Gregory personally invited pro-gay Vatican adviser Fr. James Martin to give a speech titled “Showing Welcome and Respect in Our Parishes to LGBT Catholics” at both St. Thomas More Parish and at Atlanta’s Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. Martin described Gregory as “thoughtful, progressive and open-minded,” and noted his LGBT outreach.
Gregory, as president of the USCCB in 2004, proclaimed that after two years of relentless investigations into priests who sexually abused children and the bishops who protected them, “the scandal is history.“
Gregory and McCarrick helped exempt bishops from the Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People.
Gregory allowed Frank Keating, president of the National Review Board (the lay board created by Gregory in 2002 to help address the abuse crisis), to be forced out because he butted-heads with uncooperative bishops like Roger Mahony.
Gregory, together with Theodore McCarrick, concealed the contents of a 2003 letter from Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger advising the US Bishops that ministers of Holy Communion must refuse to distribute it to pro-abortion politicians.
Gregory helped Chicago’s Cardinal Blaise Cupich launch high-level talks on Amoris Laetitia, the papal document that sparked calls for a change to Church discipline on marriage.