UNITED STATES
National
By JEFF SEVERNS GUNTZEL
The “anonymous gay priest” is getting a lot of attention lately. He is turning up in newspapers, on the radio, and he is getting calls from TV producers (complete with promise of fake mustache and altered voice). They are from both coasts and places in-between. Their take on recent news from the Vatican causes in them a variety of responses with some uniformity: They are hurt and they are scared.
NCR spoke with a gay priest who is active in an ethnically diverse urban parish on the East Coast. He was eager to speak out but just as eager to protect his identity and his vocation. In the interview that follows, this priest reflects on the possible release of a document barring -- or at least discouraging -- gay men from entering the seminary, news of a Vatican plan to send teams of investigators to each of the more than 200 American Catholic seminaries to gather “evidence of homosexuality,” and the internal struggle of a gay priest trying to stay true to his vocation in a church that is, at best, conflicted about homosexuality and, at worst, acting out a deep prejudice.
NCR: What was your initial reaction to word of a looming Vatican document barring -- or at least discouraging -- homosexuals from entering the seminary?
Priest: I was horrified. And like many other celibate gay priests I know, I was also angry and discouraged and sad.