Michael Voris On Chains of Paternity in Detroit

Randy Engel doesn't have a lot of detail on the Archdiocese of Detroit. This says more about the extent of the rot in the US Church than about Engel; she acknowledges how big the task of documenting the abuse of teen boys by Catholic priests is. And the predation of underage boys is just the most reprehensible part of a bigger problem, the widespread toleration of gays in the priesthood, which in turn is fostered by bishops.

Engel raises the specific case of only one Detroit priest, "Father Robert N. Burkholder, one of Michigan’s most notorious clerical pederasts who confessed to molesting at least 23 young boys."

A priest of the Archdiocese of Detroit, Burkholder started his criminal career of molesting young boys almost immediately after his ordination in 1947. He engaged in fondling and oral sex with his victims as well as group sex. He told them that “Their bodies were gifts from God and, therefore, were to be shared with priests.”

Complaints to the Detroit Chancery from parishioners whose sons were assaulted by Burkholder were ignored. For at least two decades Cardinal Dearden simply shuffled the priest from parish to parish. Finally, in the 1970s, the cardinal pulled him as a pastor and assigned him to a hospital chaplaincy.

In 1981, Burkholder claimed “sick leave” and moved to Hawaii where he took up a residency in Makaha on the western shore of the island of Oahu. (p 770)

Although he was never incardinated in the Diocese of Hawaii, he worked as a contract military chaplain and said Mass at St. Elizabeth’s Parish in Aiea.

The Archdiocese of Detroit claimed that Burkholder has been prohibited from any ministry since 1993, when it received complaints about him. Come again? The archdiocese knew of the priest’s criminal activities at least from the late 1960s. If Burkholder was in Hawaii, how could the Archdiocese of Detroit possibly monitor the priest’s activities? Did the archdiocese alert the Honolulu Diocese that the priest was a sexual predator with a fondness for boys between the ages of 13 and 15? (p 771)

Burkholder was eventually extradited to Michigan to stand trial for molestation of a Michigan boy while in Hawaii; he was convicted. In today's Vortex, Michael Voris brings up the case of Fr. Gerald Shirilla:

Shirilla was the chief organizer for the archdiocese of Detroit's papal visit by Pope John Paul II in 1987 and was on the faculty of Sacred Heart Seminary. He was, in fact, a very well-known priest in the archdiocese and was a serial homosexual predator for decades — and despite incessant rumors constantly surrounding him, continued to be given plum assignments. For example, he eventually became the director of the archdiocesan Office of Worship.

He was ordained for Detroit in 1968 by the uber-liberal Cdl. John Dearden. At the time of his ordination, he had already been molesting the first couple of the Paciorek brothers, taking them back to his room at Sacred Heart Seminary on frequent trips.

In 1970, he was placed on the faculty of Sacred Heart and used his office space to continue the molestations. The rector of Sacred Heart at the time, Fr. Thaddeus Ozog, became best friends with Shirilla and both routinely vacationed together in a camper, well known by Detroit clergy and hierarchy.

Ozog was also a molester — the archdiocese of Detroit releasing his name posthumously just two months ago that there was a credible report of sex with a minor. He died of AIDS in 1994.

Court documents reveal that in 1973, Shirilla was ousted from the seminary for sexual impropriety, yet remarkably he was allowed to continue on in his priesthood, despite some higher-ups saying he was "unfit to serve as a priest."

Shirilla's predation continued until 1993, when a victim complained to the archdiocese.

[T]he archdiocese had barred Shirilla from ministry, sent him to the well-known St. Luke's in Maryland for treatment and suggested that he would no longer be a priest — that they recommended to him to leave the priesthood. But the archdiocese never followed up and forced the issue as you would expect.

In fact, after time at St. Luke's, Shirilla formed a Virginia-based pilgrimage travel company with another Detroit molester priest who was eventually convicted and imprisoned, Fr. Harry Benjamin, close seminary friend — in fact, best friend of eventual archdiocesan power broker Msgr. John Zenz.

According to archdiocesan personnel present during the scandal, Zenz was instrumental in trying to keep the wraps on the Shirilla news, along with McGrath.

Why is all this pertinent now? Because even after all this, men like McGrath and Zenz retain massive influence in the archdiocese, exercising enormous power and control during the reign of Cdl. Adam Maida from 1990–2008, nearly 20 years.

This is yet another example of Engel's thesis, that gay networks infiltrate seminaries and chanceries and perpetuate themselves for generations. None of these instances, from diocese to diocese, is unique; they're all part of a much larger pattern. The question is why they've been tolerated at the Vatican, which must certainly be aware of the situation.