Two Catholic priests were arrested in Florida when they were spotted having oral sex in a car near a beach in full view of the public, and instead over covering up the crime, the Church took immediate action.

The priests, Diego Berrio and Edwin Giraldo Cortez, were charged with lewd and lascivious behavior when police discovered them having in a Volkswagen that didn’t have tinted windows. Cortez was also charged with indecent exposure.

According to the arrest report, an officer on patrol found Berrio and Cortez having sex in a black Volkswagen… around 3:30 p.m. The officer noted in the report that the men were in full view of pedestrians because the car’s windows were not tinted. Berrio is a priest with the Mission of San Juan Diego in Arlington Heights, Illinios, and Giraldo-Cortez is from Soacha, Colombia, and served at another Chicago area parish for about a month, according to Anne Maselli, a spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Chicago. “It is our responsibility to ensure those who serve our people are fit for ministry,” Maselli said in a statement. “We take this matter very seriously.”

Yes, the Catholic Church is taking this development very seriously. They are taking it more seriously, in fact, than credible allegations of child sexual abuse.

Berrio and Cortez did break the law, and they deserve to be punished accordingly. As a matter of law, they have been. What’s more interesting is how the Church is responding to the ethical lapse:

Cardinal Blase J. Cupich, archbishop of Chicago, will not be allowing Berrio or Giraldo-Cortez to minister for the Archdiocese of Chicago, Maselli said. … The arrests have led to swift action by the church and have drawn attention to its issues with priests’ sexuality… “It is our responsibility to ensure those who serve our people are fit for ministry,” Cupich said. “We take this matter very seriously and will provide updates as they become available.”

So two men who participate in consensual sex (other broken laws aside) are problems for the Catholic Church because those priests aren’t fit to serve… yet the Church has been in the news far too often for several years now because its leaders covered for priests who were literally molesting children.

Talk about misplaced priorities… Homosexual acts, which the Church calls “intrinsically disordered,” are taken far more seriously than literal sexual abuse.

You have to wonder what the punishment would have been if a priest was caught with a woman, all other things being equal. It’s hard to believe it would generate this much attention or revulsion by Church officials.

(Thanks to Kealoha for the link)

