(LifeSiteNews) — Rachel Mastorgiacomo was ritually raped by then-Fr. Jacob Bertrand, who pleaded guilty to and was convicted of such a heinous act. Wiesław Walawender came from Poland to study for the priesthood here – he was abused in three different dioceses and witnessed a six-year-old with semen all over his face after a sexually abusive encounter with a priest. The Catholic Church served them horribly. Cardinal Robert McElroy, soon to be archbishop of Washington, D.C., covered up for Bertrand. Bishops and seminary personnel disbelieved and punished Walawender when he reported his abusers, among them Cardinal Theodore McCarrick.
People who know their stories or the hundreds and thousands of similar ones have long thought it extremely problematic that the U.S. government through USAID has given over a billion dollars to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and its affiliates to settle refugees and immigrants. The Church has a scandalous history of placing predator priests among migrants and the handicapped and of covering up abuse that has occurred among them.
The investigations of the use of USAID funds by DOGE has shown that staggering amounts of money has been used for trivial purposes and worse, for nefarious ones. Why would the government have entrusted refugees and immigrants to the USCCB with its appalling track record? Was it because the USCCB was happy to receive such funds and look the other way in respect to trafficking of children and women? Was the USCCB happy to become a wing of the Democratic Party to collect huge sums of money? What did they do with the money?
What would your response be if there was a lot of public chatter that you had misused funds entrusted to you? That you had subcontracted with other groups who are involved in activities at odds with the goals of the donor? That the funds had been used to interfere in the affairs of other countries to pressure them into adopting values antithetical to their own and antithetical to the policies of the donor? Would you sue the donor and demand that they pay promised funds and keep insisting: “I am trustworthy, very trustworthy!” Or would you open your books and show to whom the funds went? Would you have an audit done to show how the funds were in fact utilized? Would you provide testimonies from those who have been assisted by organizations receiving the funds?
Suppose your work was with refugees and immigrants at a time when laws were not being enforced in order to facilitate the entry of immigrants, immigrants who would not be admitted if the laws were being enforced. Suppose those being admitted under very dubious circumstances were being treated like honored guests and given cell phones, gift cards, sometimes luxury accommodations, free health care, free education, and free legal care. Suppose many of those being admitted had been convicted of crimes in their homeland and then committed crimes here but were quickly – and inexplicably released back into society. Would you think it was an honest and upright thing to help the settlement of refugees and immigrants under such circumstances? Would the fact that most states allowed these individuals to vote in elections cause you to refuse to continue to help, since there is basically no other reason to let non-citizens vote than to rig elections?
Suppose 300,000 children (and likely more) among the refugees and immigrants that came into this country, many under your care, became “lost.” Would you not try to get to the bottom of that? Are good records not being kept? Is the follow up poor or nonexistent? How many children and women who arrived have been raped and/or trafficked? Obviously, unaccompanied immigrant minor children in a strange country without parents are truly the most vulnerable, as sexual predators are well aware. Can you prove that you did all you can to protect them?
The Catholic Church absolutely needs to clarify all of the above matters for Catholic laity and U.S. citizens. Our trust has been severely damaged for decades and we need answers.
Consider another extremely perplexing action by the Catholic Church. The aforementioned Cardinal McElroy, who protected a confessed, convicted ritual rapist, will be installed as the archbishop of Washington, D.C. Why him? Why a bishop known for covering for the infamous sexual abuser McCarrick and others? Why someone who is at odds with the Church’s teaching on many matters such as open borders, on the blessings of homosexual couples, on the status of transgenderism, and is a big supporter of climate change, be appointed to D.C.? Clearly, McElroy is the Poster Boy for opposition to the vision of the current administration; it will be difficult, if not impossible, for him to make common cause with the current administration to provide proper care for the marginalized and to promote policies consistent with Catholic social and sexual teachings.
Vice President Vance recently challenged the Catholic Church to clean up its own house. Unfortunately, how the USCCB is handling the suspension of funding from USAID and the appointment of McElroy to DC indicates that the Church is not capable of doing so. Almost any progress that has been made to rid the Church of predator priests and those who cover for them has been done through the legal system. The Church simply covers up for itself.
Five individuals, myself among them, have written an open letter to Vice President Vance to advocate for a RICO investigation into how the USCCB had used the funds entrusted to it. I have worked as an advocate for Rachel Mastrogiacomo, among several other victims, for five years. Elizabeth F. Yore, former general counsel at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, has worked for decades against trafficking. Gene Thomas Gomulka has been an indefatigable advocate for victims of sexual abuse by priests, among them Wieslaw Walawender. Kyle Clement has worked as an assistant to the renowned exorcist, Fr. Chad Ripperger, for nearly two decades. Mastorgiacomo and Walawender have written letters about their own experiences in the hopes that others will never experience what they did. Victims of sexual abuse, laity and taxpayers whose hard-earned wages have supported the USCCB and USAID deserve to have an accounting how of who their donations and taxes have been used.
(You can read the letters sent to Vice President Vance here, here and here.)
