A St. Patrick’s Cathedral priest who is under fire for a sermon bashing homosexuality as the prime cause of priest child-molestation said yesterday he did not clear Sunday’s homily with his boss, Edward Cardinal Egan, even as the archdiocese distanced itself from his remarks.
Monsignor Eugene Clark said his comments “have been misconstrued and misinterpreted.”
“The problem of sexual abuse of minors is a complex one . . . To suggest that I said that there is one cause and one solution to the problem is to grossly oversimplify the situation.”
But Clark, the rector of St. Patrick’s, also said the homily “was entirely my owns words and thoughts. I did not discuss my comments in advance with his Eminence, Cardinal Egan, and I have not discussed my comments with him” yesterday.
Egan’s spokesman Joseph Zwilling confirmed the cardinal did not clear Clark’s homily before leaving for Rome on Sunday to meet with the pope on the sex-abuse issue. Zwilling also said Clark was speaking “for himself” in the homily.
While Egan said Mass in a Bronx church, Clark handled the 10:15 a.m. service at St. Patrick’s, the highest-profile Mass in the city’s most important Catholic church.
A published account quoted him as linking clergy sex abuse of children to homosexuality. Clark reportedly said it is a “grave mistake” for the church to have admitted gay men to the priesthood, calling homosexuality a “disorder” and its practice “truly sinful.”
He also reportedly said the United States has a “sex-saturated society” and is “probably the most immoral country” in the Western Hemisphere.
Clark yesterday said, “My homily concerned the influences that may have misled a small percentage of Catholic clergy.”