On Monday, we learned that the National Police detained a priest from Toledo, Carlos Loriente, in Torremolinos with several doses of “tusi” or pink cocaine, a designer drug. Loriente was traveling in a rented car accompanied by several South Americans heading to what appears to have been a homosexual orgy in the gay epicenter of the Costa del Sol. In the vacation apartment where he was staying, the police found a precision scale, single doses, and sex toys.
So far, the news. But what is truly revealing is not just the detention. What is decisive is the identity of the detainee: Carlos Loriente, the same canon who was director of the San Ildefonso Theological Institute, vicar for the clergy, secretary of the pastoral visit, man of utmost trust of Archbishop Cerro… and, above all, the inquisitor who led the persecution against the priests of the Sacristía de la Vendeé.
The Persecutor of the Sacristía de la Vendeé
It is worth recalling the facts. A group of priests—including Father Francisco José Delgado—maintained a YouTube channel where they spoke freely and in a relaxed tone about ecclesiastical issues, literature, philosophy, theology, Sacred Scripture, or liturgy. It was not a heretical coven or a conspiracy: simply priests talking about priests’ matters, with greater or lesser accuracy.
One day, Father Calvo imprudently said that he prayed for the Pope to go to heaven as soon as possible. That phrase, unfortunate for some, an act of charity for others, was the perfect pretext for Loriente, who used it as a battering ram to launch a ruthless persecution against the entire group, and particularly against Father Delgado. Since then, Delgado and the other priests of the Sacristía de la Vendeé have borne an unjust stigma, victims of an inquisitorial process within the diocese itself, while the censor received power, positions, and honors.
The Beam and the Speck
And now the truth is breaking through with biblical crudeness. The YouTube inquisitor was, in reality, a man with a double life, an unrestrained homosexual, capable of getting into a car with four rent boys, traveling to Torremolinos for a gay orgy, and carrying luxury drugs and rubber penises with him. The one who was scandalized because some priests talked about current ecclesiastical affairs turns out to have moved in depraved environments that would make even Cardinal Cocopalmerio blush.
Our Lord had warned about it in the Gospel: it’s always the same ones, those who see the speck in their neighbor’s eye and not the beam in their own.
In Whose Hands Are We?
The question is inevitable: how could Archbishop Cerro place in the hands of this character the direction of the clergy, the Theological Institute, the pastoral visit, and the cathedral chapter? What did they know in Toledo before the public outbreak? Was there transparency or cover-up? And, even more so, is this an isolated case or the tip of the iceberg of a much larger problem: a virus of homosexuality in the clergy that no one dares to acknowledge?
Meanwhile, good priests—with their flaws and weaknesses, like everyone—have to endure the tyranny of those who in any other institution would not have advanced beyond interns. Curiously, it is those faithful priests, like Francisco José Delgado, who suffer internal persecutions, while the perverts, the depraved, and the corrupt rise to positions of command.