Oh, Jesus Christ. Gawker has a whopper of a story today accusing Archbishop Emeritus John C. Favalora of running the Miami Archdiocese of the Catholic Church like some sort of gay sex mafia.
The report, penned by former New Times contributor and theater critic Brandon K. Thorp, gathers information from an intensive investigation by a group of South Florida Catholics calling themselves "Christifidelis." Their accusation might have played a behind-the-scenes part in Favalora's replacement last year as archbishop by Thomas Wenski.
Thorp got a hold of the report by Christifidelis, cheekily titled "Miami Vice," and runs down some of the accusations:
Here are just some of the un-Catholic behaviors that "Miami Vice" accuses Favalora of engaging in: He partially owned a company that manufactured Yohimbe, an aphrodisiac beverage marketed to horny club-kids with the promise of "the hands-down best sex of your life." He allegedly took frequent trips to fabulous Key West with his gay associates. He was over-familiar toward his seminarians. (One ex-employee of the diocese recalls him telling a young seminarian at a gathering to "Come to papa and sit on my lap.") Favalora's second- and third-in-command, Monsignor William Hennessey and Monsignor Michael Souckar, are both accused by Christefidelis of being active homosexuals--and if they are, that counts among the least of their difficulties with Catholic orthodoxy.Thorp also calls St. John Vianney College Seminary, located in Southwest Dade, "a kind of gay Hogwarts with palm trees" that has a long history of gay sex scandals and hookups between horny young students. One former student, Peter Fuchs, tells Thorp he had sex and a fiery relationship with the rector, Bernie Kirlin, who later became a priest in Coral Gables. Though, Fuchs has already recounted much of that story before.
The story also mentions tons of other priests in South Florida accused of homosexuality. They include several priests with live-in boyfriends, several priests who lived together as lovers, another with a luxury property in Coral Gables who liked to indulge in drugs, another who enjoyed nude jogging, one priest who regularly flashed his privates at young men, one official who participated in sex trafficking of young boys, and another who was into bondage.
Yes, all of this from members of the world's leading crusaders against things like gay rights and birth control.
It's alleged that Favalora encouraged this kind of behavior, or at least did his best to keep it under wraps and took action against those who complained.
And that, folks, is barely the tip of the iceberg. Few people go on record for the story, and all the facts in the report were put together by the loosely organized Christifidelis, so who knows how reliable the information is. That said, there could be plenty of priests in the Miami area with sins far greater than those of Father Alberto Cutié, the former Catholic celebu-priest who dared to have a girlfriend.
[Gawker: The Catholic Church's Secret Gay Cabal]
Follow Miami New Times on Facebook and Twitter @MiamiNewTimes.