Catholic Group Spent Millions To Trap Priests On Grindr

The Washington Post reports:

A group of conservative Colorado Catholics has spent millions of dollars to buy mobile app tracking data that identified priests who used gay dating and hookup apps and then shared it with bishops around the country. The secretive effort was the work of a Denver nonprofit called Catholic Laity and Clergy for Renewal, whose trustees are philanthropists Mark Bauman, John Martin and Tim Reichert.

The use of data is emblematic of a new surveillance frontier in which private individuals can potentially track other Americans’ locations and activities using commercially available information. No U.S. data privacy laws prohibit the sale of this data. Some of the men who are part of the Renewal project were also involved in the July 2021 outing of a prominent priest, Monsignor Jeffrey Burrill.

Read the full article. There’s much more.

A group of conservative Colorado Catholics has spent millions of dollars to buy mobile app tracking data that identified priests who used gay dating and hookup apps and then shared it with bishops around the country. https://t.co/Jte4iGuHYj

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) March 9, 2023

The secretive effort was the work of a Denver nonprofit called Catholic Laity and Clergy for Renewal, according to public records, an audio recording of the nonprofit’s president discussing its mission and other documents. https://t.co/Jte4iGuHYj

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) March 9, 2023