Poland/Germany – The conviction in Germany of Dariusz Oko, a Catholic priest, professor of humanities and lecturer at the Pontifical University of John Paul II in Krakow, has caused a stir in Poland. The story has even made it to the cover of three major conservative weeklies this week: Do Rzeczy, Sieci, and Gazeta Polska. One of the reasons for the outrage in Polish conservative circles is that the German media have been at the forefront of attacks against PiS-governed Poland because of supposed threats to media pluralism and press freedom. The irony is that the condemnation of the Polish academic concerns an article published in a German Catholic magazine about what is often referred to as the gay mafia, the pink mafia or the lavender mafia in the Catholic Church.
Father Dariusz Oko is the author of several books on that issue, the most recent of which, released in 2020, is entitled “The Lavender Mafia” and deals with the problem of discreet solidarity between active homosexuals in the clergy, in the manner of a real mafia that is allegedly occupying positions of influence all the way to the Vatican, and is accused of being the source of many sexual abuses, including on minors. The issue of homosexual cliques in the Church has, in fact, already been raised by Pope Francis and his predecessor Benedict XVI, who was the first to tackle the problem head on. The first major piece by Polish clergyman Dariusz Oko on the issue had been a long article published in 2012 in the Polish magazine Fronda and in the German monthly Theologisches, under the title “With the Pope Against Homoheresy”. He explained how his work on the propaganda and ideology of the homosexual lobby had led him to realise that this ideology was very much present within the Catholic Church, “where it takes the form of homoheresy”. He also pointed out how the media often misrepresent paedophilia in the Church to better hide the much more frequent problem of ephebophilia among homosexual priests and bishops.
But it was on the occasion of the highly progressive “Synodal Path” launched by the Catholic Church in Germany that the editorial staff of the German Catholic monthly Theologisches thought it useful to discuss the problem of homosexuality within the Church itself, and the ideology that accompanies it, with the Polish specialist on the subject. The article entitled “On the need to restrict homosexual cliques in the Church” appeared to be unavailable on the German monthly’s website after the Cologne district court sentenced Father Dariusz Oko and German priest Johannes Stöhr, the magazine’s editor and a 90-year-old theologian, in late July. The Polish author of the article was fined €4,800, but he has appealed against the ruling. He could be facing jail. The article censored by the German court can be read in Polish in the weekly Gazeta Polska dated 4 August, with the cover headline: “Read the article for which the Germans condemned Father Oko”.
A German Catholic priest, Father Wolfgang Rothe, was the first to denounce the alleged “hate speech” in Oko’s German article. Wolfgang Rothe is known for his blessings of same-sex couples and for his defence of the demands of LGBT organisations, including those concerning “gay marriage”. As pointed out by the Polish lawyers’ association Ordo Iuris, to which Fathers Dariusz Oko and Johannes Stöhr turned for their appeal after their conviction by a district court, Father Wolfgang Rothe, according to various press reports (such as this one), was once removed from his position as vice-rector of an Austrian seminary after a photo of him French kissing a seminarian was leaked to the media, and also after some 40,000 pornographic photos, including some of a paedophilic and zoophilic nature, were discovered on the computers of the seminary where Rothe worked.
In Do Rzeczy, an article entitled “Homomafia Strikes Back”, which highlights those details concerning the whistle-blower, discusses efforts to censor Father Dariusz Oko in Germany, but also other academics who have ventured a critique of homosexuality from a Catholic perspective in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. The author of the article is surprised that the simple words “homomafia” and “homoclique” (or homosexual mafia and homosexual clique, as one would more probably say in English) could be used as a pretext for a court conviction. The relevant parts of the offending article, he explained, “were presented to the court as hate speech against people practising homosexuality”. He speaks of manipulation, and quotes Father Dariusz Oko’s own words in his defence: “Is criticism of the Sicilian Mafia’s criminal activity an incitement to hatred against all Sicilians? Similarly, how can an academic reflection on the challenge of the criminal network linked by homosexual practices within the Church constitute an incitement to hatred against all homosexuals? ”
The cover of the magazine shows a portrait of the Polish priest covered with the word “censorship” in German, presented as a stamp, with the heading: “Father Prof. Dariusz Oko condemned for words of truth about the homosexual mafia in the Church – So the German gag works.”
“Father Dariusz Oko condemned for telling the truth”, proclaims the cover of the August 2 Sieci weekly, with the subheading: “The author of the resounding book Lavender Mafia has been punished by a German court. He could even be facing jail time. In an interview with Sieci, he reveals shocking facts and says: ‘I won’t be intimidated’.”
The interview inside the magazine is titled: “I’m ready for prison”. The sentence highlighted in the caption reads: “Just as everyone had to fall on their knees before Hitler and Stalin, today everyone must fall on their knees before gender ideology. Those who refuse to do so must be eliminated.”
Asked if he was surprised by his conviction, Father Dariusz Oko replies:
“I’m not surprised. In a way, the circle is closing. When I started defending the church and society against homosexual ideology in 2004, my main motivation was the news about Pastor Åke Green from Sweden, who had been charged with ‘incitement to hatred’ for a sermon criticizing homosexuality, based on the Bible and his personal experience. It was then that I realised that another ideology wanted to control us, that its followers were once again resorting to totalitarian means and that we had to defend ourselves. I knew all along that I had to reckon with the risk of a prison sentence, and that risk has now materialised. One can be surprised that this is only happening after 16 years. These are mechanisms similar to those of totalitarian systems. People who do not have God in their hearts and reject Christianity used to join Bolshevik socialism or National Socialism. And when those socialisms were so compromised that they could no longer be adhered to, they began to adhere to gender socialism. Its structure and operation are similar to the mechanism of previous socialisms. They want to have total power over us, over our minds. As in Revelation, all must worship the Beast.”
