Lawyer Paul Sterbcow, left, with his client, attorney Richard Trahant, talks to reporters outside the federal appeals court building in New Orleans, Wednesday, April 3, 2024. Trahant is appealing a $400,000 court sanction for allegedly violating a bankruptcy court secrecy order by alerting a school principal and a reporter that a suspected child predator was working as a chaplain at a high school.
By KEVIN McGILL
A New Orleans attorney facing a $400,000 court penalty for warning a school principal and a reporter about a high school chaplain who was suspected of being a sexual predator took his case to a federal appeals court Wednesday.
Richard Trahant, who represents victims of clergy abuse, acknowledges having told a reporter to keep the chaplain “on your radar,” and that he asked the principal whether the person was still at the school. But, he said in a Tuesday interview, he gave no specific information about accusations against the man, and did not violate a federal bankruptcy court’s protective order requiring confidentiality.
It’s a position echoed by Trahant’s lawyer, Paul Sterbcow, under questioning from members of a three-judge panel at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
“Here’s my problem. I think I have a moral obligation to disclose something I find out about someone to protect them,” said Judge Priscilla Richman. “But the court has said unequivocally, ‘You are under a protective order. You cannot violate that protective order.’ I do it knowingly. I may have good intentions, but I do it knowingly. To me, that’s an intentional, knowing violation of the order.”
“Our position is that there was no protective order violation,” Sterbcow told Richman, emphasizing that Trahant was cautious, limiting what he said. “He’s very careful when he communicates to say, I’m constrained by a protective order. I can’t do this. I can’t do that, I can’t reveal this, I can’t reveal that.”
Outside court, Sterbcow stressed that it has been established that Trahant was not the source for a Jan. 18, 2022, news story about the chaplain, who had by then resigned. Sterbcow also said there were “multiple potential violators” of the protective order.
The sanctions against Trahant stem from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans’ filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2020 amid growing legal costs related to sexual abuse by priests. The bankruptcy court issued a protective order keeping vast amounts of information under wraps.
In June 2022, U.S. Bankruptcy Court Judge Meredith Grabill ruled that Trahant had violated the order. In October of that year she assessed the $400,000 penalty — estimated to be about half the cost of investigating the allegations of the alleged protective order violation.
The appeal of the bankruptcy court order first went to U.S. District Judge Greg Guidry, who upheld the sanctions. But Guidry later recused himself from handling matters involving the bankruptcy case after an Associated Press report showed he donated tens of thousands of dollars to the archdiocese and consistently ruled in favor of the church in the case involving nearly 500 clergy sex abuse victims.
The bankruptcy case eventually was assigned to U.S. District Judge Barry Ashe, who last year denied Trahan’s motion to vacate the sanctions.
Richman at one point in Wednesday’s arguments, suggested that Trahant should have asked Grabill for an exemption from the protective order rather if he thought information needed to get out. It was a point Attorney Mark Mintz, representing the archdiocese, echoed in his argument.
“If we really thought there was a problem and that the debtor and the court needed to act, all you have to do is pick up the phone and call,” Mintz said.
Sterbcow said Trahant was concerned at the time that the court would not act quickly enough. “Mr. Trahant did not believe and still doesn’t believe — and now, having reviewed all of this and how this process worked, I don’t believe — that going to the judge was going to provide the children with the protection that they needed, the immediate protection that they needed,” Sterbcow said told Richman.
The panel did not indicate when it would rule. And the decision may not hinge so much on whether Trahant violated the protective order as on legal technicalities — such as whether Grabill’s initial finding in June 2023 constituted an “appealable order” and whether Trahant was given proper opportunities to make his case before the sanction was issued.
Richman, nominated to the 5th Circuit by former President George W. Bush, was on the panel with judges Andrew Oldham, nominated by former President Donald Trump, and Irma Ramirez, nominated by President Joe Biden.
— Gay journalist selected to lead Catholic ministry
Outreach Executive Director Michael O’Loughlin, left, the Reverend James Martin, and Outreach managing editor Ryan Di Corpo were guests of President Joe Biden at a White House event for Roman Catholic leaders on St. Patrick’s Day, March 17. O’Loughlin, a gay man, was selected to lead the LGBTQ Catholic ministry that was founded by Martin.
By John Ferrannini
A gay journalist is the first executive director of the relatively new LGBTQ Catholic ministry Outreach.
Michael O’Loughlin, 38, had been a national correspondent for America Media: The Jesuit Review of Faith & Culture, published by the Jesuit order. O’Loughlin may be familiar to Bay Area Reporter readers as the author of “Hidden Mercy: AIDS, Catholics, and the Untold Stories of Compassion in the Face of Fear” (2021) and host of the podcast “Plague: Untold Stories of AIDS and the Catholic Church,” which reported on events in New York City, San Francisco’s LGBTQ Castro neighborhood, and elsewhere.
It was during the process of researching and writing for those reports that O’Loughlin came out of the closet publicly.
“I was so inspired by the stories of LGBT Catholics who had done this heroic HIV/AIDS ministry in the 1980s and 1990s and what it took for them during a difficult time in our history,” he told the B.A.R. “I also wanted to let listeners know that I was reliable, because I know the struggles LGBT Catholics face because I share in them.”
O’Loughlin is based in Rhode Island, while Outreach is headquartered in New York City. It is currently under the auspices of America Media, which is a nonprofit organization, as a resource for articles and information for LGBTQ Catholics, O’Loughlin stated.
The Catholic Church is the world’s largest Christian denomination, claiming 1.4 billion members worldwide. Long-standing Catholic teaching is that while homosexuality isn’t sinful per se, it is a sin to have sex with someone of the same sex.
Some countries with large Catholic populations have seen increasingly restrictive environments for LGBTQ people in recent years, such as Poland and Hungary, but the rhetoric from the Vatican has shifted during the reign of Pope Francis, who last December approved blessings of same-sex couples by priests (though some church leaders, such as San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, have told priests they can or should disregard that, as the B.A.R. reported). Francis also campaigned for the decriminalization of homosexuality worldwide.
Francis is less forgiving on issues of gender transition. While openly transgender Catholics can now be baptized, become godparents, and be witnesses at weddings, Francis called so-called gender ideology an “ugly ideology of our times, which cancels out the differences and makes everything the same,” according to Reuters.
Outreach came about because of a book, O’Loughlin said
“Father Jim Martin founded the organization [Outreach] a couple of years ago — it stemmed from his book ‘Building a Bridge,’ and he saw in the reaction to the book there was a need for a community where LGBT people could find support and share stories,” O’Loughlin said. “It’s been growing for the last couple years.”
Martin, an American Jesuit priest who is a consultant on the Roman Dicastery for Communication, advises the pope and often discusses LGBTQ-related topics with him.
In a February 6 news release announcing the selection of O’Loughlin, Martin stated that “with his [O’Loughlin’s] years of journalistic experience, his theological background, two books to his credit, and his deep knowledge of the LGBTQ community, I can think of absolutely no one better suited for this job.”
O’Loughlin, Martin, and Outreach’s managing editor, Ryan Di Corpo, were among President Joe Biden’s guests at a White House St. Patrick’s Day event for Catholic leaders March 17. (Biden, after John F. Kennedy, is the second Roman Catholic to serve as president.) O’Loughlin stated that he “shook Biden’s hand but there wasn’t too much of an exchange.”
The president had also invited members of the Kennedy family. One relative, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is running against Biden as an independent candidate in this year’s election. Many Kennedy family members oppose RFK Jr.’s presidential bid and support Biden. The president said during the event, “This has always been a special day for the Biden family and the Biden household. It’s not just about heritage, but it really is about faith. So much of it being Irish means to be connected to the Catholic teachings I grew up with.”
Marianne Duddy-Burke, a cisgender married lesbian Catholic mom who is executive director of DignityUSA — an LGBTQ Catholic group barred from meeting on church property in some dioceses, such as the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of San Francisco — agreed with Martin.
“I certainly have known Michael’s work as a journalist for quite a long time,” Duddy-Burke said. “He has written about DignityUSA on numerous occasions and I feel like he has a very good understanding of the Catholic LGBTQ world and the major issues. I think his having covered that beat for a while gives him a breadth of understanding of what’s going on.
“I think it’s really interesting to see Outreach expanding at this point where there is so much focus on queer issues within Catholicism both sexual orientation and gender identity issues … and lots of questions about the church’s future,” she added. “I welcome a new teammate in this work.”
So too does Stan JR Zerkowski, a gay man who is the executive director of the LGBTQ Catholic-affinity group Fortunate Families and director of Catholic LGBT ministry for the Diocese of Lexington.
“Michael is a person with incredible credentials, and pastoral sensitivity is second to none,” Zerkowski stated. “He is well respected, and, without a doubt, will lead Outreach with distinction. I look forward to working with Michael and I look forward to collaborating with him and seeking his counsel, too, as together all of us who minister with and among the LGBTQ community move forward with more grace because Michael is now aboard.”
Paul Riofski, a gay man who has been a member of Dignity/San Francisco since 1978 and who has held leadership roles there, said, “I think it’s a positive thing overall. The group was started by James Martin, the Jesuit, who has done a lot of work in the last couple of years. … Obviously they may have some limitations compared with what we can do as Dignity, but it’s a positive thing to have a group in favor of greater outreach to LGBTQ Catholics in the church.
“Particularly when you are dealing with people in our community who have family members who don’t know how to approach the topic, it’s a positive thing to have a group promoting accepting LGBTQ people in the church rather than a negative thing,” Riofski added.
Upcoming conference
O’Loughlin said that right now one main task is preparing for the 2024 Outreach LGBTQ Catholic ministry conference that will take place August 2-4 at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.
“For the upcoming conference, we’re focused on building community — there’s a sense of people gathering together at a conference once a year, then scattering, then coming back next year,” he said. “We want a chance for people to connect with other LGBT people across the country, share ideas about LGBT ministry and celebrate a community that doesn’t always have that space in the Catholic Church and think about ways we could sustain that community feeling throughout the year.”
One of the planned speakers at the conference is the Reverend William Hart McNichols, a gay Catholic priest and icon painter.
“This opportunity to hear and ponder the wisdom of all these people has been a great grace for those of us in the LGBTQ community and for others who are still struggling to understand us,” McNichols stated. “Now Michael O’Loughlin has been appointed executive director and he comes with lived experience and as an acclaimed author. He is knowledgeable and yet humble enough to learn from others; like Pope Francis, a great leader who also listens. I have tremendous respect for Michael and am honored to be asked to give a PowerPoint presentation of my art for this year’s Outreach conference in August.”
Outreach’s budget information was not immediately available. O’Loughlin declined to answer a question about his salary.
When asked his goal for his tenure with Outreach, O’Loughlin said he hopes the resource can highlight LGBTQ Catholic experiences so people don’t feel so isolated.
“Growing up, it was very isolating,” he said. “You had to choose to be gay or to be Catholic. I would have benefited from hearing some of these stories.”
He hopes Outreach “empowers them [LGBTQ Catholics] to live their life more holistically.”
1 of 8 | Rev. Elaine Saralegui, wearing a rainbow-colored clergy stole and her clerical collar, leads a service at the Metropolitan Community Church, an LGBTQ+ inclusive house of worship, in Matanzas, Cuba, Friday, Feb. 2, 2024. In recent years, the communist-run island barred anti-gay discrimination, and a 2022 government-backed “family law” — approved by popular vote — allowed same-sex couples the right to marry and adopt.
Proudly wearing a rainbow-colored clergy stole and a rainbow flag in her clerical collar, the Rev. Elaine Saralegui welcomed all to her LGBTQ+ inclusive church in the Cuban port city of Matanzas.
“We’re all invited. And no one can exclude us,” Saralegui told same-sex couples who held hands sitting on wooden pews in the Metropolitan Community Church where she had recently married her wife.
These words and this kind of gathering would have been unimaginable before in the largest country in the conservative and mostly Christian Caribbean, where anti-gay hostility is still widespread.
Cuba repressed gay people after its 1959 revolution led by Fidel Castro and sent many to labor camps. But in recent years, the communist-run island barred anti-gay discrimination, and a 2022 government-backed “family law” — approved by popular vote — allowed same-sex couples the right to marry and adopt.
Members of Cuba’s LGBTQ+ community say it marked a milestone that has allowed them to embrace their gender identity and worship more freely in a country that for decades after the revolution was officially atheist. Over the past quarter century, it has gradually become more tolerant of religions.
“It’s huge. There aren’t enough words to say what an opportunity it is to achieve the dream of so many,” said Maikol Añorga. He was with his husband, Vladimir Marin, near the altar, where at a Friday service they joined other congregants taking turns to lay offerings of white and pink wildflowers to thank God.
“It’s the opportunity for all people to be present here,” he said, “to gather and participate without regards to their gender, race or religion.”
The Catholic Church, in its doctrine, still rejects same-sex marriage and condemns any sexual relations between gay or lesbian partners as “intrinsically disordered.” Yet Pope Francis has done far more than any previous pope to make the church a more welcoming place for LGBTQ+ people.
In December, the pope formally approved letting Catholic priests bless same-sex couples, a policy shift that aimed at making the church more inclusive while maintaining its strict ban on gay marriage.
The family law in Cuba faced opposition from the country’s Catholic church as well as the growing number of evangelical churches that have mushroomed across the island.
Anti-LGBTQ+ rights demonstrations have faded since 2022. But back then, evangelical pastors spoke out from the pulpit, and handed out Bibles and pamphlets in the streets invoking God’s “original plan” for unions between men and women and calling gay relationships a sin.
Still, the measure was overwhelmingly approved by nearly 67% of voters. It came after a huge government campaign of nationwide informative meetings and extensive state media coverage amid food shortages and blackouts that have prompted thousands to immigrate to the United States during one of one of the worst economic crises to hit Cuba in decades.
At the time, President Miguel Díaz-Canel told Cubans in a video message that he was pleased about the wide support that the measure received despite tough economic challenges. He celebrated, tweeting: “Love is now the law.”
For years, the movement for LGBTQ+ rights has been proudly led by Cuba’s best-known advocate for gay rights: Mariela Castro, daughter of former President Raul Castro and niece of his brother Fidel.
“This just brings happiness. This just makes people feel truly worthy, respected, loved, considered – a true citizen with their rights and duties,” Castro told The Associated Press.
“I think we’ve taken a very valuable step forward.”
Long before same-sex couples were granted the right to marry, Castro was advocating for it, while training police on relations with the LGBTQ+ community and sponsoring symbolical ceremonies where Protestant clergy from the U.S. and Canada blessed unions as part of the annual Pride parade.
“It was a beautiful spiritual experience for me, and I believe for those people as well,” said Castro, who heads Cuba’s National Center for Sex Education and is a member of the National Assembly. “First, our campaign was: ‘Let love be the law.’ Now, love is the law, and we’re going to keep celebrating it.”
In 2010, her uncle, then- retired leader Fidel Castro admitted that he was wrong to discriminate against gay people. Asked about this, she said it helped mark a turning point in public attitude.
“I think he was honest. It was good and healthy for him to say this because it helped the rest who were still clinging to prejudices to understand that this kind of thought can change,” she said.
“Even in a revolutionary leader like him, there were prejudices that evolved, and he was able to understand it and help clear the way for change.”
In the early years after the 1959 revolution, homophobia in Cuba, she said, was no different than in the rest of the world. In the United States, homosexuality was deemed a mental disorder by psychiatric authorities, and gay sex was a crime in most states. Currently, Russia — a major supporter of Fidel Castro when it was the core of the communist Soviet Union — is bucking the worldwide trend of greater LGBTQ+ acceptance with a multi-pronged crackdown on LGBTQ+ activism.
The previous Cuban Family Code, dating back to 1975, stipulated that marriage was between a man and a woman – not between two people – which excluded lifelong partners from inheritance rights.
The new law goes further than marriage equality – which activists tried to include in the Constitution in 2019 without success – or the ability for gay couples to adopt or use surrogates. It also expanded rights for children, the elderly and women.
The first members of Saralegui’s congregation began gathering on a house terrace in Matanzas over a decade ago to sing and pray.
“The sky was our ceiling and when it rained, we’d all pack into a small room,” Saralegui said. In 2015, with support from the U.S.-based LGBTQ+ affirming Metropolitan Community Churches, they converted a house into their church, decked with wooden pews and a stained-glass cross that hangs above the altar. Underneath, a local Tibetan Buddhist group that meets here during the week stores its musical instruments in an example of interfaith partnership.
“This church is a family,” said Saralegui, who has a tattoo of the Jesus fish on one of her forearms and wears a Buddhist bracelet. “It’s a sacred space, not just because there’s a cross or an altar, but because it’s the most sacred space for these people to come to — it’s where they come to have a safe space.”
After receiving Communion, congregant Nico Salazar, 18, said he was glad to have found that safe space here after members of an evangelical church where he grew up attending asked him not to return when he embraced his gender identity.
“It’s the essence of the Bible: God is love, and other churches should emphasize that instead of repressing and harming others with a supposed sin,” said Salazar, who was born a woman and this year started hormone treatment.
“Sin and love are not the same,” said Salazar, who wore an earring in the shape of a cross.
— The PRRI poll found that the vast majority of those who are unaffiliated are content to stay that way. Just 9% of respondents say they’re looking for a religion that would be right for them.
Symbols of the three monotheistic religions
By Jason DeRose
People in the U.S. are leaving and switching faith traditions in large numbers. The idea of “religious churning” is very common in America, according to a new survey from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI).
It finds that around one-quarter (26%) of Americans now identify as religiously unaffiliated, a number that has risen over the last decade and is now the largest single religious group in the U.S. That’s similar to what other surveys and polls have also found, including Pew Research.
PRRI found that the number of those who describe themselves as “nothing in particular” has held steady since 2013, but those who identify as atheists have doubled (from 2% to 4%) and those who say they’re agnostic has more than doubled (from 2% to 5%).
This study looks at which faith traditions those unaffiliated people are coming from.
“Thirty-five percent were former Catholics, 35% were former mainline Protestants, only about 16% were former evangelicals,” says Melissa Deckman, PRRI’s chief executive officer. “And really not many of those Americans are, in fact, looking for an organized religion that would be right for them. We just found it was 9%.”
That these people are not looking for a religion has, Deckman says, implications for how and even whether houses of worship should try to attract new people.
Among other findings: The Catholic Church is losing more members than it’s gaining, though the numbers are slightly better for retention among Hispanic Catholics.
There is much lower religious churn among Black Protestants and among Jews who seem overall happy in their faith traditions and tend to stay there.
As for why people leave their religions, PRRI found that about two-thirds (67%) of people who leave a faith tradition say they did so because they simply stopped believing in that religion’s teachings.
And nearly half (47%) of respondents who left cited negative teaching about the treatment of LGBTQ people.
Those numbers were especially high with one group in particular.
“Religion’s negative teaching about LGBTQ people are driving younger Americans to leave church,” Deckman says. “We found that about 60% of Americans who are under the age of 30 who have left religion say they left because of their religious traditions teaching, which is a much higher rate than for older Americans.”
Hispanic Americans are also more likely to say they’ve left a religion over LGBTQ issues. Other reasons cited for leaving: clergy sexual abuse and over-involvement in politics.
The new PRRI report is based on a survey of more than 5,600 adults late last year.
About one-third of religiously unaffiliated Americans say they no longer identify with their childhood religion because the religion was bad for their mental health. That response was strongest among LGBTQ respondents.
The survey also asked about the prevalence of the so-called “prosperity Gospel.” It found that 31% of respondents agreed with the statement “God always rewards those who have good faith with good health, financial success, and fulfilling personal relationships.”
Black Americans tend to agree more with these theological beliefs than other racial or ethnic groups. And Republicans are more likely than independents and Democrats to hold such beliefs.
Joshua Love was recently paid $15,000 by a Catholic religious order to keep quiet about his claim that two Franciscan Friars abused him as a child. Now he’s going public and talking about how he’s tried to heal.
LAGOS, Nigeria — Statistics compiled by Amnesty International in 2021 show that there is a culture of stigmatization and victim-blaming towards rape survivors. The result is a large percentage of rape and sexual assaults go unreported in Nigeria.
Paul Akinyemi Thomson was far more than a statistic. It was a reality he lived every day for 21 years. Born in 1986, Thomson told Religion Unplugged that his mother was sexually molested by the Reverend Kolawole Olaiya Thomson of a Cherubim and Seraphim church starting from age 12.
Thomson said his mother had to go live with the late reverend from a young age because her parents could no longer raise her. It was at the reverend’s home that Thomson’s mother conceived him and his elder sister after being raped multiple times.
“This man of God already had like 10 wives, very respected in the community. … Peopled loved him because he does miracles and all that,” Thomson said. “My mother was complaining to people that this man of God molested her but nobody listened to her because in Nigeria they blame the victim first. The molestation by the pastor continued until she got pregnant at age 17 and had my big sister, they had me three years later.”
Thomson and his sister continued to be abused by his father and other fmaily members, including being subjected to curses, voodoo and constantly called “omo eru,” a slur in the Yoruba language meaning “slave.”
“I was sexually molested too and even this year they were still calling I and my sister slaves,” he added. “In 1998, my dad used Deuteronomy 28 to curse me. Deuteronomy 28 is the worse chapter in the Bible, and the only chapter in the Bible, filled with curses, generational curses and my dad was using it to curse and swear at me.”
A 2021 study by the United Nations Population Fund found that 28% of Nigerian women between the ages of 25-29 have experienced some form of physical violence since age 15. The prevalence of sexual violence against women in Nigeria is further boosted by victim blaming, which has flourished in Nigeria as a prevailing attitude. This has the concomitant effect of discouraging victims from seeking justice, thus allowing abusers to continue with impunity.
“I’m just trying to rewrite what’s wrong … because everybody blamed my mom then and I can imagine, why are you blaming a 12-year-old girl? She is just 12! The man doing this is 50 years old,” Thomson said.
In 2014, Thomson started a nonprofit organization named after his mother – Comfort Empowerment and Advocacy Foundation (CEAF) — to raise awareness about sexual assault, domestic violence and child marriages and to also provide free shelter and psychotherapy support to survivors.
Based in Lagos, CEAF offers victims access to free psychological counselling and therapy. CEAF also operate an online portal through which individuals can report abuse for CEAF staff to follow up with civil authorities.
CEAF has assisted over nine people since its founding with free legal services, psychotherapy support and financial grants. Currently, CEAF’s safe shelter, meant to house survivors of sexual violence, domestic violence and child marriage, is 90 percent complete, Thomson said.
One of such beneficiaries is Nkiruka Onyebuchi, 29, who told Religion Unplugged she was trapped in an abusive relationship for six years until CEAF intervened and gave her the help she desperately needed.
“I was in my early 20s when we met and started living together because we were to get married but the abuse was a lot and I could not really tell anybody including my parents because I never forgot what my mother always said to me ‘if you want to stay in a marriage, you need to have patience’ so I thought it meant I had to be patient with everything,’” Onyebuchi said.
She eventually got pregnant, which led to an increase in the physical and mental abuse she had endured.
“I actually thought the beating was going to stop when I was pregnant, but it got worse until I had the baby but the baby died,” Onyebuchi said. “He usually says the reason he beats me is because I’m stubborn and I believed him.”
In January 2023, Onyebuchi’s friend introduced her to CEAF. As a result, Onyebuchi’s boyfriend was arrested by the police and made to sign an undertaking not to physically abuse her again.
Onyebuchi also received financial help to move out of her house and lease her own place, receive counseling and help with finding a job.
“If I didn’t have the therapy sessions, I would not be having this interview with you because I had insecurity issues,” she said. “I was very defensive and aggressive then. The counseling sessions really helped at least 60 percent. I still talk to my therapist from time to time.”
A major challenge for CEAF has been funding and finding partnership. Thomson has been funding CEAF out of his pocket and has not had much success partnering with others, he said, including the Lagos’ Domestic and Sexual Violence Agency.
“Since I started CEAF, nobody has actually contributed any money, so all of the money I’ve made has been invested into CEAF,” he said. “I’m doing this because of my mom. This is personal to me and this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.”
