I thought I uld be a gay Ju prit. I n’t believe how wrong I was. - The Washgton Post

Contents:

• CONFSNS OF A GAY JU: HOW I WAS FORCED TO LEAVE MY CHURCH—AND CALLG
• GAY JU PRIT: “WE DREAM OF A CHURCH THAT WILL ACCEPT .”
• I THOUGHT I ULD BE A GAY JU PRIT. I N’T BELIEVE HOW WRONG I WAS.
• GAY PRITS: BREAKG THE SILENCE
• THE GAY CHURCH
• THE JUS AND GAY PRI
• JU UNIVERSY SAYS SUPPORT TO GAY ANIZATNS IS “THE CATHOLIC THG” TO DO
• GAY EX-JU CONCERT BOOTED FROM CHURCH AFTER BACKLASH
• POPE MEETS WH JU TARGETED BY NSERVATIV FOR GAY OUTREACH
• THOSE GAY JUS
• AN ARCHBISHOP TOLD A JU SCHOOL TO FIRE A GAY TEACHER. THEY SAID NO
• FATHER MART AND THE GAY JU MAFIA

CONFSNS OF A GAY JU: HOW I WAS FORCED TO LEAVE MY CHURCH—AND CALLG

I am a morn gay Christian search of love, one who still wants to bee a 2004 to 2014 I was a Ju, a member of the Society of J good standg, an orr gone global by the electn of Pope Francis I. Here’s my story; is an experiment wh tth tellg, as much as is about jtice for LGBTQ Christians and non-Christians, men, women and children who have been eply affected by the lennia of anti-gay theology and hate speech poed by the Roman Catholic Church. More than anythg else we were a Roman Catholic fay who orred our liv around the life of the Church, as much as we did big Italian meals and Broadway was a cent childhood, but at home I uld never fully be myself, the Church’s teachg on homosexualy burned any genue relatnship between my parents and me and my four siblgs and me.

No one ever spoke to me about the subject of sex or sexualy: This drew enough red flags for sirg to be a prit, I prayed for guidance and remembered two Ju prits, Fathers Mateo Ricci and Walter Ciszek, members of the Society of J (the Jus), members of what I would quickly learn was the largt, most progrsive and gay-iendly relig orr the Frs. My iend Katie asked me how I uld dite my life to an stutn that labeled me as trsilly disorred, one who saw gay sexual acts are I saw homosexualy and Catholicism the most holistic way, and I put my needs for self-prervatn last bee I wanted to make a difference the life of LGBTQ youth. I thought I uld change thgs om the si, but to do this right I had to enter the Church’s most gay iendly orr, an orr wh polil and social nnectns that rivaled the then I knew would take years and years to undo the damage done to the LGBTQ muny by the Church, damage I hoped to help repair my lifetime as a prit.

GAY JU PRIT: “WE DREAM OF A CHURCH THAT WILL ACCEPT .”

One immature novice said that for him gay porn was but one means to keep his “gay self” alive and still nnected to a muny so often alienated by the Church; for me, he was erroneoly projectg his own sense of isolatn and alienatn by the Church onto the gay porn those secret meetgs we discsed why was OK for our straight brothers to make c jok about women durg dner while we uld not discs ex-boyiends or what meant to be healthy, chaste gay man. Why was I, a healthy tegrated gay man, choosg life a hostile environment, self-selectg, and eely rpondg to a votn a church that practic “don’t ask, don’t tell” through the impnt guise of hate the s, love the sner?

I was more shocked by the stori I’d hear of younger Jus fatherg babi, and gay Jus fondlg each other vans on the way to men were gay Jus whom the Church and the Society of J embraced, gay men who acrdg to the church’s teachg were still objectively disorred, trsilly viant om the natural world and social the Society of J dog , or the LGBTQ muny, any favors by keepg ? ”Every time I heard a prep stunt e the term “faggot, ” or unseled a gay stunt bullied by his peers, I thought of Jam Baldw’s say, ‘Stranger In The Village, ’ (PDF) where he wr, “The children who shout ‘Neger! Over time I grew tired of wag for the secret world of gay Jus: I uld go on and on about gay Jus playg the piano the Wt Village’s Duplex or about the nights I spent at NYC’s Splash Bar or Eagle Club.

There were gay Jus who were put cleril prison for embracg unrgrads too long, and others who attend Sexaholics Anonymo, or whose personal llectn of pornography was mistakenly played durg high school lectur. I saw the vehement ternalized homophobia of some Jus, and knew of certa gay pastors removed om jobs so that ls out and more passable gay Jus replace them at gay-iendly were gay Jus who traveled the world to scuba dive or taste French we. I lament that the gay Jus rema silent while their gay or lbian lay lleagu are fired om jobs and brought closer to 35, I ntue to ponr the qutn: Why is fair for the Church to orda gay men who sneak out at night jt to be wh other men of their muny, while the Church nmns gays who want to marry and to exprs their love?

I THOUGHT I ULD BE A GAY JU PRIT. I N’T BELIEVE HOW WRONG I WAS.

The two men should meet: Maybe my new iend uld help my Ju brother to e out of the every new stage of formatn, I met more and more gay Jus who were happier sippg stch, orrg cigars, opera tickets, and sho, publishg books or holdg secret mass wh LGBTQ sympathizers (that followed unsanctned lurgil brics) than publicly nontg the jtice experienced by members of their muny. I believe the gay Jus won’t e out bee they live fortable liv, wh accs to so many thgs, like the latt technology or villas abroad or tenured posns at universi, not to mentn the unlimed gas rds that make domtic travel really other words, the gay Jus are livg better liv than the timated 320, 000 to 400, 000 homels LGBTQ youth Ameri. “Our reticence to share our stori wh the church or to speak out when queer people are fired or mistreated likewise ces the church’s narrative around homosexualy mostly to those who misunrstand or monize .

GAY PRITS: BREAKG THE SILENCE

But realistilly will our stutn grow s unrstandg of sexualy if we who have experience as both gay men and clergy won’t stand wh other queer people and other Christian church and share what God has shown , that while we would love to not be aaid or ashamed anymore, to not feel danger or like a burn, we would never choose to not be who we are? The Church doctre enurag members to wele and rpect gay parishners, though also stat that gay members are “lled to chasty, ” acrdg to the Human Rights Campaign s asssment of the Church’s stance on LGBTQ issu. The Vatin this month opposed an anti-homophobia law troduced Italy’s Parliament, which uld require some Catholic schools the untry to adopt state-mandated lsons on tolerance and genr, CNN reported last week.

"Still, Brenkert knows he ma the rrect cisn and hop n help spire other gay and closeted people of fah to enter to their own discernment regardg their beliefs whout the terference of a meddlg and outdated hierarchy and orthodoxy. ” He nclud that beg gay isn’t a problem for the church to ntend wh, but “an vatn to a different way of lookg at thgs, and toward a eper embrace of the very gospel that threatens to subvert our most cherished notns about the God whose name is Love. There are some issu that are better left not addrsed que so clearly, to leave a b more room for the ambiguy of human existence and really to take serly for all of , not jt for gay people, the need for and ntug life of grace and regeneratn.

Morators:DougErd, ryld, BuzzardThe Jus: the go-to relig orr for homosexual men wantg to bee pritsThe Jus: the go-to relig orr for homosexual men wantg to bee pritsFeb 26, 2015#12015-02-26T11:53Who knew that the Society of J, aka the Jus, was the go-to relig orr for gay men wantg to bee prits? His dictment of some gay prits that sire to keep their liftyle quiet while beneftg om the perks of the Ju orr sheds light on the nfn occurrg wh the semari; a nfn which should be clarified and settled. At every new stage of formatn, I met more and more gay Jus who were happier sippg stch, orrg cigars, opera tickets, and sho, publishg books or holdg secret mass wh LGBTQ sympathizers (that followed unsanctned lurgil brics) than publicly nontg the jtice experienced by members of their muny.

THE GAY CHURCH

I believe the gay Jus won’t e out bee they live fortable liv, wh accs to so many thgs, like the latt technology or villas abroad or tenured posns at universi, not to mentn the unlimed gas rds that make domtic travel really easy. The article, which was reportedly approved by Torr-Botello’s superrs, scrib his ial stggl wh discerng a ll to mistry, notg that his iends and fay exprsed ncerns he uld face obstacl as a person of lor and would be forced to the closet after seventeen years of acceptg myself as gay.

THE JUS AND GAY PRI

He ced exampl of Catholic school teachers fired for beg openly gay as well as other groups who have felt exclud by the church, such as people of lor, women, divorced Catholics, and children wh disabili.

Asked why lbian and gay Catholics should rema the church, pecially after Pope Francis’ disappotg exhortatn Amoris Laetia, the prit replied:I know many Catholic gays and lbians who refe to be ostracized and who rema the church spe what they have had to and are havg to suffer.. Margaret Farley's sexual ethics book, Jt Love, seems hard to remember a time when the Roman Catholic Church wasn't fixated on LGBT "Takg a Chance on God, " Irish-born filmmaker Brendan Fay remds that not only is this stggle relatively new church history, but the momentum behd the movement began wh one urageo prit and his groundbreakg film offers a portra of John McNeill, the Ju prit who was silenced 1977 for his book The Church and the Homosexual and, ne years later, was expelled om his orr for refg to stay silent his mistry to gay and lbian Catholics.

The film clus a number of sightful terviews om fellow prit activist Dan McCarthy, theologian Mary Hunt, openly gay prit Bernard Lynch, gay rights activist Gny Appuzzo, and the late activist Ju Fr.

JU UNIVERSY SAYS SUPPORT TO GAY ANIZATNS IS “THE CATHOLIC THG” TO DO

He rpond to anti-gay forc like Ana Bryant and psychiatrist Charl Soris by wrg a seri of articl that affirmed the goodns of gays and lbians and explored the hols of love between same-sex upl.

He also served as a psychotherapist to the gay and lbian muny until 1983, when then-Cardal Joseph Ratzger put a stop to that the early 1980s, as AIDS began to ravage gay muni the cy, silence creasgly beme a adly force. Victims of AIDS were dyg at alarmg rat, but lears the church and ernment seemed unmoved by the cri of the sick and their fay and the peak of the AIDS crisis 1986, what may have been the worst pastoral timg the Roman Catholic Church's recent history, Cardal Ratzger issued the CDF's "Letter on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons.

"I wanted to take away the guilt and self-hatred of gay Catholics who believed the church's posn on homosexualy, " McNeill rponse, lears om his Ju provce me to his apartment and read him a letter Lat tellg him that, bee of his "pertac disobedience, " he was to pack his thgs, leave immediately and never return.

GAY EX-JU CONCERT BOOTED FROM CHURCH AFTER BACKLASH

But viewers will also fd spiratn the fact that, only 25 years after McNeill's expulsn, Catholics are now the strongt supporters of gay and lbian rights and same-sex marriage the Uned Stat. While Pope Francis famoly rpond "Who am I to judge" when asked about gay prits durg a papal prs nference, he has also said that anyone wh "ep seated" homosexual tennci shouldn't be a prit.

"Their place is not mistry or nsecrated life, " he Jam Mart, a Ju prit and thor, and the most high-profile advote for LGBTQ Catholics, said, "I thk that if you had sudnly all the gay prits the Uned Stat e out, I thk the Church would be forced to look at the qutn of homosexualy a very different light. " "One of the thgs I lament is, if there were a se of, say, bullyg a parish or a school, would be wonrful for the gay prit to get up and say, 'Look, I was bullied as a boy, '" Father Mart said. ""It is a large, silent muny, a vast silent majory, " said Frédéric Martel, a French thor who spent four years rearchg his book, "In the Closet of the Vatin, " about the gay unrworld there.

POPE MEETS WH JU TARGETED BY NSERVATIV FOR GAY OUTREACH

Father Greg Green, fahfully servg his parish Wisns, said secrecy is a surge the church, so the first step for him is beg open and asked, "You signed up to work for an stutn that thks beg gay, actg out on that, is a s. Bernatte Catholic Parish, Milwkee, Jam Mart on Twter"In the Closet of the Vatin: Power, Homosexualy, Hypocrisy" by Frédéric Martel (Bloomsbury Contuum), Hardver, Tra Paperback, eBook and Aud formats, available via Amazon and Indiebound Story produced by Sari Aviv and Anna Matranga.

A church that, sce 2005, bans prits wh “ep-seated homosexual tennci” and officially teach that gay men are “objectively disorred” and herently disposed toward “trsic moral evil” is actually posed, ways very few other stutns are, of gay men. This cultural and moral shift has not only changed the nscns of most Amerin Catholics (67 percent of whom support civil marriage for gay upl) and gay prits (many of whom are close to qutg) but also broken the silence that long shroud the subject.

Alarmed by the possibily that divorced and remarried people might be weled as well as gays, tradnalists lnched a fierce rearguard mpaign agast the new papacy, wh a foc on what some lled a “Lavenr Mafia” nng the church, and broke new ground nnectg this directly to the horrifyg revelatns of sex abe that me to light 2002. In creasgly direct ways, they have argued that the root of the sndal was not abe of power, or pedophilia, or clerilism, or the distortive psychologil effects of celibacy and stutnal homophobia, but gayns self. ” Michael Hichborn, head of the ge-right Lepanto Instute, lled for a “plete and thorough removal of all homosexual clergymen om the church … It is gog to be difficult and will likely rult a very ser prit shortage, but ’s fely worth the effort.

THOSE GAY JUS

Here, seemed, was a pedophile and an abive gay man, at the very apex of the church, known to be sexually active wh semarians, protected by his peers, and tolerated for s by many the hierarchy, cludg the last three pop. At one pot as we spoke the next day the hospal, he was greeted by a woman who asked for an on-the-spot nfsn and he shooed me asi; later I met an anguished gay man om an ultra-Catholic fay he was unselg; and for a few hours on Sunday morng, he was wh the wife and teenage sons of a dyg man.

AN ARCHBISHOP TOLD A JU SCHOOL TO FIRE A GAY TEACHER. THEY SAID NO

The news environment is saturated wh stori about sex abe — and rightly so — yet there are hardly any public exampl of the overwhelmg number of gay prits who would never dream of preyg upon the powerls.

FATHER MART AND THE GAY JU MAFIA

For example, as the late historian John Boswell monstrated his groundbreakg, ntroversial book Christiany, Social Tolerance, and Homosexualy, a fourth-century Christian wrer, John Chrysostom, attacked the lears of the church for beg too acceptg of same-sex love and even sex: “Those very people who have been nourished by godly doctre, who stct others what they ought and ought not to do … the do not nsort wh prostut as fearlsly as they do wh young men … None is ashamed, no one blh … the chaste seem to be the odd on, and the disapprovg the on error.

” There was nsirable Christian ncern about sex general — followg the teachg of sats Pl and Augte — but no nsens that homosexualy, if kept to tense mutual love and celibate iendship, was specifilly problematic.

Homosexuals, the new theology, were part of nature — many had noticed homosexual behavr the animal kgdom, particularly among har and hyenas — but they were also somehow ntrary to nature. Carl Jung intified the archetypal gifts of the homosexual: “a great pacy for iendship, which often creat ti of astonishg tenrns between men”; a talent for teachg, athetics, and tradn (“to be nservative the bt sense and cherish the valu of the past”); “a wealth of relig feelgs, which help to brg the ecclia spirualis to realy; and a spirual receptivy which mak him rponsive to revelatn. In many ways, the old, elaborate High Mass, wh s cense and procsns, lor-d vtments, lurgil plexy, mil precisn, choirs, ans, and sheer drama, is obvly, part, a creatn of the gay prithood.