Gay Catholic Priest Breaks Silence Over Church Abuse of Power

Richard Wagner, Ph.D., is the only Catholic priest in the world with a doctorate in human sexuality.  He is a gay man and the author of the seminal work – Gay Catholic Priests; A Study of Cognitive and Affective Dissonance.  The media firestorm that erupted after its publication and the backlash within his religious community because of its publication eventually destroyed his public priesthood.

Now Richard speaks out again.  His latest book, SECRECY, SOPHISTRY AND GAY SEX IN THE CATHOLIC CHURCH; The Systematic Destruction Of An Oblate Priest, provides an intimate and disturbing look into the unseemly inner-workings the Catholic Church. It is a story of how this institution deals with dissent in its midst, and to what lengths it will go to silence a whistle-blower.  It involves the highest levels of the Vatican bureaucracy, secret documents, corporate incompetence, canonical corruption, and institutionalized homophobia on an epic scale.

His account of ecclesiastical malfeasance is both timely and in sync with current trends in the popular culture, from the gay marriage debate to the revelation of rampant clergy sexual misconduct.

Richard’s story reveals Church corruption, criminality and abuse of power that was once cloaked in secrecy to avoid detection.  His is a story of a religious institution that will even violate its core principles to protect its public image. In other words, this is a story of a Church out of control.

At the same time Richard’s story is unfolding an unimaginable scandal, involving hundreds of Catholic priests across the globe, is also brewing. Cardinals, bishops and provincials worldwide are furtively shuffling pedophile priest from one crime scene to another. Plus they are involved in a massive corporate cover up of their own crimes and those of their brother clergy.

While Richard is being singled out for 13 years of Church vitriol, public character assassination and communal shunning these same Church leaders and others are lying, prevaricating and sabotaging any effort to uncover the burgeoning clergy sexual abuse scandal that now rock the front pages of newspapers all over the world.

The public panic, among Church officials, exhibited toward Richard-a single up-front gay priest in their midst-is in stark contrast to their apathetic and anemic response to the systemic clergy sexual misconduct and abuse that engulfs them.

Richard has first-hand knowledge of this clergy abuse. He was repeatedly sexually molested by his superior as a 14-year-old boy in an Oblate seminary in southern Illinois.