Priest Porn Scandal in Cincinnati Marred by Bishop's Falsehoods

Cincinnati's archbishop is under scrutiny after defending a priest who admitted to viewing porn on his computer.

On June 6, Fr. Martin Bachman published a letter admitting to having "viewed adult pornography and engaged with some video games of an inappropriate nature." He also admitted to falling "prey to a fraudulent scheme where I was scammed out of a significant amount of my personal money."

He went on to say that he had "not always responded to stress and anxiety" as he should, and is "seeking help" for his struggles. He mentioned the deaths of his mother and father within 30 days of each other.

The letter comes after a turbulent week at Our Lady of the Visitation parish in Green Township, where police investigated allegations of violent porn found on a parish computer.

The allegations stemmed from a complaint filed by Visitation parishioner Todd Zureick, who claims he saw the explicit images, which included thumbnail links to adult sites, including sites for rape porn. He reportedly received the images from a third party and shared them with the archdiocese in April.

Frustrated by the archdiocese's lack of response and lack of transparency, the allegations were made public, leading to a public response from the archbishop denying any wrongdoing on the part of the priest.

“It’s sad and embarrassing that the lack of institutional control and leadership at Visitation has led to this,” Zureick commented.

ARCHBISHOP CLAIMED PRIEST WAS INNOCENT

On May 30, Abp. Robert Casey issued a letter defending Bachman, scolding parishioners for engaging in "gossip" and spreading "rumors." 

“Several concerns have been brought to the attention of the archdiocese,” the letter stated. “These have been investigated, and no wrongdoing — either criminally or ecclesiastically — has been substantiated.” 

He continued, “Rumors which quickly spiral out of control have the potential to severely harm the good reputation which each of us should enjoy. Consequently, like gossip, the spreading of rumors is sinful, and we should all work to overcome this tendency of our fallen human nature.” 

He went on to state that there were no church investigations being conducted related to Bachman's conduct.

The letter was read out loud by the chancellor, Fr. Jason Williams, before Mass at Visitation parish on May 31, prompting parishioner Jake McQuaide to stand up and demand answers.

“We want to put these rumors to rest. Can you answer this for me?” McQuaide asked.

“This is not the time,” Williams answered.

McQuaide responded, “I’m sorry, sir; this is the time and the place. I will stand up. … Did the priest use our parish computer to look at pornography?"

Williams claimed the allegations were "false." Archdiocesan spokeswoman Jennifer Schack also denied that Bachman used a parish-owned computer to access explicit images.

Police on scene escorted McQuaide out of the church. The parish failed to explain why it had stationed multiple policemen in the church that day.

After Bachman published his letter admitting to wrongdoing, the archdiocese reversed course, issuing a letter stating, "We confirmed information this week about the nature of the sinful and disturbing online activity in which Father Bachman has participated that requires immediate attention," confirming that he would be going on immediate sabbatical.

Stella Maris Media contacted Abp. Casey requesting comment on why he claimed Fr. Bachman committed no wrongdoing, and why he dismissed the pornography allegations as "rumors." We have yet to receive a response.

BACHMAN LINKED TO SEXTORTION SCANDAL

Bachman's letter also alluded to a sexting and extortion scandal, in which he was scammed out of $58,000 of his personal money.

Bachman filed a police report in December 2023 claiming he met a woman through social media platform Telegram who convinced him to open an account on a cryptocurrency trading platform. Believing he was investing in gold, he deposited a total of $58,000 into the account.

When he tried to cash in, he realized he had fallen prey to a scam. The woman then allegedly sent him messages threatening to expose their sexually explicit conversations.

The case remains unsolved.

BISHOP'S CONNECTIONS TO SCANDAL-WRACKED CASA JESUS

Archbishop Robert Casey was ordained by Cdl. Joseph Bernardin in Chicago, Illinois, serving as an auxiliary bishop for seven years before being appointed in February this year to the Cincinnati archdiocese.

Casey refuses to discuss his time as associate director of Casa Jesus, a house of formation for Latin American seminarians in Chicago, shut down in 2016 after years of homosexual scandals.

Casa Jesus was founded by Bernardin in 1987 specifically to recruit seminarians from Latin America. Father John Lavers, who headed a top-level investigation into homosexual misconduct at Holy Apostles Seminary in Hartford, Connecticut in 2012, confirmed that Bernardin led the vanguard in recruiting and funneling homosexuals from Latin America to seminaries in Chicago, some who were farmed out to other U.S. seminaries or who went on to be ordained priests for the Chicago archdiocese.

GAY SUBCULTURE UNDER FR. CASEY

After nearly 30 years in operation, Casa Jesus was quietly shut down by Cdl. Blase Cupich in 2016, following years of scandal. This includes three seminarians expelled after being caught going to a gay bar, Casa Jesus graduates busted for public homosexual sex, and the rector himself, Octavio Munoz, arrested for male child porn on his laptop.

"When I was at Casa Jesus, I used to go to gay bars, bring my friends. They didn't say anything," said former seminarian Luis Stalin to NBC Chicago. Stalin said the rule for celibacy was often ignored.

Another Casa Jesus graduate, Fr. Diego Berrio, was arrested in 2018 for engaging in gay sex in public view in Miami, Florida. Berrio is a canon lawyer and served on the marriage tribunal for the Chicago archdiocese, and was pastor of San Juan Diego Mission in Arlington Heights — a parish linked to another Latin American priest busted for child porn in 2015.

The man arrested with Berrio, Fr. Edwin Giraldo Cortez, was an extern priest from Colombia assigned to St. Aloysius Parish in Chicago.

A priest who was a former seminarian at Casa Jesus in the early 2000s alongside Berrio confirmed that Berrio's homosexuality was an open secret at the time.

"The rector knew. Everybody knew," said the priest, who asked to remain anonymous out of concerns for retribution. 

The rector at the time was then-Father Robert Casey, now the archbishop of Cincinnati, who headed Casa Jesus from 1998–2003.

"He mingled with the bad people," the priest said of Berrio. "Father [Marco] Mercado was a good friend of his, a very good friend of his."

Mercado also came to Chicago via Casa Jesus, and was later suspended from ministry for homosexual misconduct. Cardinal Cupich removed him as pastor at Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Des Plaines in 2015 for an "inappropriate relationship with an adult man." 

Mercado eventually relocated to the San Antonio, Texas diocese under Abp. Gustavo Garcia-Siller (auxiliary bishop in Chicago before going to Texas).

OCTAVIO MUNOZ CHILD PORN SCANDAL

The worst scandal suffered by Casa Jesus, and which led to its closure, was the arrest and conviction of its rector, Octavio Munoz, in 2015 for child porn found on his computer. He helped lead the house of formation from 2009–15, during which he frequently traveled to Latin America to recruit seminarians for the Chicago archdiocese.

Cupich was criticized for dragging his feet on the Munoz investigation, failing to report him immediately to law enforcement, waiting a month before removing him from ministry, and sending him to the notorious St. Luke Institute in Maryland for treatment without informing law enforcement. (The former CEO of St. Luke, Fr. Edward J. Arsenault III, was arrested and jailed in 2014 for embezzling more than $200,000 from the diocese to use on homosexual partners.)

Cupich's actions drew a sharp rebuke from the judge overseeing Munoz's case. "Isn't there counseling in the state of Illinois that he could've been afforded?" asked Judge Maria Kuriakos Ciesil during a court hearing in 2016.

A 2016 bond proffer gave the background on the Munoz case:

On or about 07/07/2015, an employee of the Archdiocese of Chicago   was scheduled to show the new Casa Jesus Rector the apartment. The Archdiocesan employee and new Rector [Fr. Kevin Hays] knocked on the door to the apartment, and when there was no answer, the employee tried the handle but found the door locked. The employee used the master key to enter the apartment. ... The employee also observed a recliner chair with a TV tray and on the TV tray was an open computer, powered on, and it was running. The employee saw that the computer was a black Sony laptop, on which there was displayed a moving image on the screen that appeared to be running from a web cam. The image was of a young boy who had no pubic hair masturbating. Defendant was not present in the apartment at the time. Both the employee and the Rector left the apartment.

According to the court document, Fr. Kevin Hays never reported the child porn to the archdiocese (Hays later claimed "he did not see anything inappropriate on that computer"). It was the employee who contacted the Office for the Protection of Children and Youth.

The archdiocese did not contact law enforcement, instead waiting a week before hiring private investigators to look into the claims. Although the laptop was never recovered, forensic examination of other electronic equipment owned by Munoz revealed child erotica and homosexual teen porn. It was only then that investigators contacted Chicago police, which launched its own investigation on July 30.

Cupich did not remove Munoz from ministry until July 28.

According to Assistant State's Attorney Guy Lisuzzo, Munoz "was moved by the archdiocese to a location for ... (church) evaluation and business. The Chicago Police Department was not notified of that location."

An arrest warrant was issued in August 2016, while Munoz was still in Maryland. After waiving extradition, he was transferred to the custody of Chicago police and charged with felony possession of child porn.

TAINTED LEGACY UNDER CDL. BERNARDIN

In its nearly three decades in operation, about 260 men have come through Casa Jesus, with only 53 going on to become priests. How many have been removed for homosexual misconduct remains unclear.

According to NBC Chicago, the archdiocese spent about $30,000 annually on each seminarian recruited from Latin America. The seminarians would spend a year at the University of Illinois learning English while discerning a possible vocation.

"If you say you were going to have a house, you are going to have a car, a salary, of course, who doesn't want that life?" Stalin told NBC Chicago.

After Casa Jesus closed, four of the seminarians were transferred to Mundelein Seminary in Illinois.

Cardinal Bernardin was known to be one of the gay-friendliest bishops in the United States, fostering a homosexual subculture in his archdiocese during his 14 years as archbishop of Chicago.

Steven Cook sued Bernardin in 1993, accusing him of sexual assault. Cook died in 1995 from AIDS, Bernardin claiming that Cook retracted his accusation before he died. But renowned priest sex abuse expert Dr. Richard Sipe, who was the first to expose laicized predator Cdl. Theodore McCarrick, believed Cook was pressured to recant after being given a sweetheart deal by the Chicago archdiocese.

"It is a fact that Bernardin's accuser did not ever retract his allegations of abuse by anyone's account other than Bernardin's," Sipe said at a talk on Feb. 23, 2003 in Louisville, Kentucky, making clear the archdiocese's payoff to Cook was approximately $3 million.

"[S]everal priests who were associates of Bernardin prior to his move to Chicago revealed that they had 'partied' together; they talked about their visits to the Josephinum to socialize with seminarians," Sipe said.

Bernardin passed away in 1996 from pancreatic cancer. At the request of the archdiocese, the Windy City Gay Chorus sang at his public memorial service on Nov. 18.