Is there a place in the Catholic Church for gay priests?
When I was seventeen I made an appointment with my pastor. I sat down on the cracked leather sofa in his office and though I had never met him before, explained that I was interested in becoming a priest.
I had just experienced my first conversion in between junior and senior year of high school. I had been attending my parish’s youth group on Sunday nights more or less as punishment for an all-night escapade that left my folks terrified and my mother offered an upcoming summer retreat as challenge. If I went, I could stop going to the youth group on Sunday nights if I wanted. So without knowing a soul, I boarded a bus for central Louisiana and the five thousand other high schoolers that would attend that Steubenville conference.
Low and behold, my mom was right. I was blown away by the music and the passion and the spectacle of it all was convinced God was calling me. There was a Catholic version of an altar call and if I walked I sprinted when they invited us to come down and rededicate our lives to Christ. And when I returned home, my instinct with the newfound zeal was to don the collar.
There’s just one problem, I told my pastor, I’m gay.
I hadn’t told many people this before and though I had no idea what becoming a priest really meant, I had a gut feeling it would be an issue.
“Well,” Monsignor smiled at me behind his grey scruff as he pulled a cigar from his pocket and placed a gnawed on end into the side of his mouth. “The bigger issue is that if you become a priest, you can only have one of these a day.” He laughed loudly and told me he had many friends who were priests who were gay and they were fine men. Good men. It wouldn’t be an issue at all.
It would be another few years before I ended up in the seminary, but I never would have had the courage to join if I hadn’t gotten that off my chest first.
These days it’s plenty common to blame much of the crisis in the Catholic Church on gay priests. The scientific data says exactly the opposite - that there is no such link - but that doesn’t stop the scapegoating or general gay bashing that happens in the Church.
The Catholic Church’s hierarchy now needs to decide if, like my old pastor, it views its celibate, gay priests as a blessing or if it still views them as an embarrassment. If the Church decides to double down on its bigotry, expect to lose far more than just its gay sons and daughters. A whole generation of Catholics will leave with them.
When Monsignor passed away, my old parish put up a bronze statue of him out front, grinning and holding a cigar in his hand. Any time I’m in town and pass by, I remember it is most likely his kindness towards me so many years ago that has kept me Catholic, instilling in me from the moment of my conversion the knowledge that the real Church loves me and welcomes me as I am.