Monsignor Jeffrey Burrill, the top administrator of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), has resigned after cellphone data revealed that he had frequently been attending gay bars and using the queer dating app Grindr, The Washington Post reports.
What Burrill has chosen to do with his private life might not have been a national story — if not for his recent, high-profile support for denying Pres. Joe Biden holy communion over the president’s support for abortion rights.
In June, the USCCB, of which Burrill was the general secretary, approved a measure that could prohibit Biden, a devout Catholic and the country’s second-ever Catholic POTUS, from receiving the Eucharist. Burrill himself was a strong advocate for the measure.
The allegations against Burrill were put forward by Catholic news site the Pillar, which alleges to have accessed the priest’s cellphone data, where it claims to have found evidence of his activity in both virtual and physical gay forums.
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“According to commercially available records of app signal data obtained by The Pillar, a mobile device correlated to Burrill emitted app data signals from the location-based hookup app Grindr on a near-daily basis during parts of 2018, 2019, and 2020 — at both his USCCB office and his USCCB-owned residence, as well as during USCCB meetings and events in other cities,” the Pillar reported. “Data app signals suggest he was at the same time engaged in serial and illicit sexual activity.”
The Wisconsin-based priest’s alleged “activity” included attending a “gay bathhouse” in Las Vegas.
“On Monday, we became aware of impending media reports alleging possible improper behavior by Msgr. Burrill,” Archbishop José Gomez of Los Angeles wrote in a Tuesday memo obtained by the National Catholic Reporter. “What was shared with us did not include allegations of misconduct with minors. However, in order to avoid becoming a distraction to the operations and ongoing work of the Conference, Monsignor has resigned effective immediately.” The
USCCB sent The Post the following statement in response to a request for comment: “On Monday, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops became aware of impending media reports alleging possible improper behavior by its general secretary, Monsignor Jeffrey Burrill. What was shared with us did not include allegations of misconduct with minors. However, in order to avoid becoming a distraction to the operations and ongoing work of the Conference, Monsignor Burrill has resigned, effective immediately. The Conference takes all allegations of misconduct seriously and will pursue all appropriate steps to address them.”
