Seven years later, he climbed up into his seminary dorm window and dangled one leg over the edge. The closet of the Roman Catholic Church hinges on an impossible contradiction. The stories of gay priests are unspoken, veiled from the outside world, known only to one another, if they are known at all. Fewer than about 10 priests in the United States have dared to come out publicly. But gay men probably make up at least 30 to 40 percent of the American Catholic clergy, according to dozens of estimates from gay priests themselves and researchers.
Some priests say the number is closer to 75 percent. One priest in Wisconsin said he assumed every priest was gay unless he knows for a fact he is not. A priest in Florida put it this way: Two dozen gay priests and seminarians from 13 states shared intimate details of their lives in the Catholic closet with The New York Times over the past two months.
They were interviewed in their churches before Mass, from art museums on the weekend, in their apartments decorated with rainbow neon lights and between classes at seminary. Some agreed to be photographed if their identities were concealed. Almost all of them required strict confidentiality to speak without fear of retribution from their bishops or superiors. A few had been expressly forbidden to come out or even to speak about homosexuality. Most are in active ministry, and could lose more than their jobs if they are outed.
He could lose all three if his bishop finds his sexuality disqualifying, even if he is faithful to his vows of celibacy. The environment for gay priests has grown only more dangerous. The fall of Theodore E. Studies repeatedly find there to be no connection between being gay and abusing children.
Even Pope Francis has grown more critical in recent months. This week, Pope Francis will host a much-anticipated summit on sex abuse with bishops from around the world. The debate promises to be not only about holding bishops accountable but also about homosexuality itself.
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It may sound kind of strange. I feel like, what I struggle with, I hope I can help other Catholics not lose their faith. Just a few years ago, this shift was almost unimaginable. A cautious few priests stepped through. But if the closet door cracked, the sex abuse crisis now threatens to slam it shut. Widespread scapegoating has driven many priests deeper into the closet. It is a cage. Even before a priest may know he is gay, he knows the closet. The code is taught early, often in seminary. Numquam duo, semper tres , the warning goes. Never two, always three.
Move in trios, never as a couple. No going on walks alone together, no going to the movies in a pair. The higher-ups warned for years: With whom do you have a relationship that would be a healthy human relationship? Today, training for the priesthood in the United States usually starts in or after college. But until about , the church often recruited boys to start in ninth grade — teenagers still in the throes of puberty. Priests cannot marry, so sexuality from the start was about abstinence, and obedience. There were years that I carried this secret.
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My prayer was not that, would God change me. It was that I would die before anyone found out. I could be a truck driver like my dad. But I was gay, so the only other thing left was, I could be a priest. The sexual revolution happening outside seminary walls might as well have happened on the moon, and national milestones in the fight for gay rights, like the Stonewall riots, on Mars.
One priest in a rural diocese said the rules reminded him of how his elementary school forced left-handed students to write with their right hand. Priests in America tend to come out to themselves at a much later age than the national average for gay men, Many gay priests spoke of being pulled between denial and confusion, finally coming out to themselves in their 30s or 40s. Father Greiten was 24 when he realized he was gay and considered jumping from his dorm window.
He did not jump, but confided his despair in a classmate. His friend came out himself. It was a revelation: There were other people studying to be priests who were gay. It was just that no one talked about it. He reached out to a former seminary professor who he thought might also be a gay man.
He intervened, and came out to them. He lost three friends that night. That is a reason many of the men are out to only a few close friends. The grapevine has taught them which priests in their diocese are gay, whom to trust and whom to fear. Before then, I was out to certain classmates. I realized this is not a me issue. This is a human rights issue. But there is still way too much homophobia in the church.
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All priests must wrestle with their vows of celibacy, and the few priests who are publicly out make clear they are chaste. Still, many priests said they had had sex with other men to explore their sexual identity. Some have watched pornography to see what it is like for two men to have sex.
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They ultimately found more anguish than pleasure. Citing cases in which NAMBLA members were convicted of sexual offenses against children, Larry Frisoli, the attorney representing the Curleys, said the organization is a "training ground" for adults who wish to seduce children, in which men exchange strategies to find and groom child sex partners. John Reinstein, the director of the ACLU Massachusetts, said although NAMBLA "may extol conduct which is currently illegal", there was nothing on its website that "advocated or incited the commission of any illegal acts, including murder or rape".
The lawsuit was dropped in April after a judge ruled that a key witness was not competent to testify. Some gay rights organizations, burdened by accusations of child recruitment and child abuse, had abandoned the radicalism of their early years and had "retreat[ed] from the idea of a more inclusive politics", [29] choosing instead to appeal to the mainstream.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The capital M and lowercase b symbolize a man and a boy. New York City and San Francisco. Main article: Curley v. Sexuality portal Politics portal Criminal justice portal. Gay histories and cultures: Retrieved Holmes Current perspectives on sex crimes. Accounting for Deviance". Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare. Archived from the original on July Retrieved 3 August Retrieved March 30, Accessed Social Science, Politics and the Rind et al.
“You can be taught to act straight in order to survive.”
The American Psychologist. Archived from the original pdf on Queer Resources Directory. January 28, Retrieved August 5, Archived from the original on June 6, Retrieved September 19, We Raise Our Voices. Northeastern University. Haggerty p.
Moral Panic: Yale University Press. The Advocate Haggerty, p. Associated Press.