New Priest Sex Scandal In the latest church sex scandal, a Catholic pastor in Florida has just been stripped of his duties after church officials learned that the reverend had placed a personal ad--complete with a naked photo of himself--on a gay web site. Francis T. Gera, 64, was removed Thursday (2/20) from his post as pastor of Holy Dormition Byzantine Catholic Church in Ormond Beach, Florida. Gera was relieved of his duties when church brass learned of his posting on the Silverfox Pictures Archive web site, which describes itself as, "your one-stop repository for pictures of older men." Along with a full-frontal photo of Gera (which TSG has tweaked, at right), the personal ad described the preferences of "Poppa Bear": "likes younger, TOP, slim-muscular men, 18-40. he lives in daytona beach, florida and can be reached at [an AOL address that begins with Gera's initials, ftg]." The e-mail address included in the personal ad was the same one at which parishoners would correspond with Gera. Until his removal this week, Gera had headed Holy Dormition since October 1997. Before that, he was assigned to St. Mary's Church in Hazleton, Pennsylvania. Compared to the Roman Catholic rite, the Byzantines represent a small piece of the U.S. Catholic population. While the Byzantine rite recognizes the Pope as the church's leader, the smaller group has a variety of different customs and rules, including one allowing married men to become priests (though, like the Roman Catholic rite, unmarried priests are barred from having sex). Until Gera was removed from his post, his name was on the home page of Holy Dormition's web site. In addition, he appeared in a photo (seen at right) wearing his clerical garb as he stood next to a painting of the Virgin Mary. That picture, too, has been removed. This is the second time in less than a year that a Byzantine priest has run into trouble due to his Internet postings. TSG reported last year that Rev. Glenn Michael Davidowich, a 38-year-old pastor from Pennsylvania, maintained a wrestling web site that featured hundreds of gratuitous photos of young men (some under 18) in nothing but clingy Speedos and other revealing clothing.
Whoa! This son of a bitch dares to stand by Jesus and the Virgin Mary, and at the same time commit disturbing sex acts.... disgusting
In the same way that alcoholism is a family disease, and is usually passed on from one family generation to the next, I have little doubt that the turpitude of the Catholic Church is nothing new, as little boys who were abused grew to become priests and clergy who passed that on to future generations of priests. For there to be recovery of this disease in the Church, they have to work a program, come out of denial, and stop the secrecy and power trips the Catholic Church has been practicing for over a thousand years. Sexual repression and secrecy in the sexually formative years is almost always the base of sexual depravity later on in life. One can only imagine the kind of double life these people lead, the level of shame and guilt they suffer from on one hand, and the depravity they express when they can no longer suppress their native state of mind. Very sad situation. As a young man, I remember how prim and proper the Catholic school girls were, and how naughty they were underneath. Repression and prohibition simply have not been proven to work in developing mentally healthy people. Interesting that depravity and deprivation are such similar sounding words, isn't it?
I can remember, less than twenty years ago, the teachers at the Catholic schools could be physically abusive without any real repurcussions...Throwing kids into lockers, pushing them around, verbally cursing them out at the top of their lungs in front of all the other students, etc, etc...It's pretty amazing to me how things can change so quickly...It's a pretty demented place, imo...
LOL Wow, now those were some pics... Seriously, the catholic church needs to do away with the celebacy thing. In theory it's a good idea, but in reality saying to men that they can never be with women yields these kinds of recruits.