Catholic Group Spends Millions on Dating App Data to Out Gay Priests

[Pete Ross Junior]

Catholic Group Spends Millions on Dating App Data to Out Gay Priests
PC Magazine

A conservative Catholic group in Colorado bought mobile app tracking data worth millions of dollars in order to identify gay priests across the US.

According to a Washington Post investigation(Opens in a new window), Denver-based Catholic Laity and Clergy for Renewal exclusively used commercially available information in its bid to track and locate gay priests. The data spans 2018 through 2021 and includes gay dating and hookup apps like Grindr, Scruff, Growlr, and Jack’d, as well as OkCupid. The Post found that most of the data appears to be from Grindr.

In its hunt for gay priests, Catholic Laity purchased data from ad brokers that showed the type of device, its location, the device ID, and the internet service provider being used along with other identifiers. The group then cross-referenced the legally purchased data with church residences that house priests.

...

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Well, that's right Christian of them!

Are mobile apps a subsidiary of the Holy Ghost?

[Scrivener7]

2. Well, that's weird. The Catholic church doesn't care that there are gay priests out there dating.

From all my high school friends who spent time in seminary, the seminary was a happening place.

The Catholic church only cares if you and I KNOW there are lots of gay priests out there dating.

I recently read a study by a psychologist who has worked with priests for 20 years. He estimates that something over 50% of priests are not actually celibate, whether that means hetero or homosexual relationships. This study has been out there for years, and not much has changed.

An effect of this, the psychologist posits, is that those sexually active priests are vulnerable to overt and covert blackmail from pedophile priests.

The overt and covert blackmail allows the pedophile priests to demand protection from those who engage in normal heterosexual or normal homosexual activity, which goes against their vows of celibacy. That, the psychologist says, is why some priests are complicit in that they shuffle the criminal priests from place to place and never do anything to stop them.

[nakocal]

3. And this same group will

fight to prevent abused children from suing Catholic priests.

[shenmue]

4. Blackmail.

What a nightmare.