Paul E. Lubienecki, 62, an adjunct professor at Christ the King Seminary in East Aurora, NY was arrested on February 12, 2020, on two felony cyberstalking charges. He faces up to five years in prison if convicted.
Agents from the FBI’s Buffalo, NY field office arrested Lubienecki in connection to a death threat made against 7 Eyewitness News investigative reporter Charlie Specht. Specht has won state and national awards for his investigations of the Diocese of Buffalo. In the last six months Specht and his wife had received over 50 threatening calls from an unknown individual. 
The voicemails began in August 2019, just as the 7 Eyewitness News I-Team reported on scandals at Christ the King Seminary, where multiple seminarians quit the seminary because of alleged abuse and corruption in the diocese. The messages referenced members of Specht’s family and urged Specht to stop his reporting on the diocese. “You’re still a bad Catholic and a horrible reporter,” one voicemail warned. “I hope to God I don’t see you walking around.”
On December 4, 2019, the day Specht reported on Bishop Malone’s resignation he received this message: “Oh, you must be so happy. You destroyed the Diocese of Buffalo and Bishop Malone. Oh, you must be so proud. You’re a piece of shit, you are really a piece of shit… You must be so proud of how you destroyed everything. I’m gonna destroy your career.”
On February 4, 2020, a few hours after the diocese announced the closure of Christ the King Specht gave a live report from the seminary. Moments later, a caller left a voicemail. “You must be so happy the seminary’s closing. You’re a bad person. I know where you live…I’m gonna find you. I’m gonna kill you.”
Lubienecki had nothing to say as he left the courthouse after his arraignment. “Do you have anything to say about the cyberstalking charge?” asked 7 Eyewitness News senior reporter Eileen Buckley. “Why would you make a threat to somebody, especially to kill them. Isn’t that against the teaching of the catholic faith?” questioned Buckley.
Censor Librorum Notes: No wonder the Church is a mess with a dumb-ass like that teaching ethics at a seminary.
“Remember? The library of the bishop’s house? I hesitated at first in saying that I trully (sic) love you. What I have been feeling for you is something totally new and different from all the other feelings of love I have experienced. Now, I have no hesitations in saying that I love you (in private and in public) and I will always love you more than yesterday. I am afraid,” he continued, “that all that you know about me may compromise your freedom to love or to leave…At this point I cannot imagine my life without you. But I can’t bear the thought of you being entrapped either,” he concluded. “So my beloved Matthew, I hope and pray that you are ‘my other ½ that walks life’s journey with me.” The writer was worried that Matthew would feel “entrapped” by him because he held an important post in the diocese and because he had revealed painful stories about being hurt by other men.
In a staff meeting recorded by Rev. Biernat, Bishop Malone griped, “It sounds like a soap opera. It sounds like a love triangle. And you know what the media can do with that. With all else that’s going on in the diocese and all the…attacks on my credibility…and that I’ve known that something’s going on here that shouldn’t be and I let it go…I mean this is a disaster.” 
Bishop Malone went on to explain Bojanowski’s relationship with the Rev. Jeffrey Nowak. The two had been friends and that Nowak mentored Bojanowski as he discerned a vocation to priesthood. After Bojanowski met Biernat, he began spending time with him. “Matthew’s relationship with Nowak cooled you might say, and this was disturbing to Nowak,” Bishop Malone explained. “Fr. Nowak secretly photographed the letter he found in Matthew’s apartment in Boston, when he was there.” 
In a complaint filed with Bishop Malone’s office in November 2018, Bojanowski said Rev. Nowak began sexually pursuing him based on information he told the priest in the confessional. Bojanowski said when he turned down Nowak’s advances, the priest became vindictive and jealous of his friendship with Rev. Biernat, Bishop Malone’s secretary. 
Bishop Malone was afraid of blackmail. Rev. Biernat told the bishop that he was aware that “there’s a lot of stuff Jeff has,” including information about a prominent priest who was allegedly having an affair. “Jeff is dangerous,” Malone said.
Rev. Biernat had his own experience with a priestly predator in the Buffalo diocese. In 2003, Biernat left Poland to attend Buffalo’s Christ the King Seminary. Once enrolled, was assigned to live with Rev. Art Smith at St. Thomas Aquinas Church in South Buffalo. Shortly after he arrived, Rev. Smith made his move. “Art Smith assaulted me sexually,” Biernat said. “At that time I knew enough English to order (a) latte at Starbucks, not to report the sexual assault,” he said. “You know, they don’t teach you these words in English second language classes.”
A document sent by Bishop Malone to the Vatican, and obtained by a local Buffalo TV station, confirmed Rev. Biernat’s account. “When Father Art was pastor in one of our city’s parishes, a seminarian noted that Father Art seemed to ‘groom’ him to get his affection. One night the seminarian recounted an incident where Father Art came to his room, came into his bed, and began to touch his genitalia.”
Rev. Smith is currently on administrative leave while a child sex abuse claim against him is decided by the Vatican. When contacted by reporters, he denied he assaulted Biernat. “That’s not true at all,” said Smith. “I know exactly what he’s talking about. All I will say is, we had a Christmas party, he had a little too much to drink, I admit I had a little too much to drink, and I told him I liked him more than he would ever know. And that was the end of it. It was nothing more.” 
Seminarian Biernat was in for a bigger shock than having his cock and balls drunkenly fondled. When he reported the incident to Auxiliary Bishop Edward W. Grosz, he received this chilling response: “He said it was my fault because I didn’t lock the door. And was Father Art drunk, because if he was maybe he did not know what he was doing? And then he said, ‘Ryszard, if you don’t stop talking about this you will not become a priest. You understand me? You understand me?”
The soap opera continues. Now the diocese has cancelled all its credit cards, probably as a prelude to declaring bankruptcy. It is battling over 160 sex abuse lawsuits, and under investigation by the state attorney general’s office.
Bishop Malone’s fate is in the hands of Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York and the Vatican. Undoubtedly Dolan’s antennae are quivering trying to find a signal on what to do. He has a finely tuned political sense. Gay priests do have loose networks, and the New York diocese has its own dirty underwear Dolan would like to avoid airing in the New York Post or feature article in the Times. “Cardinal Dolan has been following the situation in Buffalo very carefully,” said Joseph Zwilling, communication director for the New York archdiocese. “He is aware of his responsibilities under Vos estis lux mundi, he has been consulting extensively both with individuals in Buffalo, including Bishop Malone, clergy and laity.” No timetable on any actions. Mum’s the word.
Bishop Malone continues to defend his handling of the love triangle as “a very complex, convoluted matter.” In addition to the love triangle, he is also battling fallout from the pornographic pizza party involving Hamburg, New York pastors and Christ the King seminarians in April 2019. Read juicy details here and here. So far, his scandal management isn’t working as hoped.
The compassionless Auxiliary Bishop Edward W. Grosz still serves the diocese. Bishop Grosz was named in a string of sex abuse cover ups including one involving a six-year-old boy. The child was pressured to perform oral sex on a priest. A seminarian found the boy with semen on his hair, hand and shirt. He reported the abuse to Bishop Edward Head and Bishop Grosz. He heard no response until months later, when he said he talked to Father Peter Popadick, the longtime secretary to Bishop Head. “He stated something to the effect that…my letter wasn’t well-appreciated,” the seminarian said. “It wasn’t well taken.”
Rev. Ryszard Biernat and the Rev. Jeffrey Nowak are both on leave. The Erie County District Attorney has opened an investigation into Nowak’s sexual harassment of Matthew Bojanowski. Matthew Bojanowski withdrew from Christ the King Seminary at the end of August 2019.
What do the ordinary Catholics of Buffalo who are watching this soap opera unfold think and feel? Will they wonder about what every priest on the altar has he been doing before consecrating the body of Christ? What sexcapades, drunken parties and hush money is my weekly offering going to support? Who ARE these men I used to respect? Do I have enough gladness and hope left to continue being here?
I used to feel sympathetic and supportive of gay priests, but I don’t anymore. One bunch is screwing around like they live in the world’s biggest gay bar. The other bunch goes on with their lives and pretends that this behavior doesn’t involve them. Yes, it does. How can they write homilies with atrocities happening right in the next room? I would ask them to reflect on how to live a holy life with compromised morals.
In many ways, the most disgust is reserved for senior churchmen—straight and gay. In Buffalo, they were neither good shepherds nor asset managers. Why isn’t Pope Francis calling them to Rome and publicly knocking their mitres off their heads? THAT would make for an Emmy-award-winning show!
