A Miami "watchdog" group is claiming credit for the unexpected early resignation of Archbishop John Favalora saying that the real cause of his early retirement is Vatican concern over an alleged cabal of gay priests in the archdiocese. Archbishop Favalora announced an early retirement on April 20, only eight months before he was set to reach the normal episcopal retirement age of 75, Lifesite News reports.
Now, Eric Giunta, one of the researchers that formed the group Christifidelis, a lay "watchdog" organization in the diocese, says that the sudden retirement is almost certainly the consequence of a document that his group submitted to the Vatican in 2006.
That document was "an exhaustive report (hundreds of pages of text, documentation, and eye witness accounts) detailing and documenting" what he calls a "culture of sodomy and theological heterodoxy" on the part of as many as a majority of priests of the Miami Archdiocese.
Giunta reports that Sharon Baroussa, an attorney and a member of Christifidelis, represented a priest, Fr Andrew Dowgiert, in a lawsuit filed against the archdiocese in 2005.
"Fr Dowgiert, on loan from a Polish archdiocese and soon to be incardinated in Miami, alleged that he was 'fired' from active ministry in the Miami Archdiocese after whistle-blowing on homosexual activity by several pastors of the Archdiocese," he says.
That lawsuit served as the launchpad for the investigations during which Christifidelis gathered the information that it included in its lengthy report submitted to the Vatican.
With the early retirement of Archbishop Favalora, claims Giunta, "Rome has finally acted, and in doing so has vindicated" the faithful Catholics who in exposing the scandals, "suffered tremendous persecution and ostracization for defending the integrity of the Catholic Church's doctrine, liturgy, and moral witness."
SIC: CTHUS