What also happened between 1957 and 1966, I believe, was that homosexuals, pedophiles and other perverse persons in the priesthood rose to prominence in the Church, certainly in the United States and Canada, and began carefully plotting and promoting a sexual liberation agenda that would take Catholics by surprise, an agenda that first manifested itself in the new catechetical texts rushed into print during the Second Vatican Council. The immediate attacks were on Church teaching regarding masturbation, fornication, adultery and contraception and divorce; but by the middle of the 1980s, it became clear this was only the first stage, to be followed by the aggressive promotion of homosexuality, bisexuality and "transgenderism."

Long before Pope Paul VI's New Mass and the turning-around of the altars, long before most Catholics were aware of the pending moral revolution glamorized by Hollywood films and Haight-Ashbury's hippies, Catholic school children, particularly adolescents, were being groomed for the sexual revolution via the major catechism publishers, such as Sadlier.

Typical of these early works was To Live Is Christ, which deconstructed Scripture and Church teaching on everything from sin to salvation, encouraged rebellion against every form of authority, especially of parents and Church tradition, promoted self-absorption and secular notions of social justice, and promised a new stage of mankind where both individuals and society would attain "self-fulfillment" and perfection.

In the preface to To Live Is Christ (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1965), Brothers J. Frederick, FSC and H. Albert, FSC, (both of whom left their Religious order before the second edition of their text was published) wrote that Vatican II and the new awareness the Catholic Church had reached of itself demanded a new way of thinking about the Church, and that every settled belief, custom and practice had become irrelevant as a result of the Council.

This book, produced by the Archdiocese of Chicago's Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, was expected to reach an audience of 400,000 Catholic students in schools across the country in its first year.

In the first pages of the preface, teachers are advised:

"Because Catholic Christianity (through the impact of the Second Vatican Council) is passing through a crisis of deeper understanding and better practice, your students tend to be confused about what is essential to our faith and what is changeable (italics in original). No doubt you are confused, too. This state of affairs will not end with the Council, but will continue past the end of your lifetime. Perhaps because we live in the age of 'the knowledge explosion,' there will never again be pat answers or eternal customs..."

On May 22, 1965, before either the liturgical or catechetical revolutions had manifested themselves in the vast majority of Catholic churches and schools, the New York Journal-American, which dubbed itself "New York's Largest Evening Newspaper," published on its front page a full-page report on the dramatic changes coming to Catholic catechesis under the headline, "Ecumenical Progress in New Catholic Textbook by Nuns," and in larger block letters: "The Jewish Background of Jesus."

How, one wonders looking back, did the release of a new Catholic catechism rate a news story the equivalent in stature of the attack on Pearl Harbor or the assassination of John F. Kennedy?

Perhaps it was the author's connections.

The report by Alfred Robbins touted the catechism series The Lord Jesus by Immaculate Heart of Mary Sisters M. Elizabeth and M. Johnice, published by the then-Michigan firm of Allyn and Bacon.

Sisters M. Elizabeth and M. Johnice were the co-founders and co-directors of the Pius XII Center in Monroe, Michigan, established as the "official" U.S. associate of Lumen Vitae, the catechetical center in Brussels, founded by the Jesuits in 1957 to disseminate a progressivist agenda in the Church.

The Lumen Vitae center at the time was playing a major role in Quebec's "Quiet Revolution," promoting Liberation Theology in Latin America, and laying the groundwork for the catechetical and liturgical revolutions in the United States.

The Monroe Center's consultants included: then-Jesuit Fr. Bernard Cooke (who remains active on the Call To Action circuit while teaching "Christian sacramental practice" at the University of San Diego); Fr. Edward Burkhardt, director of religious education, Archdiocese of Detroit; Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum of the American Jewish Committee; and Alice L. Goddard, executive director, Department of Curriculum Development, National Council of Churches.

Buried deep in Robbins' breathless prose on this "truly revolutionary textbook series, which may reach ten million Catholic pupils in the next ten years" is a statement from Thomas Gilshannon, the supervisor of the "Come Lord Jesus" series at Allyn and Bacon, that the project began in 1960, when "it became evident that a revolution was about to take place in Catholic religious education."

"Familiar with the work of Sisters Johnice and Elizabeth at the Pius XII Center," Robbins continued, "Gilshannon contacted them and they agreed to the project. In 1961, the Sisters invited Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum, regarded as an authority on Christian-Jewish relations, and he offered to help."

Rabbi Tanenbaum lavished praise on the series, which was revolutionary in more ways than one; perhaps most notably because of the original, very modernistic, art produced by Lutherans, Alice and Martin Provencen, designed to deliver a psychological jolt to the typical Catholic child of the time, a kind of "double-whammy" to the text.

This artwork, observed the National Federation of Laymen, shortly after it was released, depicts Jesus, His Blessed Mother and the Apostles "in a grotesque and deformed manner. Strangely, the children consistently appear pleasant throughout." But in Book 1, "an illustration of Jesus, the Good Shepherd, bending over his sheep...is a monstrous-looking, wild-eyed character with a huge nose and claw-like hands. This image of the loving Savior could only leave a child with repugnance and fright. He would find it impossible to believe that this creature was the Son of God."

A dissenter way back then

In a book aimed at Catholic high schoolers, What Do We Really Believe? (1968, published by the National Center of the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine), Fr. Richard McBrien (the infamous dissenting Notre Dame theologian, then Dean of Studies at Pope John XXIII National Seminary for Delayed Vocations) opened his tirade against the Church with a criticism of Pope Paul VI's lament that many theologians are distorting the Catholic faith, with a condescending assertion that the Holy Father doesn't understand the difference between theology, doctrine and faith.

In the first chapter of the book, he lampoons the "anti-Modernist" era of the Church (the 20th century up to Vatican II), dismisses the notion that the Church has anything "to fear from people who make errors in theology," and proposes that the Church has nothing to fear from theologians who want to deconstruct the Church's dogmatic statements in the same way that Protestant Bible scholars deconstructed Scripture in the 19th century.

He rounds out the chapter by parodying and mocking the faith of the parents of his intended audience.

Chapter Two is titled "What Kind of God," and facing the page of text is full-page black and white photograph of Santa Claus. In Chapter Four, "Jesus is Lord," McBrien suggests that Catholics do not have to believe that Jesus rose from the dead. The book ends by suggesting there are "problems" with the Church's teaching on transubstantiation, and a call to Catholics to become socially involved in the wars on poverty and racism and the other causes of the day.

The imprimatur on this book was provided by Bishop Henry J. O'Brien of Hartford, Connecticut.

Another book in the series was by Fr. Gerard Sloyan, How Do I Know I Am Doing Right?, (1966) with an imprimatur by Archbishop Karl Alter of Cincinnati. The premise of the book is that "the whole Church has a problem of fidelity to Jesus," and too many Catholics give "blind obedience" to the Church's teachings on morality "as a substitute for forming their own consciences."

"The question is," writes Sloyan, "has the Church itself got moral teaching straight? For the most part the Church has been a good guide, but one not entirely free from ambivalence in its teaching on morality."

For Sloyan, the Church has been too obsessed with sexual morality; but that is changing under the impulse of post-Vatican II theologians who take a more "nuanced" approach. On the other hand, it has not taken a firm enough approach on such matters as capital punishment, racism, poverty and war, but that, too, is changing.

In the Christian Brothers' Living With Christ series, one finds such lines as:

"Wouldn't it be better to drop the idea of God until we see which way the world will go? So an idea of God that fits the needs of today would depart from the Church's official teaching, wouldn't it?"

Doesn't the history of the western world suggest to you that Christianity has failed? That the Church has been mainly concerned with power and wealth?"

Teilhardian revolution

In the euphoric early 1960s, a tremendous press campaign told the world that the Church was changing, transforming its liturgy, jettisoning its traditions, exchanging its strict morality for an ethos of self-fulfillment.

Behind this ethos, expressed in the majority of catechetical texts produced in the early 1960s, was the evolutionary thought of Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit priest condemned as a heretic by Pope John XXIII.

In a Sadlier text, Growth in Christ (1966), by Brother Andrew Panzarella, FSC, one reads towards the end of 400-plus page book devoted mostly to pop-psychology theories offered as a substitute for solid Church teaching the following:

"[Teilhard's] theory of evolution is not without its flaws, but it stands out as the prophetic vision of the twentieth century...

"What is really new in Teilhard's theory of evolution is the idea that evolution is moving towards a goal. Evolution is not just haphazard change but well ordered change moving toward the goal of the fulfillment of the universe, when all things material, living, social and cultural, come under man's control so that man can fulfill himself as the master and summit of creation. If there is a divine plan visible in the history of the universe, it is a plan to bring all things to fulfillment under the hand of man. Evolution has reached a point where it is now under man's control...

"Mankind is building the kingdom of God. We are participating in God's creative activity by marshaling the elements of the universe into new forms, so that all forces material, social and cultural nourish an emerging mankind. We participate in God's redeeming activity by ceaseless war against the forces of evil in our physical world, in our biological and psychological organisms, in our social structures, and in our culture," and the book is full of lines as:

"In adolescence a person rejects many childish religious notions on the basis of his experiences of life. This is a good and necessary part of religious growth."

"Is a person religious if he keeps various religious practices and assents to various religious beliefs but does not take a stand on social issues? Can a person be religious if he does not go to church but is involved in social issues?"

"Genetics...can also be constructive in determining what human beings will be like. A century from now doctors may be able to control the sex, the looks, and the intelligence of the children to be born. Whether or not we like the idea of giving doctors control over what each person will be like, we have to face the fact that genetics is rapidly moving toward this objective. And it may offer some wonderful advantages."

"The ideal Church, as described for us in the New Testament, is a community of men sealed in fellowship by love. It is hard for Catholics to understand this because our Catholic parishes do not always offer us an experience of community with other people. We know only a few of the people in church with us on Sunday...[M]uch more is needed before we achieve the ideal of the New Testament...The Church today is a rapidly changing organization. The rapid changes are leading some people to a maturer faith and leaving others dismayed. The Church itself is in the process of maturing. But not everybody is prepared to mature with it...

"What Christ left behind was an infant Church; it has been and is going to continue to mature...People who cannot get over the shock of having their superstitious idea of the Church destroyed are becoming bitter and hostile. They think that the Church is going to ruins..."

Come to the Father

In February 1967, many Catholic newspapers across the country ballyhooed in full-page spreads publicity generated by Paulist Press for its new Come to the Father series "'the catechism of the 70s,' a totally new concept in religious education...

"The bold new program which has been hailed as a 'ten-year leap forward in catechetics' is now being piloted in one third of the dioceses of the country," declared the publicity.

"Come to the Father is the result of collaboration between a team of 30 trained catechists, theologians, psychologists, sociologists and teachers who began their efforts in 1961 in Canada.

"As the program developed, it was constantly tested; by the fall of 1964 a small group of schools put it into use for a full year. Only a year later, in Canada, it was being used by 125,000 students in 6,000 classrooms.

"Because of the excellent results it is now receiving in the U.S., Come to the Father is being made available for immediate adoption.

"Come to the Father is presented as 'the first comprehensive catechetical program to reflect the renewal brought about by Vatican II' by the Paulist Press, which is responsible for its development in the U.S.

"The Come to the Father program is a complete departure from the traditional question and answer approach to religious education. It is not a religion textbook; nor is it conceived or planned as simply another subject to be studied."

What readers of the Catholic newspapers back in February 1967 did not know from reading their Catholic press was that Come to the Father was the subject of vigorous protest in Canada by parents because of its anti-dogmatism, anti-intellectualism, ersatz ecumenism, rejection of all tradition and blind trust that technology was going to make the world a better place.

Neither did they know that one of the top "experts" working on this text for the Canadian bishops, Fr. Kenneth Martin, would, forty years later, be accused of molesting minor boys back in the 1960s. Brought to trial on the charges in 2001, he was subsequently acquitted, the judge essentially ruling that his victim couldn't remember the exact dates the abuse occurred.

This catechism series, predictably, did not teach the Ten Commandments, the precepts of the Church, the Real Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, the Sacrifice of the Mass, Original Sin, the Immaculate Conception, the Virgin Birth, the Assumption of Mary into Heaven, the divinity of Christ, the infallibility of the Pope, the hierarchical structure of the Church, and most of the sacraments. Strange omissions for a "catechism."

As this revolution has played out over the past quarter century, I have been a close observer, with much of that time spent in the Catholic press.

In late November 1978, just a month after Pope John Paul II was elected to the papacy, I was on my first day of work as an artist-illustrator at the National Catholic News Service, NC News, located at the U.S. bishops' national headquarters in Washington, D.C., when an odd-looking fellow dressed in skin-tight pants and chest-hugging shirt approached me and asked if I would like to have lunch with him. I politely declined, telling him I brought my lunch to work. I would later learn that the man, John Willig, worked in the Office of Public Affairs and Information at the National Conference of Catholic Bishops/United States Catholic Conference, where he had access to all the financial information of every diocese in the country. Willig, who would later die of AIDS, was president of the Washington, D.C. chapter of Dignity, an association of gay activists who work for a change in Church teaching on homosexuality.

That was the beginning of my education as a Catholic journalist. I had just turned 24. In the 23 years since, especially since 1987 when I began reporting for The Wanderer, the oldest independent lay-run Catholic newspaper in the United States, it has become obvious that the most important issue facing the Catholic people in this country is the rise of a broad-based, exceedingly aggressive homosexual movement, and that the "movers and shakers" in the Catholic Church in this country, bishops, priests, religious, academics, journalists, publishers and laity, have become co-conspirators in a revolutionary campaign to disorient men, women and children from the moral law and natural law as it applies to human sexuality.

In the past 15 years, many Americans have learned that the Catholic Church in the United States, as well as in Canada, Europe and Australia, has a serious problem with sexual predators, especially pedophiles and pederasts, within its ranks. Not a diocese has been spared the anguish and embarrassment of seeing its priests hauled before a judge and exposed in the media. But most Catholics are completely oblivious to the fact that the public outing of these clerical sexual perverts serves a very valuable function for the sexual revolutionaries in the Church: they demoralize faithful Catholics and deconstruct the traditional understanding and practice of the Faith.

The evidence is now irrefutable that an influential and very powerful coterie within the Catholic Church well-embedded and well-protected by the Roman Catholic hierarchy and their peers in the police, the courts, legislatures and the media is successfully advancing a sexual liberation agenda that will not end until every social stigma attached to any sexual activity, no matter how bizarre, has been erased. Since the first high-visibility priest-pedophile case broke before the public with Lafayette, Louisiana priest Gilbert Gauthe in 1984, there have been close to a thousand similar cases involving tens, if not hundreds of thousands of victims, costing the Church an estimated $1 billion though some speculate that figure is far too low. And through all of this, the leadership in the Catholic Church in the United States has pursued a homosexualizing agenda in its grammar and high schools, colleges and seminaries, its social service agencies, initiatives in art, architecture and liturgy, catechetics, and pastoral ministries at the diocesan and parish levels.

When I began working for The Wanderer in 1987, I had no idea how the Amchurch's sexual liberation agenda would play out, how Church agencies were honeycombed with homosexuals with the queen bees choreographing each successive move. I naïvely assumed that the exposure of sexual perverts would prompt episcopal action to root out the abusers and to institute strict reforms to remove potential threats, especially in seminaries. But in the 15 years since I reported on my first sexual abuse case in the priesthood, sexual scandals have become more egregious, the legal tactics more bare-knuckled, the payoffs larger, while Amchurch's leaders only accelerate their educational agenda to advance the cause of sexual liberation.

This book is based on reports I have written for The Wanderer over the past 15 years, with some additional information from other sources. It is intended as a review of where we, as Catholics, have been over the decade of the '90s, when "Amchurch Came Out," and, unless the Catholic people are roused from their slumber, sluggishness and sloth, where we are likely headed.