The Catholic Laity and Clergy for Renewal, a Denver-based non-profit, spent at least $4 million on secretive research to track clerics who used gay “hookup apps” and then outed them to bishops, according to an exposé by The Washington Post.
Renewal’s president, Jayd Henricks, confirmed the work in an op-ed on First Things, saying he felt “blessed” to help and had been “meticulous to ensure that we were doing things by the book.”
The data was not made public, but instead, shared with “proper authority of rectors and bishops to act prudentially.”
The work was reportedly behind the outing of Monsignor Jeffrey Burrill, who resigned in July 2021, over a report that he used Grindr and went to a gay bar and bathhouse.
Henricks admitted that the purpose was simple: to love the Church and help the Church be holy with every tool she could be given, including the “darker side of technology.”
The group analyzed “publicly available data, bought in the ordinary way” to show how “heterosexual and homosexual hookup apps were used” in ways that “were not isolated moral lapses.”
Renewal’s leader stressed that it was not about straight or gay priests and seminarians, but instead behavior that harms everyone involved and is a witness against the ministry of the Church.
Grindr said it was “infuriated by the actions of these anti-LGBTQ vigilantes.” The app stopped sharing location information in early 2020 and now only shares limited information with ad partners.
OkCupid owner Match Group and Perry Street Software, which owns Jack’d and Scruff, have also removed third-party ad networks.
»Colorado Catholic group tracks clerics who use gay “hookup apps”«
↯↯↯Read More On The Topic On TDPel Media ↯↯↯