Cardinals Raymond Burke and Walter Brandmüller have written an open letter to the heads of the national bishops’ conferences meeting in the Vatican urging them to address the deeper causes of the clerical sex abuse crisis.

The abuse of minors is “only part of a much greater crisis,” the cardinals contend. “The plague of the homosexual agenda has been spread within the Church, promoted by organized networks and protected by a climate of complicity and a conspiracy of silence.”

“Sexual abuse is blamed on clericalism. But the first and primary fault of the clergy does not rest in the abuse of power but in having gone away from the truth of the Gospel,” they state.

The two cardinals conclude by urging their brother bishops “to raise your voice to safeguard and proclaim the integrity of the doctrine of the Church.”

This is not the first time these cardinals have pointed to an active homosexual network within the Church as the root cause of the abuse crisis, 75 percent of whose victims have been male.

Last August, Cardinal Burke called for “open recognition” of the Catholic church’s homosexual culture as the first step in addressing the crisis.

“I believe that there needs to be an open recognition that we have a very grave problem of a homosexual culture in the Church,” Burke said in an interview, “especially among the clergy and the hierarchy, that needs to be addressed honestly and efficaciously.”

A canon lawyer and the former head of the church’s highest court, Burke said it was already “clear after the studies following the 2002 sexual abuse crisis that most of the acts of abuse were in fact homosexual acts committed with adolescent young men.”

“There was a studied attempt to either overlook or to deny this,” he said, referring to the generalized media cover-up of the homosexual nature of the abuse as well as such denial within the church itself.

“Now it seems clear in light of these recent terrible scandals that indeed there is a homosexual culture, not only among the clergy but even within the hierarchy, which needs to be purified at the root,” Burke said.

The cardinals’ analysis of the situation finds echo in recent remarks by another former high-ranking Vatican official, the former papal nuncio to the United States Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò.

In a recent symposium, Archbishop Viganò proposed that the upcoming Vatican summit on clerical sex abuse may be doomed to failure because of an unwillingness to address the deeper causes of the crisis, namely the extensive homosexual network in the Church.

“Why does the word ‘homosexuality’ never appear in recent official documents of the Holy See?” Viganò asked. “This is by no means to suggest that most of those with a homosexual inclination are abusers, but the fact remains that the overwhelming majority of abuse has been inflicted on post-pubescent boys by homosexual clerics.”

“It is mere hypocrisy to condemn the abuse and claim to sympathize with the victims without facing up to this fact honestly. A spiritual revitalization of the clergy is necessary, but it will be ultimately ineffectual if it does not address this problem,” the archbishop stated.

In his statement, Viganò also wondered aloud why Pope Francis continues to promote “notorious” homosexuals, placing them in positions of influence.

“Why does Pope Francis keep and even call as his close collaborators people who are notorious homosexuals?” Viganò said. “Why has he refused to answer legitimate and sincere questions about these appointments? In doing so he has lost credibility on his real will to reform the Curia and fight the corruption.”

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