Catholic priest jailed after male escort ODs at his gay sex party

A Polish Catholic priest has been sentenced to 18 months in prison after an investigation into an August 30, 2023, gay adult play party in the priest’s apartment. At the party, a male sex worker collapsed after overdosing on erectile dysfunction medication and was subsequently “mutilated,” according to The New York Post. The victim ultimately survived.

Father Tomasz Zmarzły was convicted of sexual offenses, supplying drugs, and failing to provide assistance to a person in danger of loss of life or serious bodily harm. He held the party at his apartment in the southern city of Dabrowa Gornicza and reportedly kicked out an attendee who threatened to call the police when the man collapsed.

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The ejected man called an ambulance and police, and the priest allegedly wouldn’t let the authorities in when they arrived. Authorities reportedly found the unconscious man “lying on a bed with his lower body severely mutilated,” though media reports didn’t explain how he was injured. The victim was hospitalized and later discharged.

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The local diocese commissioned a third-party investigation and concluded that Zmarzły committed “a very serious violation of moral norms” and his priestly obligations. Priests are expected not to have sex and to refrain from intoxicating themselves or others.

Zmarzły reportedly denied reports of the party and his wrongdoing in an emailed statement to the Gazeta Wyborcza daily newspaper.

“If something similar had happened to a little-known person, with a different profession, not media or clergy, there would be no issue at all,” he wrote. “I perceive this as an obvious attack on the church, including the clergy and the faithful, in order to humiliate its position, tasks, and mission.”

The church reportedly removed him from all church duties the following September, including assisting a religious youth program. He was arrested in January.

The Pope has mixed feelings on homosexuality

Pope Francis, head of the global Catholic church, has criticized his own church’s leaders for becoming too focused on divisive issues like homosexuality. He told U.S. bishops to lay off the anti-gay attacks and compared homophobes to Nazis. He also suggested that he could support same-sex unions, said that celibate gay priests should be allowed to serve, and even met with other LGBTQ+ activists, reportedly telling one man that God made him gay and donating money to a group of transgender sex workers.

In January, he called laws criminalizing homosexuality “unjust” and insisted that God loves all his children just as they are. He also called on Catholic bishops to welcome LGBTQ+ people into the Church. In 2020, he also said that nations should recognize civil unions for same-sex couples because they “have a right to a family.” 

However, Pope Francis has also said that the Catholic Church can’t bless same-sex relationships because they’re a “sin,” that gay priests are being “fashionable” and should “leave the ministry,” that bishops should reject priesthood applicants suspected of being gay, that gay couples can’t be families, that U.S. clerks have a right to deny marriage certificates to same-sex couples, that parents should send their gay children to therapy, that trans people will “annihilate the concept of nature,” and that trans youth shouldn’t try and access gender-affirming medical care.