Inside The Church’s Closet

The Rev. William Hart McNichols is gay. He is also a Roman Catholic priest in Taos, N.M. There is no paradox there, according to church teachings. Technically, it is homosexual activity–not the orientation–that is considered sinful. Nevertheless, McNichols will surely get hate mail and risk losing his ability to minister by stating his sexuality in the pages of this magazine. He has said it publicly before, so he knows. “Talking to you,” he told me last week, “is just as scary as the first time I came out to anyone. But you can’t go through life hiding who you are and feel any honesty before God.”

McNichols, 52, sounds weary when he says this, not righteous. After 23 years as a Jesuit priest, he remains deeply loyal to the church. He is a painter, among the most famous creators of Christian iconic images in the world. He has a parish that he speaks about with so much awe, it strains the imagination. And he is enraged by the notion of priests preying on children. But he says he cannot stay silent while all gay priests are blamed for such crimes. “This is an extremely dangerous moment,” he says quietly.

Now that the transgressions of clerical abuse and official cover-up have been exposed, the church’s second biggest secret is coming out of the closet: an institution that denounces homosexuality is kept afloat by a disproportionately gay work force. This irony is old news among most priests. For decades, gay clergy have held annual retreats, met in local support groups and kept in touch through an underground national newsletter. Estimates of the percentage of gay priests range from 15% to more than 50%. While the correct figure is impossible to pin down, it seems safe to say the proportion is higher than that of gay men in the male population at large.

Yet while U.S. Cardinals are now publicly acknowledging the huge numbers of gay priests–a historic first–some are at the same time blaming them for the debacle of the abuse scandals. Since many of the victims are teenage boys, the thinking goes, the perpetrators must be gay–and that must be the problem, not sexual repression, not leaders who ignore serious criminal allegations. And having reached that conclusion, certain officials are going one step further: they are breaking a gentleman’s agreement that has long existed within the church by calling into question the validity of even celibate gay priests. Said Anthony Cardinal Bevilacqua of Philadelphia: “We feel that a person who is homosexually oriented is not a suitable candidate for the priesthood, even if he has never committed any homosexual act.”

This much, however, is clear: no mainstream research has found any link between pedophilia and homosexuality. And even in the current storm of scandal, no one knows whether there are any more pedophile priests than, say, pedophile teachers. And while the great majority of the victims who have recently come to public attention were teenage boys when they were abused, no one knows how many girls may also have been molested.

But Bevilacqua’s assertion cuts to the marrow for gay priests. Interviews with a dozen gay Roman Catholic priests around the country and several psychologists who specialize in treating homosexual clergy make it clear that many gay priests have spent their lives tortured by the conflicts between their church and their heart. Their ability to find peace has depended, in many cases, on which order or parish they joined or on the reason they entered the priesthood. Some have had to leave active ministry. Others have devised complicated ways to reconcile the church’s teachings with who they are–often by reinterpreting Scripture that has been used to condemn homosexuality. And like straight priests, many have broken their vows of celibacy with other consenting adults.

Now, under the cloud of the current crisis, the tipping point may have been reached. Some gay priests, unable to stomach the ingratitude after their years of service, say the comments may force them to walk away from a job they excel at. Many others are stepping further back into the closet, deeper into a world of secrecy, shame and isolation–the very dark place where priestly dysfunction can breed. “At once I get very angry about it and also very hurt,” says a gay New Jersey priest who was ordained 19 years ago. “It’s very much like being rejected by a parent.”

In 1973, when Jay Pinkerton, now 53, entered the Washington Theological Coalition in Silver Spring, Md., he knew he was gay. He had wanted to be a priest for a reason common among older gay clergy. “I knew I didn’t want to get married, and I loved the church,” he says. “I had thought about it since I was a kid, and it felt like a safe place. I wouldn’t have to worry about my sexuality. Nobody would expect that I would date.”

What he didn’t know was that so many other gay men had made the same choice. Pinkerton was part of a religious community called the Franciscans. Compared with diocesan priests, religious communities–which are usually not under the close watch of a bishop and a parish–generally attract more gay men. Pinkerton’s community of East Coast Franciscans included about 400 men; he estimates that about 250 to 300 were gay. He didn’t figure that out, though, until after he was ordained, he says. He soon found himself seated at the “gay-priest table” at a celebration for a brother priest’s ordination, and he began to connect the dots.

As an ordained priest, Pinkerton found himself doing what he calls “the tap dance” to reconcile committing his life to an institution that was not unconditionally committed to him. By 1984 he was completely out to his brother friars, whom he describes as open and supportive. But in October of 1986 he stopped celebrating Mass after the release of a Vatican directive (later dubbed the Halloween letter) that called homosexuality an “objective disorder” and warned that society should not be surprised if violence were committed against gays and lesbians seeking civil rights. After several months of reflection, Pinkerton managed to talk himself back up to the pulpit. “I told myself, ‘The bishops aren’t the church; the work means a lot to me; you can change [the church] from the inside.'”

But for Pinkerton, the dancing wasn’t over. He was never celibate, he says. He had two long relationships with other priests. Logistically, having a partner was not hard; priests are expected to go on vacation together, and most of Pinkerton’s work, ministering to gay people and AIDS patients, took place in a tolerant zone. “I told myself the same thing I would say to parishioners in the confessional: These [lovers] were put in my life by God, and they enrich my life–and my ministry.”

But more often than not, says psychologist Michael Mendola, a former priest whose practice focuses on gay clergy, “it’s extremely difficult for a gay priest to have a relationship and be happy. They begin to question their authenticity.”

One day in the early 1990s, a friend told Pinkerton he was “lying by omission.” His parishioners assumed he was celibate when they listened to him preach. And increasingly, he could not beat back “the voice” of dissonance. “If you can’t be yourself in your life, that creates a huge amount of stress,” he says. In 1994 Pinkerton left formal ministry.

Like Pinkerton, some men were drawn to the priesthood as a shelter. Others hoped that by taking the vow of celibacy, they could cancel out the orientation that had caused them so much shame. As one gay priest in New York City puts it, “Think of yourself as a gay person wanting with all your heart not to be a gay person. What do you do?” And for still others, there was the allure of the culture. “Catholicism has been one of the most homoerotic of widely available modern cultures,” writes Mark Jordan, a professor of religion at Emory University, in his book The Silence of Sodom. He is referring to the shared residency of unmarried men and the Eucharistic ritual “in which an all-male clergy sacrifices male flesh before images of God as an almost naked man.”

But other men came to the priesthood because they felt called to it. “God gave me this vocation as a very little boy, before I knew I was gay,” says McNichols. “It didn’t seem to matter to God.” But growing up gay only made him a better priest, he says. “The outcast status of gay people can provide them with a natural bent toward listening. They can be reconcilers; they can understand the sufferings of both sexes. They’re natural priests.” McNichols now worries that his ability to minister will be taken away. “We’re all sort of like Anne Frank’s family, up in the attic, waiting for the Nazis to come. And that’s wrong,” he says. “The Church of Christ should not be a fearful place.”

The key to being a healthy, celibate priest is being at peace with one’s sexuality, says the Rev. Robert Silva, president of the National Federation of Priests’ Councils. “I say to both gay and straight seminarians, You have to be comfortable with who you are. You have to understand that sexual feelings are part of the human experience. The priesthood is a difficult life. If you find the stresses and the isolation so great, you’re going to seek to fill the void.”

But the church continues to make it hard for gay priests to accept and integrate their sexual desires into their identities. One of the few concrete decisions the U.S. Cardinals made following their meeting in Rome with the Pope last month was to dispatch a team, called an apostolic visitation, to inspect all the nation’s 220 seminaries and other preparatory institutions. The purpose is to determine whether the schools have been upholding orthodox moral doctrine in their applications process and in their classrooms. Some priests read that as code for a witch hunt. Details about the visitation won’t be worked out until the June 13-15 meeting of U.S. bishops in Dallas, according to a spokesman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The decision could have a dramatic effect on seminaries like St. Patrick’s in Menlo Park, Calif. Its director, the Rev. Gerald Coleman, agrees with Silva that psychosexual education and open dialogue are among the best ways to prevent inappropriate sexual behavior, not to mention depression, addiction and other dysfunction. He requires his 103 seminarians to reckon with their sexuality, be it gay or straight, throughout their five years there. They are expected to discuss their sexual attitudes and development, among other things, once a month with their advisers and must take three courses on sexuality: a class on overall human sexuality, another on intimacy and celibacy, and one on sexual abuse, which includes guest lectures by victims and perpetrators. But even in that spirit of enlightened openness, the dialogue is fraught and unsteady.

At a recent meeting of Coleman’s elective class, Homosexuality and the Church, words and phrases like penis, Freud, male rectum and Will & Grace are bandied about without embarrassment. Coleman covers the scriptural teachings on homosexuality and the psychological impact of homophobia. At one point he says that gay teenagers suffer from a lack of role models. In the next moment, he says gay priests and teachers should not come out of the closet, lest they confuse children. It is an awkward balancing act, and a seminarian calls Coleman on the contradiction. “How are young people supposed to work out their sexuality if they don’t have role models?” asks Chris Sellars, 27, who is scheduled to be ordained next January. Coleman listens intently but stands by his imperfect position. “Our fundamental role is to proclaim the Gospel,” he says. The other seven students around the table look slightly confused, but Coleman encourages them to accept ambiguity and just be aware of different perspectives.

The recent statements of the Cardinals linking homosexuality to pedophilia make his job even harder, Coleman says. “I think they’ve confused the issues immeasurably.” Although St. Patrick’s is among the more liberal, most seminaries now have psychological screening exams and some form of psychosexual training. But some more conservative members of the church advocate a different approach. St. Charles Borromeo Seminary outside Philadelphia asks applicants about their orientation and denies entry to gay men, regardless of their willingness to be celibate, archdiocesan officials told the Philadelphia Inquirer in April. (St. Charles officials declined to speak to TIME.)

Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, has expressed concern that seminaries foster a “homosexual atmosphere or dynamic that makes heterosexual young men think twice” about entering them. But seminaries vary tremendously, depending on the time and place. Whereas Pinkerton says he never noticed a “gay subculture” during his student years in the 1970s, a New Jersey priest who attended a Chicago seminary around the same time has more colorful memories: “It was a pretty wild, free-for-all place. If you went into any of the gay bars, you were bound to meet a priest or seminarian there.” Meanwhile, at St. Patrick’s, Sellars says the atmosphere is one of serious study, where only close friends know one another’s orientation. Jokes seminarian Ron Zanoni, 46: “There’s no culture at all. Forget about subculture.”

But the greater challenge–for gay and straight priests–comes in life after seminary. Living in a rectory, says the Rev. Jim Morris, can be a desperately lonely experience. “You share some of your parishioners’ most important moments–birth, marriage, death–and at the end of the day, you lock the door, and you are by yourself.” Morris, 51, spent six years as the associate pastor at Our Lady of Lourdes in Queens Village, N.Y. In 1995 he found himself in love and took a leave of absence to live with his partner. He continues to act sacramentally, though, celebrating Mass for a group of gay New York Roman Catholics, presiding at funerals for former parishioners and hearing confessions. “Yes, I am breaking a promise by not being celibate,” he says. “But the promise has become meaningless to me. As long as my community demands my services, I will be there.”

Pinkerton, who now has a private therapy practice and leads a support group for current and former clergy, is still a priest. He celebrates Mass occasionally in his home, as he did last week with a few friends to mark the 25th anniversary of his ordination. He is uncharacteristically sheepish when he talks about “celebrating” such an event. “There is a certain sadness. I ask myself, Is this a failure? Did I just want it all?”

Several weeks ago, Pinkerton got together with old friends–a couple who have two children, now grown. He had been close to their son, whom he used to take to Yankees games. Now, over dinner, just as he had once told them he was gay, he made another sudden declaration: “I told them, ‘I want you to know, I never touched your children.'” They looked at him like he was crazy. But in the glare of the spotlight, he says, he is guilty until proved innocent.