CONFESSION

Top Catholic Church Official Steps Down After Site Links Him to Grindr, Gay Bars

A Catholic substack used cellphone data to track Monsignor Jeffrey Burrill’s dating activities.

A top U.S. Catholic Church official resigned Tuesday after a Catholic blog used cellphone data that allegedly linked him to a gay dating app and trips to gay bars. Monsignor Jeffrey Burrill, the general secretary of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, allegedly used Grindr on a near-daily basis, including on work trips and at his USCCB-owned home. Burrill’s use of the app was revealed by The Pillar, a Catholic-centered Substack dedicated to investigative journalism. It said it used data app signals that were correlated to Burrill’s cellphone through a unique numerical identifier, as the data itself did not reveal names. All Catholic priests must take a vow of celibacy. A spokeswoman for Grindr said the data The Piller cited couldn’t be publicly accessed. “The alleged activities listed in that unattributed blog post are infeasible from a technical standpoint and incredibly unlikely to occur,” she said in a statement to The Washington Post. She also blasted The Pillar’s reporting as homophobic.