These are stormy times for the Catholic Church in North America.  First, Theodore McCarrick, whose resignation as cardinal Pope Francis accepted in July.  Then the Pennsylvania grand jury report, which is having the effects of the detonation of an atomic bomb with its subsequent devastating shockwave and radioactive fallout.  As a Catholic, I would be lying if I said the mind-blowing revelations over the extent and the creepy deep-rootedness of sexual promiscuity and perversity in the clergy have not taken a toll on my trust in the Church.  As many of us are still reeling from the shock and the disgust, rage and exasperation mount.

Nevertheless, when the ones among us with the strongest stomach felt still optimistic enough to think the Church would, eventually, be forced to put her foot down once and for all regarding the overt disregard (within her own ranks) for what Catholic doctrine prescribes on sexuality, this happened.

The statement the pope had the gall to release was so lukewarm and insipid that the words "homosexuality" and "bishops" are nowhere to be found.  Yet, to quote a LifeSiteNews column (analogous observations have been often made on several other occasions): 

Statistics from the Pennsylvania grand jury report back this ... : Nearly three-quarters of the offending priests were homosexual; over three-quarters of the abusive priests were pederasts and of those, one fifth (21%) chose adolescent girls as their victims while four-fifths (79%) chose adolescent boys.

Last week Brad Miner, Senior Editor of The Catholic Thing, and attorney and international child rights advocate Liz Yore made it clear on EWTN's The World Over that the Catholic Church's sex abuse crisis is directly linked to homosexuality.  "Largely it’s not a pedophile crisis," Yore said.  "We know from the John Jay report, 81-percent of the victims were males, mostly teens.  And we know because our subclass of predators are all male, this is a male-on-male crime, and primarily with teens between the ages of 14 to 17. Those are the victims."

Miner agreed: "It's a homosexual problem.  The numbers show that."

Say what you will about this pope, but he definitely got his nerve purging his message to a shell-shocked American Catholic community of anything that could vaguely comfort her amid this storm.  His holiness's mind-numbing letter can be read at the same link. 

Facts are notoriously stark, and numbers don't lie: that homosexuality at all levels of the hierarchy is a huge part of the problem is not debatable anymore.  But that those very people whom the Church herself appointed shepherds of the flock have not only partaken in that orgy of depravity the grand jury report unveiled, but actively operated to cover it up – or decided to look the other way – is repugnant.  And to complete silence from the pope now.

The pope of "tenderness" and "mercy."  The pope who loves talking in a offhand way – it's easier to tweak the Church teachings he doesn't like that way – couldn't bring himself to sound a bit less distant, less formal, less...curial.

But why?  Why on Earth did he do that?  Why is he so reluctant to tell it like it is?

Not to interrupt the process that has been morphing the very constituency of the clergy into bringing homosexuality within the bounds of the Catholic doctrine, obviously.

It takes no straining of the facts to say homosexuality is now bound for doctrinal acceptance – and soon, celebration.  It's not only that hardly a day passes by without a report of this or that parish hosting a retreat for our "gay brothers and lesbian sisters," oppressed by the heartlessness of the Catholic doctrine.  Or of this priest or that cardinal weighing in on same-sex "marriage," or blessing a homosexual couple.  Or of that bishop remarking on the positive elements in a same-sex union.  Or of "Father" James Martin and another of those "bridges" he wants to build, instead of exhorting the homosexuals to trust the Church and Catholic doctrine because "my yoke is easy, and my burden light" (Matthew 11:30).  Countless other LGBT outreach initiatives could be mentioned, already embarked upon and in the making, with barely a bishop voicing any complaint or – dream on – stepping up to protect the faith of his flock from being contaminated or watered down.

Now we are at the point where no less a figure than the pope minces words in a pathetic effort to deflect attention from the evident root causes of the issue.  The raison d'être for such a state of things can only be that too many within the Church – too many priests, bishops, cardinals – have a vested interest in exiling virtue of chastity to the distant and evanescent realm of Catholic recommended-but-not-compulsory precepts, and in replacing it with sexual nihilism – especially in its homosexual variant.  It would have been too much, after all, to expect decades and decades of homosexual ordinations since the post-conciliar and post-sexual revolution doctrinal turmoil not to have any consequences at all.

At this point, all we faithful, infuriated, and disgusted Catholics can do is cope with the fact that this situation is not going to change anytime soon.  The message couldn't be clearer: "homosexuality's got nothing to do with it" – as well as Islam had nothing to do with it and guns (and nothing else) had everything to do with it.  "Get over it."

Many will get over it – and leave the Church in droves.