The Bishop of Worcester, Massachusetts, issued on Friday a ban on the use of so-called hookup apps for all diocesan clergy. Bishop Robert McManus promulgated the new diocesan penal law March 24, warning that use of hookup app technology will lead to sanctions for priests and deacons in the Massachusetts diocese. The law creates two specific offenses which can be committed by clerics. The Worcester law follows a similar policy issued in the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois, in May Subscribe now.
Pope Francis has in recent years urged bishop to create and apply local penal laws for clergy aimed at addressing moral issues. In , a senior canon lawyer and adjunct secretary to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Archbishop Charles Scicluna, told U. Monsignor Jeff Burrill resigned in July from his position as general secretary of the U.
The use of hookup apps by clerics has come under repeated scrutiny in recent years, both as failures of clerical continence with and among consenting adults, but also because of the risks to minors posed by platforms such as Grindr, an app designed to facilitate anonymous sexual encounters between men. Apps like Grindr have been repeatedly flagged in academic studies and by child protection authorities like the National Center on Sexual Exploitation as lacking basic age verification checks to prevent minors accessing the platforms.
In December , Pope Francis amended the canonical norms on sexual abuse to make it clear that clerics who sexually abuse minors can be canonically prosecuted even when they say they were not aware that a person with whom they had sexual contact was a minor. Earlier this month, a deacon of the Diocese of Brooklyn, New York, was sentenced to 16 years in prison after he admitted to prosecutors that he engaged in sexual acts with minors he met on the hookup app Grindr.
In , South Carolina priest Fr. Raymond Flores was arrested after exchanging sexually inappropriate photos with a minor. But because the priest believed the minor was actually 18, he was not charged with a crime. In , a priest in the Diocese of Lansing had his faculties removed after a report that he engaged in sexual activity with a year-old boy he had met on the hookup app Grindr.
