The Pillar

Just adding this from a more trustworthy news source: https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/nuncios-pentagon-meeting-was-frank While it sounds like the discussion was "tense" according to Vatican officials, it was blatantly mischaracterized in TFA, and nobody on either side recalls the Avignon papacy being mentioned or referred to.

For anyone interested in more serious journalism about the Church, I can't recommend The Pillar enough. The guys who run it have a lot of connections and know how the Church works inside and out. They had identified Prevost as being one of the top contenders in the days leading up to the conclave [1]. In their final "gut check" analysis, one of the two editors said his gut was going with Prevost. (Unfortunately behind a paywall, but here for reference [2].) [1]: https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/why-prevosts-papal-prospects-prompt [2]: https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/conclave-day-1-head-check-heart-check

The whole situation is terrible. A. Using extensive app logs to stalk & doxx someone is shitty. Alas this is the world we have built. Way back in 2003 this country still had some leftovers of a moral backbone and could pass CAN-SPAM act. These days anything goes. B. This guy was using a hookup app 'almost daily', and following up with visits to hookup bars and private residences. His activities strongly corroborate that he was a sex addict. Which is in direct contradiction with his Catholic priesthood vows of chastity and celibacy. C. Hookup apps like Grindr do not validate the user's age. They are a de-facto funnel feeding under age kids into the hookup sex scene. 'In an NWU study of of 14 to 17 year old males who identify as gay or bisexual [...] more than a quarter of the study’s adolescent participants said they had had sex with a partner met through an app.' The next stage of the funnel is prostitution and trafficking. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN-SPAM_Act_of_2003 https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/pillar-investigates-usccb-gen-sec

https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/study-liberal-us-priests-facing-progr… This is a Catholic media group. It uses the words as above. Think Karl Rahner or Yves Congar.

Woah... I opened the article ready to scream "FAKE! AI GENERATED!" and foam at the mouth... but it's real. And she's not half bad. I mean, it seems like a good idea to meet pilgrims where they're at, because traveling young adults grew up immersed in this stuff, wherever they are. Critique by an actual Catholic: https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/i-like-luce

This sort of thing always happens in religious circles at the advent of new technology. See: Credit cards See: RFID chips See: NFC phone payments https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/what-is-the-mark-of-the-beast-actuall… https://www.cnet.com/culture/is-rfid-the-mark-of-the-beast/ https://christianjournal.net/nwo/apples-cashless-world/ It will probably be fine.

This isn't similar to indulgences at all. Indulgences were essentially a way to buy absolution. If you were wealthy, you could willfully sin and then buy back your admission to heaven. This app is not that. It's a faith-based meditation guide. It's often compared to HeadSpace, including by its founder[1]. 1. https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/i-tried-the-hallow-app-for-two-weeks

> The Pillar correlated a unique mobile device to Burrill when it was used consistently from 2018 until at least 2020 from the USCCB staff residence and headquarters, from meetings at which Burrill was in attendance, and was also used on numerous occasions at Burrill’s family lake house, near the residences of Burrill’s family members, and at a Wisconsin apartment in Burrill’s hometown, at which Burrill himself has been listed as a resident. https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/pillar-investigates-usccb-gen-sec

This article is just re-reporting what a newsletter discovered. The original article seems like it has more info. https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/pillar-investigates-usccb-gen-sec

> According to commercially available records of app signal data obtained by The Pillar, a mobile device correlated to Burrill emitted app data signals from the location-based hookup app Grindr on a near-daily basis during parts of 2018, 2019, and 2020 — at both his USCCB office and his USCCB-owned residence, as well as during USCCB meetings and events in other cities. https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/pillar-investigates-usccb-gen-sec

Papal visits to the United States have fairly long intervals to begin with. Wikipedia reports 10 trips between 1965 and 2015 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_visits_to_the_United_States). Given the relative rarity of visits, not having planned a trip during any given presidency would even be normal. It doesn't surprise me at all. That's still a good question, though. Do any of them have anything more substantial than 'anonymous' sources, or even their own anonymous sources not linked to the breaking article's? I am generally suspicious when anonymous sources quoted these days, but I am rather more suspicious of reports that only come from a single source and get repeated in multiple outlets more or less immediately. I know there is some amount of synchronicity induced by syndicated news feed outlets like AP, but like many single source/anonymous stories, this reads to me like some 'suggested copy' was sent out to some reporters or outlets ahead of time. Anonymous sources are important for the integrity of reporting, but it must also be recognized that they are essentially non-authenticatable information. The author of the secondary source I see most mainstream sources quoting (Mattia Ferraresi) has also come out and said people are stretching and misrepresenting what he wrote: https://xcancel.com/mattiaferraresi/status/2042492566239686672 There is at least one outlet that appears to have asked the both Pentagon and the Church what was up and both parties told…

> The Grindr data is essentially a blackmail gold mine. More than that. It's leaked before.[1] Grindr data was used to catch a senior US Catholic official: "... an analysis of app data signals correlated to Burrill’s mobile device shows the priest also visited gay bars and private residences while using a location-based hookup app in numerous cities from 2018 to 2020, even while traveling on assignment for the U.S. bishops’ conference." “On Monday, we became aware of impending media reports alleging possible improper behavior by Msgr. Burrill. What was shared with us did not include allegations of misconduct with minors. However, in order to avoid becoming a distraction to the operations and ongoing work of the Conference, Monsignor has resigned effective immediately,”[2] [1] https://www.engadget.com/grindr-location-data-sold-for-years-145320411… [2] https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/pillar-investigates-usccb-gen-sec

This is a very poor article. Much better reporting can be found in the previously discussed article here (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27902214) or at the original source (https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/pillar-investigates-usccb-gen-sec). The article frames this as a priest being outed for his sexual preferences but that is a terribly warped perspective. This priest, as all Catholic priests do, _voluntarily_ took a life long vow to abstain from any sexual relations. He was wantonly breaking that while hiding it from his community. Worse, he was literally on the committee creating regulations to discipline other priests for violations against that very same vow he was breaking. It’s always sad to see a man not live up to his own convictions, but this was a particularly egregious case of hypocrisy as well. It would have been much better for him to withdraw from public life once he knew he couldn’t keep his vows. This is not an instance of an innocent man being outed. It’s a case of a man committing canonical crimes who got caught via anonymized location data. I am worried about some of the future implications as the article states, but what happened in this instance is a good thing.