Gay prits: Breakg the silence - CBS News

Contents:

• ‘IT IS NOT A CLOSET. IT IS A CAGE.’ GAY CATHOLIC PRITS SPEAK OUT
• OPENLY GAY CATHOLIC PRIT DISCS POPE FRANCIS' APPEAL FOR LGBTQ PROTECTNS
• GAY FORMER PRIT: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 'IS A SICK STUTN'
• GAY CATHOLIC PRIT ON SAME-SEX MARRIAGE
• GAY PRITS: BREAKG THE SILENCE

‘IT IS NOT A CLOSET. IT IS A CAGE.’ GAY CATHOLIC PRITS SPEAK OUT

Not one uttered the word “gay. “I really am gay, ” Father Green, now a prit near Milwkee, remembered tellg himself for the first time. For years, church lears have driven gay ngregants away shame and sisted that “homosexual tennci” are “disorred.

” And yet, thoands of the church’s prits are stori of gay prits are unspoken, veiled om the outsi world, known only to one another, if they are known at than about 10 prits the Uned Stat have dared to e out publicly. But gay men probably make up at least 30 to 40 percent of the Amerin Catholic clergy, acrdg to dozens of timat om gay prits themselv and rearchers.

OPENLY GAY CATHOLIC PRIT DISCS POPE FRANCIS' APPEAL FOR LGBTQ PROTECTNS

One prit Wisns said he assumed every prit was gay unls he knows for a fact he is not. A prit Florida put this way: “A third are gay, a third are straight and a third don’t know what the hell they are. ”Two dozen gay prits and semarians om 13 stat shared timate tails of their liv the Catholic closet wh The New York Tim over the past two months.

GAY FORMER PRIT: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH 'IS A SICK STUTN'

A few had been exprsly forbidn to e out or even to speak about homosexualy. He uld lose all three if his bishop fds his sexualy disqualifyg, even if he is fahful to his vows of environment for gay prits has grown only more dangero.

McCarrick, the once-powerful rdal who was ocked last week for sexual abe of boys and young men, has flamed accatns that homosexualy is to blame for the church’s rurgent abe crisis. Studi repeatedly fd there to be no nnectn between beg gay and abg children. And yet proment bishops have sgled out gay prits as the root of the problem, and right-wg media anizatns attack what they have lled the church’s “homosexual subculture, ” “lavenr mafia, ” or “gay bal.

He has lled homosexualy “fashnable, ” remend that men wh “this ep-seated tenncy” not be accepted for mistry and admonished gay prits to be “perfectly rponsible, tryg to never create sndal. The bate promis to be not only about holdg bishops acuntable but also about homosexualy “It really never was my shame.

GAY CATHOLIC PRIT ON SAME-SEX MARRIAGE

“The vast majory of gay prits are not safe, ” said Father Bob Bsen, a prit Park Cy, Utah, who was outed about 12 years ago after he held Mass for the L. ”Even before a prit may know he is gay, he knows the closet. ”“You uldn’t have a particular iendship wh a man, bee you might end up beg homosexual, ” explaed a prit, who once nicknamed his iends “the P.

I entered the semary at 18, a young, enthiastic, whe, male virg who don’t know anythg, let alone straight or gay. But I was gay, so the only other thg left was, I uld be a prit. ”The sexual revolutn happeng outsi semary walls might as well have happened on the moon, and natnal ton the fight for gay rights, like the Stonewall rts, on prit a ral dce said the l remd him of how his elementary school forced left-hand stunts to wre wh their right hand.

”Prits Ameri tend to e out to themselv at a much later age than the natnal average for gay men, 15. Many gay prits spoke of beg pulled between nial and nfn, fally g out to themselv their 30s or Green was 24 when he realized he was gay and nsired jumpg om his dorm wdow. It was a revelatn: There were other people studyg to be prits who were gay.

GAY PRITS: BREAKG THE SILENCE

It was jt that no one talked about reached out to a former semary profsor who he thought might also be a gay man.

“There will be a time your life when you will look back on this and you’re gog to jt love yourself for beg gay, ” Father Green remembered this man tellg him. ”One prit, whose parish has no ia he is gay, remembered a backyard cktail party a few years ago where fellow prits were sayg “vile” thgs about a gay bishop.

“I broke the by announcg to them that I was gay, ” he said.