UNITED STATES
New York Blade
By ELIZABETH WEILL-GREENBERG
Friday, September 30, 2005
Father James, a gay Catholic priest living in California, isn’t sure if the Vatican’s planned ban on gay men in seminaries will affect his position but the psychological effect, he says, is the same.
“It’s like having your family reject you,” he told the Blade in a telephone interview. “You feel a call to service as a priest, then you find a document that says anybody like you is unfit to do the work you’re called to do. It hurts.”
Father James asked that his identity be protected because some “self-appointed watchdogs” scour the Internet looking for gay priests to report to the bishop.
Anxiety among gay priests has intensified since reports emerged that the Vatican is planning to ban gay seminarians. The details on who would be excluded or how it could be enforced are still unknown. The announcement came shortly before church officials began visits to American seminaries to question students on a range of topics, including whether they know of any gays in their seminary. The move to remove gays amounts to scapegoating for the church’s sex abuse crisis, critics have argued.