The sexual abuse scandal that rocked the Catholic Church in recent days marked the culmination of seven decades of horrendous wrongdoing by hundreds of priests. But the media would rather ignore one particularly inconvenient truth: The vast majority of the crime was perpetrated by homosexuals.

Monsignor Charles Pope, a Catholic priest writing of previous abuse scandals in the National Catholic Register, makes the case:

It is evident that the vast majority of the cases involving both the sexual abuse of minors and of adults involve male victims. The 2004 John Jay Report (The Nature and Scope of the Problem of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests and Deacons in the United States), which was commissioned by the U.S. bishops themselves, found that 81 percent of the victims were male and 78 percent of all victims were post-pubescent. … So, the large majority of cases involved attraction by homosexuals to young men who, though legally minors, were physically and sexually mature males, not little children. This is not pedophilia. It is homosexual attraction.

In the Catholic Herald, Madison, Wisconsin, Bishop Robert C. Morlino likewise writes of the current situation, “It is time to admit that there is a homosexual subculture within the hierarchy of the Catholic Church that is wreaking great devastation in the vineyard of the Lord.” He continues, “In the specific situations at hand, we are talking about deviant sexual — almost exclusively homosexual — acts by clerics.”

And Cardinal Raymond Burke, a member of the highest court at the Vatican, the Apostolic Signatura, said, “It was clear after the studies following the 2002 sexual abuse crisis that most of the acts of abuse were in fact homosexual acts committed with adolescent young men. There was a studied attempt to either overlook or to deny this.” He added, “Now it seems clear in light of these recent terrible scandals that indeed there is a homosexual culture, not only among the clergy but even within the hierarchy, which needs to be purified at the root.”

Meanwhile, the Associated Press reports, “Allegations that disgraced ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick engaged in sex with adult seminarians have inflamed a long-running debate about the presence of gay men in the Roman Catholic priesthood.” McCarrick is the Harvey Weinstein of the Catholic Church — everyone knew he was abusing, but nobody did anything about it.

Pope Francis reiterated that the Church’s policy is not to admit to seminary or holy orders homosexuals, those with such deep-seated tendencies, or those who support a so-called “gay culture.” He also wrote, “No effort must be spared to create a culture able to prevent such situations from happening, but also to prevent the possibility of their being covered up and perpetuated.”

These horrific crimes have cost the thousands of victims more than we can imagine. But how much has this homosexual culture cost the Catholic Church? Obviously, its reputation has suffered greatly. But lay people who give their tithes and offerings must be appalled that, rather than feeding the hungry or providing other ministerial needs, the Church is attempting to compensate victims for the damage done by priests — to the tune of $3 billion.

Finally, the words of the Apostle Paul are especially damning (Roman 2:24): “For, as it is written, ‘The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you.’”

(Updated.)