous at first, The New York Times using only his first name at his request.

But at the Silence Stops Now rally in Baltimore last November — held in conjunction with the U.S. bishops' scheduled meeting — James came out and publicly identified himself.

We sat down with James here in our Church Militant studios earlier this week to get his insights on exactly how McCarrick operated and how he became a victim, as well as James' desire to talk directly with Pope Francis.

The entire interview with James will be available on an upcoming episode of Mic'd Up — and it's one you will want to make sure and watch.

TRANSCRIPT

We need to be very clear, as Catholics, that the Church cannot be cleaned up by the clergy — especially the hierarchy.

As is becoming more and more clear, many members of the hierarchy have a heavily vested interest in not having things cleaned up because they themselves are the actual perpetrators of homosexual predation on teenagers or young adults — or they have actively participated in the cover-up, which is still ongoing.

Other bishops who are not predators or cover-up artists are, nonetheless, complicit in all this in not outing their brother bishops for their crimes and sins.

The complicit gang, as opposed to the criminal and cover up gang, are, in the end, just as guilty because they continue to support the environment in which the criminal bishops can do their deeds — abuse or cover up.

However, this work of revealing all must be carried on, and one reason, which doesn't get a lot of attention, is because black lives matter.

The good, solid, orthodox priests, their lives matter. They are persecuted and live lives in fear that the phone is going to ring any day and all the resultant avalanche of persecution at the hands of the gay or gay-friendly bishop will ensue.

Many of these bishops run completely roughshod over canon law, even daring the little priest to challenge his action in canon law. Canon lawyers are not cheap; it is a highly specialized practice requiring years of training.

All of this is to say that it has fallen to the laity to do what needs to be done here, which is the business of revealing the real state of affairs.

Now, this poses some challenges, as we have outlined before, whatever essential records that might exist, are not discoverable by laity. None of these crooked bishops ever has to respond to a question.

Sometimes they do in a superficial manner, but when a series of probing follow-up inquiries are made, that's the end of the emails. So information has to be gotten at in very different ways and vetted by unusual methods.

Files have to be smuggled out of the chancery. Sources, who will not talk without a guarantee of confidentiality, have to be talked to at length and then their sources followed up with.

Eventually, after pretty extensive research worthy of a crime novel, a story or video comes out where the inside dealings, usually dirty dealings, are revealed. After that, it is normally the case that other people, oftentimes good priests, contact us quietly and give us even more details. Interestingly though, the bishops or archbishops seldom do — rarely, in fact, if ever.

Consider: A story has just come out revealing one or more to be a conspiratorial cover-up artist hiding active homosexual clergy and shifting funds around in various ways. Those are pretty damning revelations, so why absolutely zero response? In fact, why don't they sue? After all, if the charges are unfounded, isn't there a duty to protect your good name?  

Here's why they don't sue: Because once a suit is entered, a little process known as "discovery" begins. Discovery is the process in the court system where attorneys dig deep into almost anything relevant to the case — records, memos, internal letters and communications, phone logs, appointment calendars anything — especially including deposing any person of interest, and that happens under oath for which a penalty of perjury would be inflicted.

The last thing, the absolute last thing, any bishop, any bishop in the United States with something to hide would want happening is the discovery process going on in his diocese.

Understand, the rot is so horrible and far-reaching and interconnected because of the scoundrels involved that once you found one cockroach, you'd be led to the whole nest.

It is, in essence, no better than an organized crime syndicate where bodies and souls are abused and the mutually assured destruction that would happen if one spilled the beans — or the discovery process was to get rolling — would bring the whole rotten apparatus tumbling down. It's all about connecting the dots, and there are many, many dots.

But what we can tell you is this: The noose is tightening.

The laity are not only being tipped off more and more frequently by good priests, the men in black, but relationships are now blossoming with various law enforcement individuals on all levels, and good Catholic apostolates and these multiple agents are sitting down breaking bread together.

It's often slow going; it can be laborious, but remember, what is trying to be brought to the surface is decades and decades of filthy sins and crimes, all covered up by an organization and network that operates as a mafioso outfit.

Every lead that is developed and results in a story leads to further stories and more info and tips. The house of cards is closer to falling apart than it may look like, but it won't happen without a powerful amount of diligence exerted by the laity on behalf of good priests and the truth.

All over the Church, there are men dedicated to the good of souls, who have, for the love of souls, given up the lives that most others enjoy.

These men — and their mission — it's all worth fighting for. A corrupt senior clergy, drunk on lust, usually homosexual as well as crooked finances, are crushing these good men in black underfoot.

Of course, the laity need to step up. Who else can?

TRANSCRIPT

The 1960s was the decade when things first became visible, where various symptoms of the rot in the culture were beginning to appear. If the symptoms began appearing then, the illness itself seized full hold in the 1970s. In the United States, all the structures of society and the Church began to visibly crumble. The wheels simply came off the wagon.

All over the Church, what had been hidden for the preceding decades started to come into the light and be accepted by clergy.

Seminaries were now routinely corrupt, under bishops and their staff who themselves had become corrupt — mostly sexually, although not limited to that arena.

Homosexuality became accepted, and was even advanced, by seminary staffs and faculties. So if we want to know why things are so horrible, almost beyond comprehension, in the Church today, we need to understand the prevailing lines of thought in the 1970s.

Most of today's troublemaker bishops were in seminary in the 1970s where, as young men, they were exposed to, and then accepted, the new morality.

Many of them frequently engaged in sexual activity with each other, one priest here in Detroit even telling Church Militant confidentially the Detroit seminarians in the '70s and '80s were told by the seminary staff to "keep it in house" — meaning engage in homosexual activity only with other seminarians and priests, always keep illicit activities within the seminary, or rectory, walls.

All of this was the norm here in Detroit and many other seminaries around the country while Cdl. John Dearden was the archbishop. Dearden was clear that he wanted a new type of priest, a new way of dealing with people, a new liturgy — in short, a new Church.

And this is exactly what he set in motion in his seminary, which quickly earned the reputation for being a little short of a homosexual bathhouse, for years.

One seminarian and eventual bishop from Detroit who seems to have been all too willing to rush headlong into the "1970s Church" was John Nienstedt, ordained in Detroit in 1974 by Dearden.

Just three years later, he was secretary to Dearden, so he would have had an up-close view of the operations of Dearden's new Church which he had already been extensively involved with in the seminary.

The problem with homosexual Catholic priests having sex with each other — aside from facing damnation — and trying to keep it quiet is, one, it doesn't always stay quiet, and two, not all priests stick to the priest-only rule.

Church Militant has obtained a thousand pages of official documents from the Ramsey County attorney's office in Minneapolis/St. Paul which include police records, affidavits, depositions, internal archdiocesan memos and so forth.

What they reveal, sadly, is that Nienstedt was a top student in Dearden's new Church.

Among the volume of pages — one memo perhaps sums it all up best — this from an archdiocesan official Fr. Dan Griffith:

Allegations regarding Abp. Nienstedt (JN) stated in the sworn statements include: JN seen at a gay bar in Windsor, Canada, JN cruising a Detroit park known for such activity; JN seen at a gay video store in Detroit; alleged sexual harassment by JN of a Detroit priest; 3 contemporaneous reports of the alleged sexual harassment by JN of a Detroit priest; allegations of reprisals by JN against a Detroit priest; concerns raised about JN's interaction with seminarians in Detroit; alleged sexual harassment by JN of a former St. Paul priest; a contemporaneous report of the alleged sexual harassment by JN of a former St. Paul priest; allegations of reprisals by JN against a former St. Paul priest; concerns raised by a college seminary rector and another St Paul priest regarding JN's interaction with seminarians in St Paul; allegations of excessive drinking by JN.

And it would be the case of Fr. Curtis Wehmeyer in Minneapolis/St. Paul, who served five years in prison for three counts of criminal sexual conduct and possession of child pornography, which would bring to light the truth relating to Nienstedt.

Wehmeyer's case stretched back in time to Nienstedt's predecessor, Harry Flynn, who the documents reveal took a special interest in the young man and overruled concerns of a formation team about him and ordained him anyway.

Under Flynn, Wehmeyer was protected and almost immediately began his homopredatory behavior. The calls and letters started coming into Flynn, who eventually sent him away to the notorious St. Luke's, and then, once back, gave him a parish assignment. And please understand, this is normal, its the standard operating procedure for bishops who grew up in gay Church, they excuse the homosexual behavior and reassign the priests.

Why? Because they don't really think there's anything that wrong about it because this is how they were trained, and truth be told, many of them do the same thing.

Such are the allegations against Nienstedt himself, multiple archdiocesan officials, according to the documents, insist that Nienstedt overlooked Wehmeyer's actions because the two of them were sexually engaged.

Nienstedt flatly denies that claim, but the record says differently.

At the very least, Nienstedt looked the other way in Wehmeyer's case and allowed his homosexual predation to continue essentially unchecked.

The Ramsey County attorney eventually brought charges against the entire archdiocese, a first ever in U.S. history that the Church itself was charged.

Whether it was extreme negligence, or actual homosexual activity with various priests, including Wehmeyer, it all goes back to his days in the seminary in Detroit, where priest after priest was ordained accepting that clerical homosexuality — including acting on it — was perfectly fine.

And the scary thing about Detroit, in particular, is that it was known as a "bishop factory," with an outsized number of clergy going on to be named bishops, many of whom are currently serving as heads of dioceses.

This raises the very serious question: If a man like Nienstedt could fly under the radar for so long, how many of his classmates who are bishops, or men at the seminary at roughly the same time are also of like mind?

It's a question worth exploring, which Church Militant is already doing.

If you went to seminary in Detroit, and from there moved up the ecclesiastical ladder, then you are worth a full examination simply because these are the very type of men that Dearden actively recruited — men, some of whom hide behind a thin veneer of orthodoxy and yet privately engaged in homosexual activity with each other, or other corrupt clergy.

Stay tuned on this, because there's much more to tell as we travel back to the future of the 1970s, which many of these men never left.

TRANSCRIPT

Pope Francis' recently announced plan saying "the bishops can investigate themselves" is not anything new. Unsurprisingly, that is exactly the plan that homopredator Theodore McCarrick put in place back in 2002.  

The wicked prelate's idea was to allow the bishops to remain unchecked, uninvestigated and to escape any form of justice for their horrible deeds. It worked — perfectly. And that's why 17 years later, here we are again — same ole, same ole.

So let's look at just one of the cases where the bishop "investigates," shall we?

We can start with the very recent cases of Fr. Robert DeLand of Saginaw, Michigan, who was the focus of our special report last week where Church Militant played the actual police audio recordings of the predator as he was grooming his 17-year-old male prey.

When the police investigation began and was well underway, the then-bishop of Saginaw, Joseph Cistone, brought onto his team Judge Michael Talbot from the archdiocese of Detroit, chairman of Abp. Vigneron's sex abuse review board.

In fairness, Vigneron inherited Talbot, but he has done nothing to suggest he is going to relieve him of his duties considering how he reportedly behaved in the matters of Saginaw and DeLand.

Here's what he did: In short, he tried to throw his weight around and get investigators and or prosecutors to drop the investigation into DeLand.

He was so bullying and overbearing in his tactics, in fact, that an official complaint was filed against him with the state attorney general's office. He was accused directly of threatening and intimidating behavior and trying to get the case shut down.

And just so we are clear here, the case he was trying to get shut down was of a monster of a priest who groomed his victim and suggested to him to watch gay porn, masturbate and then call him and tell him all about it.

Yes, that's the priest Talbot wanted the investigation against dropped and the prosecutors and detectives dismissed from.

If Talbot had had his way, DeLand would still be prowling the halls of Freeland High School and grooming his next victim.

So where are the repercussions? Has Abp. Vigneron of Detroit announced Talbot is done, gone from the archdiocesan sex review board? Of course not. And yes, if you are thinking the same as us, the next question is how many times might Talbot have done this in the past.

Did Cistone place a call to Vigneron and say, "Hey, Archbishop, we have this messy case up the road from you and just wondering if you have someone who could just make it go away"?

Cistone has since died under somewhat mysterious circumstances as well. While he did have late-stage cancer, he was not in immediate threat of death. In fact, the day he died, he had a number of events scheduled.

The diocese of Saginaw intimated he died in peacefully in his bed, but Church Militant has learned that he actually was found dead on the bathroom floor.

Additionally, no autopsy was performed, which does seem a little strange considering that Cistone himself was under investigation at the time for the whole DeLand affair. So what do we have here in total — well, let's see.

Some level of cooperation in the least between the Detroit archbishop and the Saginaw bishop in securing the services of Judge Talbot. It would not have been arranged without some level of endorsement or cooperation between the two.

Then, almost immediately upon getting to Saginaw from Detroit, Talbot reportedly begins strong-arming officials, throwing around his weight as a judge in Michigan for the past 40 years.

It's simply stupid, in fact, the height of stupidity that to think that those that have everything to gain by covering up the facts will be able to conduct an "independent" investigation of any kind.

Cistone's house and chancery were raided by police who seized all sorts of files, computers, even his cell phone, laptop and tablet.

Cistone's nickname among some of his brother bishops was "Bishop Shredder," earned from his time in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where a grand jury concluded he oversaw the shredding of an enormous number of files of credibly accused priests.

Then, when the DeLand case just got too hot to handle, Cistone calls Vigneron and asks for help in the form of someone who will appear "independent" — right. Local media reported at the time of the appointment that Talbot was a considerable donor to the diocese of Saginaw.

This whole scene is so inbred, so corrupt, so over the top that it's shocking any bishop who has not called for a truly independent investigation of the bishops can even show his face.

But then again, the whole homocardinal crowd around Pope Francis, including virtually the entire U.S. contingent, wouldn't want that now, would they? And neither would their conspiratorial buddies in Rome.

How much is it going to take for the faithful laity — which admittedly is a small crowd, thanks in large part specifically to the homohierarchy — how long is it going to take for the laity to catch on to this game?

These men, these investigators, these bishops' commissions, these delegates appointed by the Vatican are not authentic investigators. They are simply running interference, doing whatever they can to prevent the truth from coming out.

And for those who say, "Well, this is just one case in little ol' Saginaw," ask yourself why police and the feds are raiding dioceses all over the country.

It's about protecting the institution, not the innocent. And we're not talking just about minors. This entire homopredator network sets its sites on anyone, minor or adult, and goes after them.

After all, in Saginaw, the investigation Talbot tried to get shut down was against a priest grooming a young man, not a minor.

DeLand is behind bars where he belongs, but no thanks to the bishops running the investigation.

TRANSCRIPT

Last week, the lying Cardinal Donald Wuerl's man was installed as his successor as the newest archbishop of Washington, D.C. — former archbishop of Atlanta Wilton Gregory.

The installation presented the occasion for a host of lying, cheating homosexualists in the hierarchy to get all dressed up in their red and show off. In fact, look at this picture and see how many homosexual men you can find looking pretty in red.

At the front of the line is Cardinal Edwin O'Brien, a man singled out last year by Archbishop Viganò as part of the homosexual current in the Church.

Next is Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, New Jersey — former haunt of homopredator McCarrick. Tobin holds what he calls "pilgrimages" for active homosexuals in his archdiocese.

He also actively supports the everything-but-self-admitted homosexual Jesuit James Martin, as does the next pretty-in-red deceiver of the faithful, Chicago's Blase Cupich, who it seems never met an open homosexual he hasn't cheered — especially priests.

Since Boston's Cardinal O'Malley decided to wear his religious habit and not the red ensemble, we'll skip him.

Then there's Cardinal Justin Rigali who it seems is the only one wearing red in the photo who was not deeply embroiled in the homosexual hierarchy scandal.

But right behind him is the notorious Roger Mahony of Los Angeles, a man who orchestrated the cover-up and, get this, shipping out of the country of multiple homopredator priests.

Mahony should be behind bars. His filth as archbishop of Los Angeles cost the Church nearly a billion dollars — yeah, billion with a "B."

He oversaw the shattering of countless young males and still has the audacity to show up at events like this.

Of course, the man who invited him is none other than Wuerl, the last in the line in the photo and who is flashing that weird satanic looking hand gesture, something he does frequently.

You will recall that Wuerl lied, as Archbishop Viganò said in fact "through his teeth" about not knowing about McCarrick's evil. Then, when he got caught in the lie by secular media, his excuse was the reporter asked if knew about McCarrick and minors.

A former seminarian, an adult, had come forward in 2004 telling Wuerl about McCarrick — so yeah, he knew. He just hid behind the precise wording of the question about minors.

But this is how this unseemly wicked crowd behaves — as a routine. They lie like the devil himself and twist and distort like nobody's business. The Renaissance popes would hide their faces in shame as this cast of corrupt cardinals passed by.

By the way, we would include the new archbishop himself in this gay cardinal parade, but he's not yet a cardinal.

The noted researcher into all this horror, Richard Sipe, who died recently, publicly accused Wilton Gregory of being homosexual. Little came in way of denial.

But this picture speaks volumes. It says, in short, pardon the expression, screw you, laity. I'm Donald Wuerl — known liar, cheat and cover-up artist, and I still run the show. And I'm going to send a message that my fellow homosexual and/or cover-up cardinals are still in charge.

We'll persecute whatever clergy we want. We'll crush whatever reform efforts are undertaken. We'll sponge off you until the day we die.

See my guy from Newark up there in front of me, Tobin? He had an Italian model living in his rectory pretending to be a foreign language student at Seton Hall, and he got away with it.

And Blase, one of my other guys? Yep, he deftly orchestrated a complete cover-up at the sex summit in February after he and I flew back and forth to Rome multiple times beforehand planning the strategy — worked like a charm too.

And O'Brien leading the way — Viganò called him out as well, directly naming him as a homosexual and being in one the McCarrick over up just like I was. I thought it'd be good if I put him right in front and stick it to all of you.

And why can I do this, because over the years, I and Uncle Ted and Bernardin and Blasey Boy and all the rest of us have managed to put cowards and wimps and gays into the office of bishop all over the country, so we know they won't say a word.

We kept good guys out, and those who slipped through, we drove off.

We even like that Barron fellow because he says that after us covering up generations of rapes of teenage boys, suicides, active gay priests with other priest and bishops as bed partners — you name it — after our entire episcopal careers built on all this filth, that we are going to Heaven, because we have a reasonable hope that all men are saved.

Man, it's great to be a cardinal. So see ya; got to head back to my $12 million pad on Embassy Row.

Yeah, come to think of it, Wuerl's right. This isn't a massive, massive crisis.

TRANSCRIPT

As we told you a few days ago, Church Militant is going to start rolling out what we are calling "Bishop's Trees" — the relationships between these men across generations, drawing the connections for you so you can more easily grasp the evil inflicted on Catholics, largely ignorant of these relationships.

Our information stems from hours and hours of poring over data, researching far back into annals and files and records which reveal much in the way of how so much evil has infected the Church.

For months, we have been slowly gathering the data, and last week, our team assembled here in Detroit and started piecing it all together.

And what a picture we came up with — a filthy disgusting group of men abusing their spiritual authority left and right to cover for their sexual depravities, for each other and God only knows what else.

And it all gets back to who knows who.

For example, it's not much of a secret that two of the biggest destroyers of the Faith in the United States were Chicago's Cardinal Joseph Bernardin and his second mentor, Cardinal John Dearden of Detroit.

Dearden was nearly 20 years Bernardin's senior, Dearden hailing from Cleveland and Bernardin from South Carolina.

In 1966, Dearden, who had become the leading mouthpiece for all things liberal in the Church, began the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, what is today called the USCCB.

Out of seeming obscurity, Dearden, then archbishop of Detroit, reached down into the archdiocese of Atlanta and plucked out the unheard of auxiliary bishop Joseph Bernardin.

It has always been a source of wonderment for those like Church Militant investigating these wicked men how a power broker like Dearden even knew about Bernardin, much less raised him to the level of second in command at his newly formed National Bishops' Conference.

Where was the connection, or rather, who was the connection? That seemed like an important question.

The answer is this man, Paul Hallinan, bishop of Charleston, South Carolina from 1958–1962.

Hallinan was not only of like-mind with Dearden regarding dismantling the Church, he also shared deep ties with Dearden from joint time back in Cleveland.

After digging, Church Militant has discovered that while Hallinan was in seminary for Cleveland, the young Father Dearden was an associate pastor at his home parish and knew the family.

So the Dearden-Hallinan connection stretched back decades.

When Hallinan was appointed bishop of Charleston in 1958, he kept close ties with Dearden, who became archbishop of Detroit the same year. Bernardin had been ordained as a priest for Charleston in 1952, and when Hallinan arrived as bishop six years later in 1958, Bernardin became his protege.

When Hallinan was appointed the first-ever archbishop of Atlanta four years later in 1962, he brought Bernardin with him from Charleston as auxiliary bishop, making him the youngest-ever bishop consecrated in the United States at just 38 years old.

Two years later in 1966, Dearden asked Hallinan if he knew who would be good to advance the liberal cause in the Church, and Hallinan had just the man — Bernardin.

And just like that, Bernardin began his rapid ascent with the former backing of a powerful archbishop in the South and the mentoring of the most liberal archbishop from the North.

In the coming days and weeks, Church Militant will be revealing shocking and disgusting information we have unearthed regarding Bernardin, a virtual one-man wrecking crew.

But for now, we will keep the focus on Dearden and show you how the "Bishop's Tree" works.

Dearden not only was able to use Bernardin, already a bishop, but he also consecrated other men bishops whose work and further consecrations to this day continue to infect the Church with their filth.

For example, in 1973, Dearden consecrated one of his Detroit priests as an auxiliary bishop, a man by the name of Joseph Imesch. Imesch had been Dearden's secretary years earlier.

In 1979, Imesch became bishop of Joliet, Illinois where he remained for 27 years before retiring.

During his time there, the Dearden-consecrated bishop shifted around and shielded dozens of priests who had raped hundreds of altar boys between them, which all became public a few years before he stepped down.

He never repented, never apologized to victims and even accused them of only coming forward years later to, in his words, "smear me."  The Joliet diocese had to pay out over $4 million to victims with the arrogant Imesch going to his grave never publicly admitting his evil.

But not only did the Dearden bishop shift around homopredators, he also created one, a bishop, the infamous Daniel Ryan.

Daniel Ryan was an active homosexual, but that didn't stop Imesch from making him his auxiliary bishop in Joliet in 1981.

Two years later, Ryan went on to be bishop of Springfield, Illinois where he routinely had sex with various of his own priests, gay prostitutes, and even cruised the local parks looking for young troubled men to have sex with.

This filth went on for 15 years, one homosexual encounter after another, by some counts, hundreds of sexual encounters.

It was all finally exposed by Roman Catholic Faithful's leader, Stephen Brady, who kept hammering and exposing until Ryan was forced to step down in shame.

So follow the "Bishop's Tree" here, Dearden makes Imesch who makes Ryan, all three men's time in the episcopal ranks pockmarked with some degree of homosexuality, either participating, covering it up or advancing it.

Dearden even made Thomas Gumbleton auxiliary bishop for Detroit, a man who covered up and lied about the showing of gay pornography in the archdiocesan seminary and who, even to this day, continues to champion the cause of sodomy. And don't think the filth and rot end there.

In Joliet, Illinois, the current bishop is Daniel Conlon, a name that might ring a bell with Church Militant viewers.

Conlon recently revealed, speaking to a gathering of young people, that he's not sure Our Lord actually established a Church of any kind.

After the uproar, the diocese simply pulled down, without comment, those remarks from its website.

But what it hasn't yet thought of covering up is that Conlon is proudly, today, at this very moment, displaying an image of the active homosexual bishop Daniel Ryan right in the entrance to his cathedral.

Yep, right there on full display for all the world to see is a shrine-type display of the disgraced sodomite bishop driven from office in shame, a successor of the Apostles who used to cruise local parks at night looking for and getting sex from young men.

So a man like Conlon, the current bishop, honors a known sodomite in the very doorway to his cathedral and denies that Christ ever established a Church.

And for those of you who are wondering about Conlon's "Bishop's Tree," he was made a bishop by Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk of Cincinnati.

And that's its own story with him having to plead "no contest" to multiple misdemeanor counts of failing to report felonies, which is a polite way of saying priests raping teenaged altar boys.

The judge in the case correctly said he cared more about the institution than the victims.

And as for his bishop tree, he was selected to be and made a bishop by — drumroll please — Joseph Bernardin. Pilarczyk offered crocodile tears but made sure to go out in a blaze of glory, blaming the media and psychologists.

He was one of dozens and dozens of bishops stemming from the Dearden-Bernardin tree, a filthy and disgusting lot of men who have no shame, no remorse and are all inbred.

And yes, bishops, Church Militant is going to keep rolling out these reports and a number of special reports detailing some of the most vile actions and relationships, some of them revolving specifically around Bernardin himself.

This wickedness must be denounced publicly and loudly by you. Many of you are covered in this filth and you need to admit and repent your role in all of it.

Many of you served in the chanceries and knew about all this, including the McCarrick filth along with Bernardin and Dearden.

Have you no fear of Almighty God, who many of you will be standing before soon enough?

TRANSCRIPT

Today's Vortex is perhaps the darkest and most disturbing we have ever produced of nearly 3,000, and we strongly caution parents before allowing any children to watch.

It is our special report exploring the darkness of homosexual clerical predation, as captured on police audio recordings straight from the mouth of a 71-year-old Catholic priest during his four-month attempt to seduce a 17-year-old boy.

For the first time ever, you will hear for yourself how the diabolically insane mind of a homopredator cleric operates.

This filth and evil, ladies and gentlemen, is precisely what twisted bishops and homoheretics in the Church do not want you to concentrate on or think of.

We disagree. The laity have been betrayed on a level unheard of in 2,000 years.

This is the evil behind all of it.

Fr. Robert DeLand: To discover that you have some gay tendencies is a fine thing, because then you don't have to be so confused. Do you feel less confused? Do you?

That's the voice of Fr. Robert DeLand, now serving time in a Michigan prison for multiple counts of homosexual assault. Church Militant obtained these police audio recordings of Deland attempting to groom and seduce a teenage boy, trying to convince him he's gay.

Hello. I'm Michael Voris. Welcome to this Church Militant Special Report we're bringing you to give you a first-of-its-kind look into the twisted mind and methods of a homopredator priest.

Fr. Robert DeLand: So do you feel less confused about it, I mean … is it OK for you to say, "You know, I've definitely got some gay in me."

Victim: Yeah.

Fr. RD: Think that's good, to say that?

V: Hmm, yeah.

Fr. RD: Say it.

V: Not quite ready to say it, but …

What you are going to hear in this report is deeply disturbing, the voice of a priest, ordained to save souls, using his spiritual authority to destroy. But keep in mind, this very thing has happened thousands and thousands of times, as hurting or confused teenage boys are lured into a world of darkness by homopredator priests. It's just that we don't have police recordings of all of them.

This time, we do.

It's something too many bishops don't want to face, or want you thinking about, the actual truth of what goes on when a sick priest sets his sights on a younger male and begins the process of grooming him, preparing to seduce him.

Despite attempts by leaders like Chicago Cdl. Blase Cupich to deflect from this manifest evil by falsely appealing to consensual sex or sex involving two adults, the truth is all of it is a massive, massive abuse of trust and authority, which bishops don't want to address in any substantive manner. Likewise, they also want to totally deflect from the issue of homosexuality and pretend it has nothing to do with the problem.

However, in spite of the game-playing, the 2004 John Jay Report — and every single survey issued by the bishops since then — show 80% of all clergy sex abuse victims are male, and around that same number are post-pubescent — meaning physically mature teenage boys.

The John Jay Report acknowledges this disparity, saying in its 2011 report:

National incidence studies have consistently shown that in general girls are three times more likely to be abused than boys. Despite this widely accepted statistic on victim gender, recent studies of sexual abuse of minors within institutions have shown a higher percentage of male than female victims.

The Ruth Institute published a groundbreaking report last year by sociologist Father Paul Sullins showing a near-100% correlation between the rise in gay priests and the rise in clergy sex abuse.

Comparing priests reporting a homosexual orientation with the incidence of sex abuse from the years 1955 to 1999, we see an almost perfect correlation between the rise in self-identified homosexual clergy and the rise in abuse.

The figures prove this is not a pedophile problem. This is a pederast problem, meaning a homosexual problem — the problem of homosexual predation on male teens.

Fr. RD: I love you.

V: Love you too, Fr. Bob.

Fr. RD: I know. What are we gonna do?

V: I don't know.

Fr. RD: No, what are we gonna do, really?

Father Robert DeLand was a priest of more than 40 years in the diocese of Saginaw, Michigan, former judicial vicar and senior priest on the marriage tribunal, enormously popular among local Catholics — Catholics who defended DeLand even as the news was beginning to dominate local media outlets.

DeLand is now serving two to 15 years in Jackson State Prison, largely as a result of the sting operation that caught him grooming this male teenage victim, offering him cash and drugs, and then attempting to sexually assault him.

The 17-year-old victim who testified in court during preliminary hearings was, at the time of DeLand's grooming, grieving the suicide of one of his best friends.

The victim had gotten in trouble with the law for underage drinking and was sentenced to community service. DeLand had worked his way into being a hallway monitor at Freeland High School and was popular among students. He used his work at the school as cover, hunting for male teenage victims.

It was here in 2017 that he singled the boy out, taking him under his wing.

It started with DeLand offering to pay for his grief counseling sessions and then suggesting that he complete his community service hours at his condo, where the priest could get him alone.

His parents, alarmed by the priest's latching on to their son, went to the police, who launched a secret investigation, wiring the victim so he could record his interactions with DeLand.

One of the tactics is to draw victims in on secret associations, emotionally or psychologically isolating them.

A recording from February 2018 reveals DeLand offering the 17-year-old cigarettes and encouraging him to lie to his parents, helping him conceal the smell of cigarette smoke on his clothes.

V: Actually it's probably not a good idea if I smoke, then I'll be going home.

Fr. RD: Really?

V: Yeah, now that I think about it. I have to be really careful.

Fr. RD: Oh, you mean they get upset?

V: I'll have it on my clothes and stuff. My parents don't smoke at the house. My mom smokes every couple days.

Fr. RD: You know what? Here, I know what you're gonna do. Febreze.

V: There we go.

Fr. RD: That'll work. OK, now pull it so we can have one.

V: All right.

Detective Brian Berg spearheaded the four-month covert operation that led to DeLand's arrest and conviction. Berg made clear the priest had other victims, and that he used homosexuality as his means of setting up his assaults.

Fr. RD: It's fine. It's just fine. It's who you are. If it's how God made you, big deal.

After the victim pretended to struggle with same-sex attraction, DeLand's conversations turned almost obsessively to the topic, encouraging him to experiment with partners.

Fr. RD: I mean, do you have any curiosity about doing it for real?

V: Yeah.

Fr. RD: Well, I think you ought to try to find somebody.

V: Yeah.

Fr. RD: You think you can? There are certainly guys right around school. I don't know if you're attracted to them. Attracted to anybody at school?

V: No.

Fr. RD: Nobody, huh? When was the last time you found yourself attracted to other guys? ... I think you would know how to investigate.

V: Yeah.

Fr. RD: You'd know how to do that.

...

Fr. RD: Any guy that you know that might be attracted to you? Any guys that you could figure that out with?

The priest repeatedly told the victim he loved him just as he is.

Fr. RD: Look. If you're gay, I don't care. And I have a feeling that there's some gayness in there. And you know what? I love you as you are. And so if you're gay, you're gay. Bring home a boyfriend, I'm gonna love him just as I love you.

...

Fr. RD: But you may also fall in love with some guy who you think is really special. And you know what? I don't care. And that ought to make you feel good. I don't care. I just want you to be happy.

...

Fr. RD: But I love you as you are, and I want you to love yourself as you are. Do you love yourself as you are? Do you?

V: Yeah.

Fr. RD: That's the best news I've ever heard.

He even used religion to reinforce the young man's supposed homosexuality.

Fr. RD: Say a prayer with me. Lord, I really ask you to ease the burdens of [victim], even, even to (unintelligible). But Lord, he's such a good person. You made him so good. And I want him to believe that. And I don't know that he does. I want him to really know that you made him good, and whatever he is, it's just fine. Because in the end, God, all he has to do is please You. Please himself. Help him to discover who he is, what he is. But especially, God, help him, help him to know his goodness. His good heart. Lord, take care of him please. Please, Lord, take care of him.

Conversations pushed him towards gay sex, and as Detective Berg noted, the priest encouraged him to watch gay porn, masturbate and call up the priest the next day to tell him all about it.

Fr. RD: Can you try it for me tonight and let's see what happens? In fact, after you're done with it, get a hold of me and tell me how you're feeling.

V: All right.

Fr. RD:  That'd be good?

V: Yeah

...

Fr. RD: So if you have time tonight, if you're home, do it again and see what it feels like again.

V: All right.

Fr. RD: Can you do it tonight again?

V: Yeah.

Fr. RD: All right. And then I'm gonna talk to you later, so I'm gonna ask you how that felt.

V: All right.

...

Fr. RD: So did you go online or did you just, uh, did you just do it?

V: I went online.

Fr. RD: Did you? Did that help?

V: Yeah. Not really sure if I'm in between or or if I'm full on one side or not, but ...

Fr. RD: Well, we're gonna find that out, aren't we?

V: Yeah.

DeLand would ask the teen intimate questions about his sexual leanings.

Fr. RD: Would you see yourself doing anal sex or would you see yourself sucking? I think we've arrived at the moment when it's time to find that out.

He did this all while lavishing on him attention and over-the-top displays of love and affection — the sort of affection a troubled teen might crave.

Fr. RD: I really love you. I mean, I, I really do.

V: Love you too, Fr. Bob.

Fr. RD: Yeah, I really do feel that from you.

...

Fr. RD: You're promising me that you're going to try to take more advantage of me.

V: Yes.

Fr. RD: I love you.

...

Fr. RD: You've made a friend for life. How about that? How about that? Can you imagine? And look at your eyes. They're actually smiling now, aren't they? I love you.

V: Love you too, Fr. Bob.

...

Fr. RD: Now, look at me. You don't have to look away. I just love you.

V: Love you too, Fr. Bob.

Fr. RD: I know you do.

...

Fr. RD: You're a good boy. You're a good boy.

V: Thank you, Fr. Bob.

Fr. RD: No, I mean, you really are.

...

Fr. RD: You know that the older you get, the more good-looking you get. I'm sure people tell you that.

V: Never heard that before, actually.

Fr. RD: Really?

V: Yeah.

Fr. RD: But it's really true. You're a good-looking man.

...

Fr. RD: I want you to believe it with all your heart. You're just a good man who's just troubled right now. But we can get you through this.

...

Fr. RD: If I had a son, I'd want him to be like you. Just a great heart. That's true. It's really true. And you, my friend, we're in this thing together forever.

...

Fr. RD: I love you more and more every day. I do.

V: Love you too, Fr. Bob.

Fr. RD: I know. But I love you more and more every day. And you're staying so close. Does that feel good to you? Because I just want you to know you have somebody in this world who will love you no matter what. Not gonna yell at you. Who's just gonna love you.

...

Fr. RD: What do we call each other? Well, I mean, it's more than a friendship. What is it? I don't know. Much more than a friendship, isn't it? Something so deep, so good.

DeLand even resorted to using the suicide of the victim's friend, Michael Dennis, in an attempt to become sexually intimate with the boy.

Fr. RD: Very interesting how you and I came together.

V: Yeah.

Fr. RD: Michael did a good thing in bringing us together. Didn't he?

It's worth noting that Michael Dennis was close to Father DeLand and spent a great deal of time with the homopredator priest just before turning a gun on himself.

On the audio recordings DeLand can be heard continually offering the victim money and gifts.

Fr. RD: And I'm getting you your money tomorrow for the weekend.

...

Fr. RD: You're an expensive person.

Although the victim was only 17 at the time, DeLand encouraged him to drink alcohol.

Fr. RD: Do you like … that's Scotch. That's Scotch. That's vodka. Do you like vodka? You like it? Have you ever had tequila?

V: No, I've never had tequila. All my friends have, though.

Fr. RD: Maybe you should try it.

...

Fr. RD: We're gonna get you drunk and you're gonna cry.

V: Yep.

Fr. RD: That sound good?

He even offered to buy him the drug ecstasy.

V: Are we getting them for just me or you or … ?

Fr. RD: I'm sorry, what are we getting?

V: Uh, the ecstasy.

Fr. RD: Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no. I'm watching you. Is that OK?

...

Fr. RD: My gosh. That's a pretty hard drug and I really don't want you to be doing that on your own.

V: Right.

Fr. RD: You know, sitting at home or something.

It was this drug the victim pretended to be high on on the night of Feb. 25, 2018 that led to DeLand making his move.

Fr. RD: Yes, you're tripping away, boy. That's good. You having fun?

V: Yeah.

Fr. RD: Good. I'm glad it's working.

...

Fr. RD: You're so high. Look at you. Oh, I love you so much.

V: Love you too, Fr. Bob.

Fr. RD: I love you.

...

Fr. RD: You don't need to know what time it is. You just need to learn, you just need to relax and to enjoy yourself, you hear me? Can you do that?

...

Fr. RD: You and I are going to travel. Would you like that? I'd like that. Show you some of the good things in our world. So you don't have to imagine it.

...

Fr. RD: All right. How about I give you a back rub? You wanna lay down, don't you?

V: Yeah.

Fr. RD (rubbing victim's back): That feel good or no? It does?

He gave him a back rub in his bedroom before attempting to sexually assault him, causing the victim to flee the condo to safety, and leading to Fr. DeLand's immediate arrest.

V: So weird. I'm starting to shake. Yeah, he started rubbing my a** and my hand … . He started rubbing my hand on top of my crotch.

The case of Fr. DeLand can be multiplied many times over, with many thousands more victims groomed by homosexual predators like DeLand, who target vulnerable young men, lavish them with affection and attention, offer them gifts and push them to experiment with homosexuality, taking sexual advantage of them — thousands of young men used and abused and left scarred for life, others unable to cope, committing suicide, all while bishops continue to ignore the specific crisis of homosexuals in the clergy, as well as within their own ranks.

They minimize the harms, excusing and rationalizing gay priests, blaming clericalism or access or any number of canards, rather than focus on the actual problem of deeply disturbed and twisted men in their own clerical ranks. They sit silent, and in some cases even support men like Fr. James Martin's parading of homosexuality as perfectly normal.

Until the bishops start confronting this problem head on, many more Fr. DeLands will continue to groom and abuse many more male victims, leading to more ruined lives, loss of faith on a massive scale, loss of trust from the laity and a Church crippled by a crisis the bishops refuse to name.

TRANSCRIPT

The evil that engulfs the Church today from within has many aspects to it, as well as many faces.

One very recognizable face is that of James Martin, homoheretic who takes great delight in his ability to deceive ignorant or malleable Catholics by deftly gliding around Church teaching on homosexuality, pretending to accept it, all the while undermining it.

He is truly doing the work of his father, the devil.

And to point out just how strange the times are in the Church, and at how much of a deficit we are at regarding bishops who actually care about your souls, the denouncing of this man has fallen to faithful Catholic laity.

While a few powerbroker cardinals and bishops in the Church support the homoheretic, most simply keep their distance and say nothing.

That means they are either emasculated men, malformed or gay themselves and don't want to get too close to the controversy lest they themselves be outed.

Over the weekend, Martin, who is very active on social media, set what must be some kind of Twitter record.

He strung together a series of 18 — yeah, you heard right — a string of 18 tweets deriding Church Militant, LifeSiteNews and others who call him out on his deception and promotion of sin.

He had a number of different points in his ramblings but the upshot seemed to be that the more the few faithful Catholics protest him, the stronger he gets.

All the attention of our articles and petitions and so forth just create more media buzz around him and then more people come out to see him — woopty-doo; so what? We don't need to be told that.

We very much understand the old adage that "there's no such thing as bad publicity."

He went on to list how there are so many more people who support him and his position, how they flock in droves to hear him, the messiah of modernism, how he has the encouragement and support of so many more, including bishops and universities and religious.

In a purely narcissistic move, he even included a photo of thousands in attendance at the commencement exercises of Jesuit Xavier University in Cincinnati this weekend as if the throng had come to hear him.

Excuse us, Father, but the crowd was there to primarily to witness the graduation of their kids, from whom your largely twisted order would have extracted hundreds of thousands of dollars out of to pervert their young minds regarding the Faith.

No doubt they cheered you as you gave them every reason to reject Catholic teaching on sexual morality. Are we supposed to be impressed?

You devils have been at this for almost four generations, including the devil bishops among you. Of course, the crowds cheer you and throw flowers before you and laud every breath you take.

No one disputes you wicked lot have total and complete control of everything. You have the universities, the parishes, the episcopacy, the seminaries. You have everything except the Catholic faith.

Your lust has so blinded you and propelled you into the darkness that you are incapable of seeing and therefore repenting from your sin. As a final point, it is curious that Martin would string together such a Twitter tirade mentioning us here at Church Militant.

Why doesn't he say all this to us in person, as Fox News has given him the opportunity on three separate occasions, as we know for a fact.

During last November's Silence Stops Now rally in Baltimore at the bishops' conference, Church Militant was having a side conversation with some Fox News personnel who were there to cover the event.

During that conversation, we were told that on not one, not two, but three different occasions, Martin had agreed to be on one of the network's programs and talking about his position. He immediately agreed. Then the producer talking to him said they wanted to have me on to sit across from him on the same broadcast and give a counterpoint. He immediately reversed and declined.

That happened three separate times, according to our Fox sources.

So Father, how about it? Call the Fox producer back up and say, "Sure, I'll go on with Voris and Church Militant and hash it out."

But that will never happen. Martin knows his cover would be blown instantly. He would be exposed for the deceiver that he is; and for the record, any faithful and knowledgeable Catholic could do this.

What it all makes you wonder is why aren't any bishops doing it?

Your Excellencies, you personally will have to answer for the souls who are being led to Hell by this priest.

That the laity would have to rise up in the vacuum of your silence and your acquiescence is despicable. You are detestable in your cowardice and lack of charity.

TRANSCRIPT

This past weekend, Church Militant hosted our first-ever, in-person Resistance Conference.

It was attended by 120 faithful activist Catholics from all over the country and even a few internationally. Ever since the news of McCarrick broke last summer, Catholics have been spitting bullets about how the hierarchy has lied to them, deceived them and covered up crimes or conducted unethical, immoral practices — all the while hiding behind spirituality.

It is the specific abuse of spiritual authority that brought these people together and a good deal others who viewed via a livestream. Again, these are Catholics from all over the country who came together to learn the nuts and bolts of how to resist all this evil in the Church.

We had speakers talking about how to organize other Catholics in their area; how to locate sources in their local church who will give them information they can make public; how to protect the identity of any sources, any legal concerns that might arise, how to make friends with local law enforcement. We gave some instruction on how to package news of any financial misdealings or lack of transparency and deliver it to local media.

In short, a weekend-long tutorial on how to resist the evil in the Church, to fight against it.

The formula, the template of how many of these wicked individuals work in the Church is somewhat standard.Where you find one kind of evil - whether it’s sexual, financial, moral, legal, doctrinal — it doesn’t matter — where you find one, you are certain to uncover others, because as my dear mum (God rest her soul) used to say, "There's no such thing as one cockroach."

Sin begets sin. It multiplies itself. It grows and advances like the cancer that it is. So if there is some homosexual activity going on among priests in your diocese, you can bet your bottom dollar there is further evil — doctrinal, financial, whatever. And if that is the case, it's a virtual guarantee that something is being covered up by the bishop or people in the chancery.

These people will lie, commit crimes, do anything they need to to keep the status quo. We are long beyond the claim that these are all just disagreements of a prudential judgment. They are crimes, deliberate betrayals and cover-ups.

Not everything going on is necessarily criminal in nature, although judging from the number of chanceries being raided by local, state and federal law enforcement these days, there must be something criminal. There are vastly more important spiritual crimes going on, occuring on a daily basis, in parish after parish, not addressed by the local bishop, oftentimes supported by the local bishop.

Just a tick down the list of the large number of bishops who have allowed the homoheretic Fr. James Martin to come into their diocese and spread his poisonous homoheresy, and you see right there, at the very least, the spiritual crime of negligence. Then add to that the ones who have sat silent in general and refused to say anything at all.

Loads of the men who now have large influence and power in the Church are only one or two steps removed from Theodore McCarrick, and they learned well how to lie, deceive and lead the faithful into the fires of Hell.

It must all be resisted.

And speaking of flames, the sad sight of Notre Dame ablaze during Holy Week provides an apt analogy to the current horror in the Church. Yes, the 800-year-old cathedral must be rebuilt, or better stated, restored. But before it can be restored, those flames had to first be resisted.

So too in the Church, the flames of the evil of Modernism, which are engulfing the Church today, must first be resisted. Their diabolical source must be extinguished, drowned, under a flood of effort poured forth from faithful laity who care deeply and are dedicated to the Restoration. If it takes getting information to the feds to help launch the RICO investigation nationally, then so be it. If it means gathering information about financial irregularities being reported to local media, then so be it.

To many of these men, wicked or hapless men have been throwing gasoline onto the fire for too long. The time to organize the Resistance has now arrived.

If you'd like to know more about the Church Militant Resistance and how you can get involved in your diocese, just click on the provided link.

TRANSCRIPT

The diabolically inspired disaster which has befallen the Church raises some rather large questions. While we know, in the big picture, that it is Satan behind all of it, still, Satan doesn't operate outside of time and space.

Since the Church on earth is by its nature grounded in time and space, with human beings moving along through human history, Satan's attacks occur in time and space, in history and through human agency.

These, in fact, are the very individuals that the Lord God told Satan he would have — his offspring, the offspring of the serpent — set in war and enmity against the offspring of the Woman.

So as we look at the reality of affairs today in the Church, we need to approach this disaster with an eye to the fact while it has been diabolically inspired, it has been brought about by human beings — and specifically, those who have actively worked for this disaster.

It has been intended for it would be impossible for such a fate to befall the Church by accident, by historical wanderings, unrelated to each other.

For the past few months, Church Militant has been actively engaged in exploring these very questions — big questions — especially in light of the news about McCarrick which broke almost a full year ago.

Since that day — June 20, 2018 — an awakening has occurred in the Church with numerous Catholics beginning to see the evil and its preponderance more clearly — not just McCarrick himself, but what he is symptomatic of: a corrupt hierarchy, more corrupt perhaps than at any time in the Church's 2,000 years.

Then when the second bomb was dropped — the Pennsylvania grand jury report — a set of events was set in motion with outside authorities.

And just days later, the Archbishop Viganò testimony had the effect of blowing things wide open and sent the corrupt hierarchy into massive damage control.

In light of all that has happened in the past year, Church Militant and others have dedicated themselves to untangling the massive web of financial, sexual, doctrinal and moral corruption that has become everyday business in the Church.

By necessity, this effort requires deep research and analysis understanding relationship between various bad leaders.

All that has happened in the Church — decisions to permit, foster or ignore liturgical abuses, for example — these decisions were actively made by certain individual bishops who did these things in concert with other bishops.

The decision to dummy down seminary formation and absorb overwhelming numbers of homosexual men into seminary — again, these decisions were made by various individual bishops in concert with other bishops.

The decisions to ignore canon law, cover up abuse, dismantle Catholic education, not preach the so-called "truth bombs," all of these decisions were not made by one man in a vacuum.

Likewise, the decision to sacrifice the teachings of the Church and replace them with political policies under the banner of social justice and re-package socialism as somehow Catholic, it was all decided by some bishops plotting with other bishops.

To choose to downplay the pro-life movement, obscure tradition and on and on. Every last bit of it was a clear decision agreed to and joined in on by various prelates.

And among those decisions include the decision on what men should be elevated to bishops to participate in and perpetuate all this evil. And that means, relationships. It's all about relationships. Who is friends with who? Who consecrated who?

If you begin there, with that big question, things start to come become clear.

Tracing back an individual bishop's lineage, where did he go to seminary, who was the rector, who were his classmates, who ordained him, who were the other bishops who consecrated him?

The answers to these questions present a picture and begin to make many things come into focus.

As we said, Church Militant has been looking at things like this, trying to connect the dots, understand the personal relationships and connections ever since the news broke last summer.

This past week, for the entire week, first thing in the morning and into the evenings, some of us locked ourselves away and began studying the history of the U.S. hierarchy — the bishops' tree, in great detail.

Lots of information, lots of connections, and the resultant disasters from these associations started coming into much greater focus.

In the coming days and weeks, we will be connecting many of these dots for you, showing you the relationships between various bishops that we have uncovered during the hours and hours of research we've been doing.

To the say the least, it's been fascinating and frightening, all at the same time. Above all, it's been very instructive.

That the Church has been so dismantled and brought into such a ruinous state is not really a question how or what as much as who?

As the old and correct saying goes, "Birds of a feather flock together."

It's not about what you know. It's about who you know.