Catholic Officials on Edge After Reports of Priests Using Grindr
By Liam Stack (NYT)
Fri, August 20, 2021, 7:11 PM
The Cathedral Basilica of the Sacred Heart in Newark, N.J., on March 26, 2020. (Bryan Anselm/The New York Times)
The reports hit the Roman Catholic Church in rapid succession: Analyses of cellphone data obtained by a conservative Catholic blog seemed to show priests at multiple levels of the Catholic hierarchy in both the United States and the Vatican using the gay hookup app Grindr.
The first report, published late last month, led to the resignation of Monsignor Jeffrey Burrill, the former general secretary of the U.S. bishops’ conference. The second, posted online days later, made claims about the use of Grindr by unnamed people in unspecified rectories in the Archdiocese of Newark, New Jersey. The third, published days after that, claimed that in 2018 at least 32 mobile devices emitted dating app data signals from within areas of Vatican City that are off-limits to tourists.
The reports by the blog, The Pillar, have unnerved the leadership of the American Catholic Church and have introduced a potentially powerful new weapon into the culture war between supporters of Pope Francis and his conservative critics: cellphone data, which many users assume to be unavailable to the general public.
...more sordid details of who's pokin who in the pews: Catholic Officials on Edge After Reports of Priests Using Grindr