A Catholic priest in Ohio has been sentenced to life in prison for sex-trafficking boys. Fr. Michael Zacharias was first arrested in 2020 and charged with “coercion and enticement, sex trafficking of a minor, and sex trafficking of an adult by force, fraud, or coercion.” The FBI said at the time that Zacharias had been sexually abusing underage boys for over twenty years. According to court documents, the priest would befriend boys at the parish school he was affiliated with, some as young as five years old, and begin sexually abusing them. He would encourage and enable them in opioid addictions, which he would then exploit in order to continue abusing them.
The crimes committed by Zacharias are yet another indication of the root of the ongoing clerical sex abuse crisis: a struggle with same-sex attraction.
According to a press release from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Zacharias “exploit[ed] his victims over extended periods as they developed opioid addictions and criminal records.” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division said, “Michael Zacharias used his position as a trusted spiritual leader and role model for young boys and their families to exploit them in the most insidious ways, coercing his victims from childhood and beyond to engage in commercial sex with him.” She added, “This sentence sends a very clear message that those who abuse their positions of power and authority to sexually assault and exploit children will be held accountable.” (READ MORE from S.A. McCarthy: The Irreconcilability of Catholicism and Freemasonry)
U.S. Attorney Rebecca C. Lutzko for the Northern District of Ohio commented, “Zacharias was held accountable because of the courageous testimony of these young men [his victims], who gave voice to his betrayal and abuse.” She continued, “I applaud the bravery of these young men, the people who supported them and the dogged efforts of the assigned FBI agent, who together exposed this predator, masquerading as a man of faith.”
Zacharias argued in court that he never sexually abused the boys while they were minors and that he only engaged in consensual homosexual activity with them as adults. The priest was sentenced to concurrent life sentences in prison on November 17. He was convicted in May. Bishop Daniel Thomas of the diocese of Toledo, where Zacharias was active, announced that he has begun canonical proceedings to have the predator laicized — that is, removed from the priesthood.
The crimes committed by Zacharias are yet another indication of the root of the ongoing clerical sex abuse crisis: a struggle with same-sex attraction. Earlier this year, the Catholic bishops of Spain released a report on clerical sex abuse, detailing that over 80 percent of victims were male. The infamous 2004 “John Jay Report,” conducted by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice at the behest of the U.S. Catholic bishops, found that 81 percent of clerical sex abuse victims were male. A 2021 report from France revealed that out of 330,000 children sexually abused by priests, 80 percent were male.
As these numbers suggest, the issue isn’t simply one of “pedophilia” — in fact, the statistics remain fairly consistent when the scope is enlarged to encapsulate sexual abuse of adults too. A survey released earlier this month by the Catholic University of America found that 10 percent of current U.S. priests reported having been sexually abused in seminary. In 2021, Fr. Peter Harman was forced to resign from his position as rector the Pontifical North American College in Rome after a lawsuit alleged that he enabled his vice rector, Fr. Adam Park, to groom and sexually abuse young men studying for the priesthood. Clerical sex abuse victim and ex-priest Tom Rastrelli wrote in his book Confessions of a Gay Priest that his seminary was “a closeted underworld in which elder priests preyed upon young recruits,” describing the hypocrisy of priests and spiritual directors who would fellate and sodomize young men entrusted to their care on Saturday night and preach against sins of the flesh on Sunday morning.
In his groundbreaking 2019 book In the Closet of the Vatican, French writer and researcher Frédéric Martel reported that nearly 80 percent of Vatican clergy — priests, monsignors, bishops, nuncios, and cardinals — were attracted to the same sex and either engaged in clandestine sexual activity or tried hard to repress their desires. Martel expressly linked the clerical sex abuse crisis to the hidden homosexuality of priests and bishops, writing that “behind the majority of cases of sexual abuse, there are priests and bishops who have protected the aggressors because of their own homosexuality and out of fear that it might be revealed in the event of a scandal.” He explained, “The culture of secrecy that was needed to maintain silence about the high prevalence of homosexuality in the Church has allowed sexual abuse to be hidden and prelates to act.” (READ MORE: Bishop Strickland and the Decay of Catholic Culture)
Through pornography, contraception, and the seemingly never-ending campaign for gay “rights,” the sexual revolution made sexual depravity commonplace and has, in some sense, normalized such evils as acting on a same-sex attraction. There is now even a movement to refer to “pedophiles” as “minor-attracted persons” and to consider the lusting for children just another kind of “sexual orientation.” While the rest of the world may be swept along with this ongoing and destructive cultural revolution, the Catholic Church must not be. The sexual revolution is far from over, and its fallout thus far cannot be permitted to find a home in Catholic seminaries.
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