Generally, from then to now, Protestants resist concurrence with this, and when confronted with undeniable evidence, attempt to moderate it. Protestants read this article and think to themselves that I have an anger problem, or that I was abused and have a grudge or something. I don’t, and have no personal sexual history of abuse by a priest or a nun.

On February 28, 2022 Aquila Report an article appeared by Joseph Sciambra which outlined his frustration and disappointment with Roman Catholic Bishops. Apparently, he received “his worst opposition” from them in his efforts to “save Gays from Sin.” He tells us that Roman Catholic priests had encouraged him down this sexual path personally as well, in his youth.
When I read his article, I was somewhat shocked. I was shocked that he was shocked at this behaviour by RC priests. Let me explain.
About 20 years ago a history of my family was put together that went back almost 400 years. When a family-tree goes back that far, you have a lot of relatives. The book includes almost everyone, and its thickness shows it.
I point this out to say this: Everyone was Roman Catholic. Everyone. When the Lord brought me to faith in Christ, at 13-years-old, I didn’t even know what a Protestant was. I asked the priest one day, and he simply responded, “You don’t want to know.” I didn’t know I had become one. I just read the Bible, and came to faith that Christ died to take away all my sins, that I should read the Bible to know Him better. But, from that day forward I was ostracized from my family, without explanation. As the oldest grandson, I was expected to become a priest. My grandfather was furious.
Because of this background I think I can respond to Joseph Sciambra’s shock with insight I know few Protestants can. My goal being, first, to speak to Joseph. But also, indirectly, to the large swath of Protestants who are unaware of real Roman Catholicism in this matter; not the view the priest piously attempts to present in “dialoguing” with others. I want to confirm the Roman Catholicism that you hear hints of but ignore.
Welcome to Reality
Joe, you suffer, and seem to be recovering from, what more and more Roman Catholics are recovering from, especially since the 1970s. In the last 25-50 years there has been a virtual tidal wave of exodus from Romanism. Official Rome is not changing, no matter what it says. People are changing; access to information is changing. The courts are changing, slowly, when dealing with the formerly taboo subject of prosecuting the immorality of RC priests. Rome has been conniving to create a secular society in historically Protestant nations, and that society is turning on it.
What you are seeing, Joseph, is the truth; a reality which has existed for a very long time.
You say the RC priests encouraged you in this life-style. Of course, they did. The vast majority of them are homosexual. Not all, but the vast majority. My cousin went away to be a priest at their school in Toronto. He formerly lived as the son of a dairy farmer. Fairly isolated. But there he learned something, and the result was that about 90% of his class left after two years. They formed a homosexual “church” in the city. The priests in my home parish, in the RC High School, many of the nuns, the chaplain in my son’s school were all homosexual (at best). The town where I first served as a (Protestant) pastor was an isolated community, and was the hub for the priests to meet on Sunday nights. A carpenter told me he walked in on the scene one Monday morning (he had left some tools there on Friday from a job). Liquor bottles were not the only thing that were scattered all over the floor and furniture, naked. More than 20 years later a RC priest, when he heard I had once been a pastor in that town, unashamedly said to me, “We used to have such parties in that town, years ago!” Yes, they did.
The president of the Philippines, Duterte, after he became president began to talk about his experiences growing up in a RC school; “Me, and all the boys in my grade, in the grade before me, and in the one after me, were all abused by the priests.”
Now Joe, I could go on about this. If you are following the news, even a little bit, you know what I am talking about. Last year in France alone, 330,000 cases of abused children were brought to light, and 3,000 priests were accused. In Australia, South America, Canada (the Residential Schools), the USA, Central America, Ireland and Africa, the same stories keep coming up in large numbers.
But for some reason, Roman Catholicism is able to present itself as this organization which is concerned about family and piety; about Christianity. For some reason people believe what they say, regardless of what they actually do. How is it that Rome can still maintain the myth that it is concerned with even a whisper of godliness?
When I was in seminary, one of the most conservative Protestant seminaries I knew of, I walked into the lounge where a somewhat large group of students were engaged in a fairly heated debate. In the middle of the room were two students, arguing with about 30 other seminary students.
The argument was about Rome’s ethical honesty, especially in this area. The two in the middle were not backing down, and they were heatedly trying to get through to the rest about the duplicity of Rome. At first, I did not get involved, so that I could be sure I understood the debate.
Finally, I spoke up. I simply asked a couple questions for clarity’s sake. I asked the students around the outside if any of them were raised RC. None were. The two in the middle said they were raised RC. I asked my second question: How is it that those who were not raised RC think they know more about Romanism that those who were raised within it?
It did not end the debate, but it did make something clear; it is truly bewildering that Romanism can have the history it does and still be considered in any way, Christian. If any other organization, institution or religion had a history 10% as bad as they do, maybe 1% as bad, they would be opposed by the whole world. But Rome gets away with it. How? It is a mystery religion.
This, Joe, is the reality, and multitudes are blinded by it. Rome’s Inquisition made it “drunk with the blood of the saints” (Rev.17:6). Its capitol is filled with the idols of so many pagan religions, especially Babylon and Egypt. Yet so many Protestants feel that criticizing her is taboo. So many seem, as the Bible says, “intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries.” (Rev.17:2) When God allowed the Apostle John to look at her in the future, this is what he wrote; “When I saw her, I was greatly astonished.” (Rev.17:6)
Nothing New
The behaviour you witnessed by the Bishops, Joe, is not even close to a recent phenomenon. My family’s history can attest to that. Over a 400-year period there have been plenty priests and Nuns, and many cover-ups.
But simply looking at Rome’s history shows that this has been going on throughout it’s second thousand-year reign as the Holy Roman Empire (800-1806). Look at the lives of just the Popes. Luther visited Rome in the early 16th century, only to discover that it was a virtual cesspool of immorality. The Pope of the time, Leo X, received a huge birthday cake—out of which sprang a bunch of naked little boys (his present?). Many of the Popes have been accused of the same preferences.
John Calvin was one of the godliest men to ever live. In the Institutes of the Christian Religion, written almost 500 years ago, he wrote some brief lines about the complete immorality of the bishops and priests;
There is scarcely a bishop, and not one in a hundred parish priests, who, if his conduct were to be judged according to the ancient canons [of the Early Church], would be the subject of either excommunication or at least to deposition from office. I seem to be saying something unbelievable…but this is entirely so. (IV.V.14)
Of the morality of Rome’s leadership, he writes;
Yet because they themselves, together with their household, with almost the whole college of cardinals, and with the whole flock of the clergy, have been prostituted to all wickedness, filthiness, and uncleanness, and to all kinds of crimes and misdeeds, so that they resemble monsters rather than men…” (IV.VIII.29)
When it comes to the monasteries Calvin is as discrete as he could be;
This is clear: that no order of men is more polluted by all sorts of foul vices; nowhere do factions, hatreds, party zeal, and intrigue burn more fiercely. Indeed, in a few monasteries men live chastely, if one must call it chastity where lust is suppressed to the point of not being openly infamous. Yet you will scarcely find one in ten which is not a brothel rather than a sanctuary of chastity. (IV.XIII.15)
You see, Rome’s second thousand-year-reign perpetuated its first (509-476 A.D.) thousand-year reign’s immorality. Of the Roman Empire’s first 15 Emperors, 14 were Gay.
What you, Joe, as a Roman Catholic, need to come to grips with is that you, like myself, were born into something unimaginably morally corrupt. And it has been for over 2,500 years.
The Modern Promoter
Joe, what you need to understand, and what the vast majority of Protestants need to put together, is that what Rome promoted in your life, is what they do perpetually, and in the society in general. The morality of the priests—sexually promiscuous but never marrying, which is the other meaning of the word “celibate” in Latin—is their true moral emblem. The priesthood is their ultimate moral ideal, and they wanted you to acquiesce.
Calvin supposed above that this seems, “something unbelievable”. Generally, from then to now, Protestants resist concurrence with this, and when confronted with undeniable evidence, attempt to moderate it. Protestants read this article and think to themselves that I have an anger problem, or that I was abused and have a grudge or something. I don’t, and have no personal sexual history of abuse by a priest or a nun. Neither did Calvin. His generation simply cited the prediction in 2Thess.2 as having become true.
But I know history, have seen others around me be abused, and I know enough of what is going on in the world today to know that what I have written here is not even the full tip of the iceberg.
The week before I sent this article in, I was having lunch with a group of Pastors. One surprised us by pointing out that he was a former RC priest. When asked why he left, he said he “did not want to be a hypocrite.” “What do you mean?” someone asked. A rather shy man, he stated that he was not comfortable with the sexual practices of the profession. He went on to say that, while it is not applicable to all, the vast majority are homosexual, involved with minors (trips to Africa, or Cuba, he said), have mistresses—or all of the above.
I have seen enough to know for certain that the modern crisis with regard to the LGTBQ agenda is being blown along by winds emanating out of Romanism (Did you know that the letters they intend to join to this acronym is MAP? = Minor Attracted Persons). In my circles I have seen this agenda promoted by them, over and over again. Rome’s priests are always the cheerleaders for being “understanding” toward this cause, openly and behind the scenes. They have convinced others to join them, painting the sidewalks multicolor.
Canada’s RC PM is trying to make it against the law to speak against the practice, carrying up to a five-year jail term! He is calling Canadians to “ally” against those who are “Homophobic”; who believe in patriarchy (meaning; a biblical family). The RC owned Canadian MSM cannot support him enough. Here, our RC President (supported by a host of other “good Catholics”; Pelosi, Schumer, Fouchi etc. etc.) is trying to enforce the introduction of it to every grade level in school. Obama, a devotee of the Pope, had rainbow spotlights on the Whitehouse. Finally, our military officers are having to regularly take courses which attempt to desensitize them, and this is going on in Canada, too.
Do you remember in June 2016 when the Pope made his apology to the Gay community? In fact, he said that “all Christians” should apologize to them. Why would he do this? He was telling them where to find a home and ally.
Until recently, Rome has always played both sides of the fence here: both condemning it and practicing it. They do this all the time. They say they believe in the Trinity, and yet say that they worship the same god as Islam—which condemns the doctrine of the Trinity! (See their catechism) This is just one example.
So, you can see, Joe, that your assumption that this is merely naïveté about what it means to be “Gay” within Roman leadership, is just that. They are its cheerleaders. Not the Laity, usually; it’s the priests and up. It is their conversion strategy for the Democracies.
Therefore, the best thing you can do is look for a Bible-believing church in your area, and go there. You will have to be careful though—be sure it accepts Reformed theology—and doesn’t just have it in its name. You will discover that some historically Bible-believing churches, such as the Reformed Church in America (RCA), Christian Reformed Church (CRC) and United Church of Christ (UCC), have also been “dialoguing” with Roman priests since Vatican II, and now their denominations are tumultuously reeling with this issue; just like you.
Charles d’Espeville is a Minister in the Reformed Church in America.
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We need to return to a true preaching to the heart, rooted in the principle of grace and focused on the person of the Lord Jesus Christ.…And when you have experienced such preaching, or seen its fruit, you will know what true preaching is.

No more poignant or instructive description of the work of the minister of the gospel exists than Paul’s “defensive excursus” in 2 Corinthians 2:14–7:4. Every Christian preacher should aim to possess a good working knowledge of this seminal part of the New Testament, in which Paul simultaneously describes and defends his service as an Apostle of Jesus Christ and a minister of the new covenant. He uses this language explicitly when he affirms, “God has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant” (2 Corinthians 3:6). In what follows, he takes us from the outside of his ministry to its deep internal roots:
Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we do not preach ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that His life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.
It is written, “I believed, therefore I have spoken.” With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence. All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:1–18)
All truly biblical preaching is preaching to the heart. Therefore, it is important that we have a clear idea of what “preaching to the heart” means.
The Heart
In Scripture, the word heart only rarely denotes the physical organ. It characteristically refers to the central core of the individual’s being and personality: the deep-seated element of a person that provides both the energy and the drive for all the faculties (e.g., Deut. 4:9; Matt. 12:34). It denotes the governing center of life.
Interestingly, of the 858 occurrences of the Hebrew terms that are translated as “heart,” leb and lebab, almost all have reference to human beings (in distinction from either God or other creatures). Indeed, “heart” is the Old Testament’s major anthropological term.
Modern Westerners tend to think of the heart as the center of a person’s emotional life (hence its use as the symbol of romantic rather than volitional love). But the Hebrew conceptualization placed the emotional center lower in the anatomy and located the intellectual energy center of a person in the heart. Hence, the word heart is frequently used as a synonym for the mind, the will, and the conscience, as well as (on occasion) for the affections. It refers to the fundamental bent or characteristic of an individual’s life.
In this sense, when we think about speaking or preaching to the heart, we do not have in view directly addressing the emotions as such. In any event, as Jonathan Edwards argued with such force, the mind cannot be so easily bypassed. Rather, we are thinking of preaching that influences the very core and center of an individual’s being, making an impact on the whole person, including the emotions, but doing so primarily by instructing and appealing to the mind. Such a focus is of paramount importance for preachers because the transformation and the renewal of the heart is what is chiefly in view in their proclamation of the gospel (cf. Rom. 12:1–2).
This, in fact, is already implied in Paul’s description of himself and his companions as “competent ministers of a new covenant” (2 Cor. 3:6). Built into the foundation of the new covenant is the promise of a transformed heart: “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart. . . . I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh” (Ezek. 36:25–26).
No matter what circumstances under which we preach the Word of God, no matter to whom we are speaking, insofar as we too are called to be “competent ministers of the new covenant,” our preaching must always have the heart in view.
Threefold Openness
Paul speaks more fully here about his own preaching ministry than anywhere else in the New Testament. One of the key notes he strikes is that his preaching to the heart was marked by a threefold openness:

It involved an openness of Paul’s being, a transparency before God. “What we are,” he says, “is plain to God” (2 Cor. 5:11).
It also implied an opening out of the love that filled his heart toward the people to whom he was ministering. “We have . . . opened wide our hearts to you” (2 Cor. 6:11).
Within that twofold context—his own heart opened vertically toward God and horizontally toward those to whom he was seeking to minister—Paul’s preaching to the heart was also characterized by a disclosing (an opening up) of the truth. He expresses this in an illuminating way when he describes it as “setting forth the truth plainly” (2 Cor. 4:2), what the King James Version describes more graphically as “the manifestation of the truth.”

Thus, just as he is an open book in the sight of God, so also the preacher lays open the integrity of his life to the consciences and hearts of his hearers as though he were a letter to be read by them (cf. 2 Cor. 3:2). But these characteristics are never isolated from the way that we handle the Scriptures, opening up and laying bare their message in both exposition and application. The Corinthians had seen these hallmarks in Paul’s ministry. They were a large part of the explanation for his ministry’s power and fruit. They are no less essential to the minister of the gospel today, if he is to preach with similar effect on the hearts of his hearers.
Preaching to the heart, then, is not merely a matter of technique or homiletic style. These things have their proper place and relevance. But the more fundamental, indeed the more essential, thing for the preacher is surely the fact that something has happened in his own heart; it has been laid bare before God by His Word. He, in turn, lays his heart bare before those to whom he ministers. And within that context, the goal that he has in view is so to lay bare the truth of the Word of God that the hearts of those who hear are opened vertically to God and horizontally to one another.
Paul had reflected on this impact of God’s Word in 1 Corinthians 14, in the context of his discussion of tongues and prophecy in the Corinthian church. Prophetic utterance always possesses an element of speaking “to the heart” (Isa. 40:2). Through such preaching, even someone who comes in from the outside finds that “the secrets of his heart will be laid bare. So he will fall down and worship God, exclaiming ‘God is really among you’” (1 Cor. 14:24–25).
In the last analysis, this is what preaching to the heart is intended to produce: inner prostration of the hearts of our listeners through a consciousness of the presence and the glory of God. This result distinguishes authentic biblical preaching from any cheap substitute; it marks the difference between preaching about the Word of God and preaching the Word of God.
The presence of this threefold openness, then, is most desirable in preaching. When there is the exposition of the Scriptures, an enlarging and opening of the preacher’s heart, and the exposing of the hearts of the hearers, then the majesty of the Word of God written will be self-evident and the presence of the Word of God incarnate will stand forth in all His glory.
Man Small, God Great
There is a widespread need for this kind of preaching. We have an equal need as preachers to catch the vision for it in an overly pragmatic and programmatic society that believes it is possible to live the Christian life without either the exposing of our own hearts or the accompanying prostration of ourselves before the majesty of God on high.
It is just here that one notices a striking contrast between the biblical exposition one finds in the steady preaching of John Calvin in the sixteenth century and preaching in our own day. It is clearly signaled by the words with which he ended virtually every one of his thousands of sermons: “And now let us bow down before the majesty of our gracious God.” Reformed biblical exposition elevates God and abases man. By contrast, much modern preaching seems to have the goal of making man feel great, even if God Himself has to bow down.
So a leading characteristic of preaching to the heart will be the humbling, indeed the prostration, of hearts before the majesty of God on high. This is simultaneously the true ecstasy of the Christian, and therein lies the paradox of grace: the way down is always the way up.
But if, through the preaching of the gospel, we want to see people prostrated with mingled awe and joy before God, the essential prerequisite is that we ourselves be prostrated before Him. John Owen’s words still ring true even after three and a half centuries: “A man preacheth that sermon only well unto others which preacheth itself in his own soul. . . . If the word do not dwell with power in us, it will not pass with power from us.”
Preaching to the heart—through whatever personality, in whatever style—will always exhibit the following five characteristics:

A right use of the Bible. Preaching to the heart is undergirded by our familiarity with the use of sacred Scripture. According to 2 Timothy 3:16, all Scripture is useful (Greek ophelimos) for certain practical functions: for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

If it were not for the fact that a chapter division appears in our Bibles at this point (giving the impression that Paul is now changing gears in his charge to Timothy), we would not so easily miss the point implicit in what he goes on to say. In 2 Timothy 4:1–2, Paul takes up these same uses of Scripture (teaching, rebuking, correcting, encouraging in godly living) and applies them. In effect, he says to Timothy, “Use the God-breathed Scriptures this way in your ministry!”
Those who love the richer, older theology of the Reformation and Puritan eras, and of Jonathan Edwards and Thomas Boston, may be tempted to look askance at the modern professor of preaching as he hands out copies of his “preaching grid” to the incoming class of freshmen taking Homiletics 101. But the fact is that here we find Paul handing out the last copy of his own “preaching grid” to Timothy. This is by no means the only preaching grid to be found, either in Scripture or in the Reformed tradition, but it certainly is a grid that ought to be built into our basic approach to preaching.
Thus informed, we come to see that preaching to the heart will give expression to four things: instruction in the truth, conviction of the conscience, restoration and transformation of life, and equipping for service. Let us not think that we have gained so much maturity in Christian living and service that we can bypass the fundamental structures that the apostles give us to help us practically in these areas.
Preaching, therefore, involves teaching—imparting doctrine in order to renew and transform the mind. It implies the inevitable rebuke of sin, and brings with it the healing of divine correction. The language of “correction” (Greek epanorthosis) is used in the Septuagint for the rebuilding of a city or the repair of a sanctuary. Outside of biblical Greek, it is used in the medical textbooks of the ancient world for the setting of broken limbs. It is a word that belongs to the world of reconstruction, remedy, healing, and restoration.
This brings us to another characteristic of the Apostle Paul: a masterful balance between the negation of sin and the edification of the Christian believer, “so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” If we are going to preach to the heart, then our preaching will always (admittedly in different kinds of balance) be characterized by these four marks of authenticity.
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As we live in this fallen world, we are surrounded by brokenness. We experience brokenness in our own lives too. Jars of clay can crack and break easily. Yet Psalm 147:3 tells us that the Lord “heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds”. God is like the master kintsugi artist.  When we are broken, he doesn’t toss us aside or get rid of us.  Rather, he is close to us and saves us (Psalm 34:16).  In his grace he puts the broken pieces back together, and in that process, creates something even more beautiful.

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds. Psalm 147:3
The other day I broke my favourite mug. It was a gift from a friend a few years ago. Not only was it a reminder of both the friendship and of Scotland, but it was also the perfect size for my daily mug of coffee.  I feel both sad and annoyed with myself for not having been more careful. Right now it is still sitting on my shelf because I can’t quite bring myself to throw it out!
Most Japanese bowls and cups are earthenware, made from clay. A Japanese meal will usually comprise several different items, each in their own bowl or small plate. So a typical household in Japan will have a plethora of small bowls and dishes.
The earthquake and tsunami of 2011 destroyed many houses and their contents, including a large amount of earthenware dishes. One Christian lady was helping to clear out a park in that area and began saving some of the many pieces of broken pottery. She wondered if she could make something beautiful out of all of the devastation around.
The next year she started to gather a group of women to make accessories out of the broken pottery. Some professionals then came to teach them how to make jewellery and the women started to make beautiful necklaces, earrings and other items and sell them worldwide. The Nozomi Project was born (Nozomi means “hope” in Japanese). Not only were the women able to make beautiful accessories out of the broken pottery, but they were also able to earn money doing so, when so many sources of employment in that area had been destroyed.
There is another Japanese way of bringing beauty out of brokenness – the art of ‘kintsugi’.  Rather than throwing away a broken plate or bowl, the pieces of pottery are put back together with gold lacquer. In some ways it might seem a strange thing to do – the repair with gold usually costs more than the original item. Also, rather than conceal the break, the lacquer accentuates it.
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