
As a former (nonabusing) priest, as a schoolmate for six years with Bernard Cardinal Law of Boston who engineered the shocking U.S. molestation cover-up, and as the gay author of many queer books including What They Did to the Kid: Confessions of an Altar Boy, I can attest as an eyewitness from inside the Catholic Church that child abuse in the church will continue forever until the church actually moves forward its medieval stand on 21st-century human sexuality, because -- and this is my theorem -- how an institution treats its women, children, and homosexuals tells everything about that institution's evolution, intent, responsibility, and morality. A pope who apologizes for child sex abuse on the same visit that he denounces gay marriage, married clergy, and female priests is not a sincere pope, and should not be treated as a serious person on the world stage of human morality.