FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Stephen Brady (217) 632-5920 or James Bendell (360) 379-5221

Catholic Group calls for the Removal of "Education Commissioner" at Chicago Parish

Roman Catholic Faithful, Inc. (RCF), an organization dedicated to promoting orthodox Catholic teaching and fighting heterodoxy and corruption within the Catholic hierarchy, is calling for the removal of Robert R. Boyle as "Education Commissioner" at Our Lady Of Mount Carmel Church (OLMC) in Chicago. (OLMC is home parish for Chicago’s Archdiocesan Gay and Lesbian Outreach, or AGLO.) According to Stephen Brady, President of the not-for-profit organization based in the Springfield, IL diocese, "Because of his past public living arrangements, it is a scandal to allow Mr. Boyle to hold such a position at a Catholic parish." An obituary published in the August 8, 1998 Chicago Tribune listed Robert Boyle as the "life partner" of the deceased, Joseph Edward Spurgeon. A Mass was celebrated the following Tuesday at Our Lady Of Mt. Carmel Church.

RCF’s attorney and board member, James Bendell, stated: "This is just another example of how Cardinal George has disappointed orthodox Catholics who had hoped he would clean up the sewage left behind by Cardinal Bernardin."

Prompted by a December 1998 phone call from a concerned Chicago Catholic, RCF began an investigation into allegations that certain clergy within the Chicago and Joliet dioceses are involved in homosexual relationships and using the confessional to promote homosexual ideals. According to Brady, the December 9 call came from a Catholic mother who was trying to help her homosexual son return to the Church and live a chaste life. "She was disturbed by what her son had told her regarding clergy he knew to be involved in homosexual relationships," Brady said. "She also related an incident which took place several years before at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Parish in Chicago, where her son was advised, by a priest, that there was nothing wrong with his acting on his homosexual desires".

According to Brady, an investigation of the allegations will continue. Brady stated he received letters from clergy regarding these problems. "We have also received mail concerning problems at Mundelein Seminary (in the Chicago Archdiocese)," Brady continued. "We will continue our investigation until the hierarchy acts to correctly remedy these abuses."

When asked to justify RCF’s authority to investigate such matters, Brady commented: "You’d better ask Cardinal George that one. Ask him, along with any number of other bishops, why so many priests, seminarians, and lay persons call us. The American bishops have failed those entrusted to them by God."

"A priest (and RCF supporter) from the Springfield diocese recently stated, ‘The bishops are no longer guided by the Holy Spirit; they are guided by men — the National Conference of Catholic Bishops. A major reason the Church in the United States is in the state it is today is that a terrible evil has hidden behind a facade of human weakness and uses that weakness to manipulate and achieve its ends. Those who hold office in the Church have failed to properly exercise their authority and have given this evil time and space to grow and mature. Misplaced and foolish charity has allowed real evil to root itself deep in the heart of the Church. Intellectual pride instead of humility and a model of church based on power rather than love have cost us dearly. This false compassion which has allowed the evil to continue has a terrible cost, and that bill is being paid by the innocent and the faithful. Only God knows the number of bishops who have transferred pedophiles to prevent "scandal". We have hidden these things for years as if they didn’t exist and told ourselves it was for the good of the Church. At that point we became the enemies of truth and so the true enemies of the Church.’"