The Unseen Consequences of Outing Gay Priests
By Father Geoffrey Farrow
A website has been established called www.churchouting.org Their intention, along with their rationale for acquiring compromising information on Catholic priests, is stated very clearly on the site’s web page, as follows:
“This site was created to provide you with the opportunity to save LGBT youth from the hypocrisy of priests in the Archdiocese of Washington who are socially, romantically or sexually active gay men, yet stand silent while Archbishop Wuerl and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops increase their dogmatic war against gay families. If you have information that a priest in the Archdiocese is gay (or having a heterosexual affair) please share your story.”
I believe that there are issues which need to be carefully considered regarding this particular strategy. Church Outing states its goal as the following:
“We encourage every Catholic priest in the Archdiocese of Washington DC, gay and straight, to stand up for what is right and to give your support for marriage equality in the District. We ask you to stand with many other local leaders of faith who have already done so through the Clergy United for Marriage Equality pledge.
Read the Declaration
Sign the Declaration”
What would happen to any Catholic priest who signed a public declaration which is directly opposed to the teachings of the hierarchy of the Church? Once it came to the attention of his (Arch) bishop, the priest would be required to publicly retract his statement and publicly apologize for having made such a statement. If he failed to do so, he would be suspended as a priest and stripped of salary, heath care, housing, etc. In effect, he would be left destitute.
On the other hand if the priest complies with the demands of his (Arch) bishop, he then runs the risk of being publicly exposed. What this would mean in practical terms is that the priest would be removed from active ministry. He would most probably be sent to Saint Luke’s, an in-house psychological facility run by the Catholic Church for priests. There he would be treated for his “sexual addiction” and after a course of “treatment” be returned to active ministry as an assistant, under the watchful supervision of a superior. In effect, his career would be destroyed; however, he would still have a salary, housing, a car, health care, and retirement benefits.
When I made my public statement in opposition to Prop 8, I had many priests E-mail me and express both thanks and support. One of them said “I’d love to say what you said publicly, but I have a heart condition. If I made such a statement, I’d be on the street with no way to pay for my prescriptions or my doctors; I’d be dead in a year. Priests receive a Bachelor of Arts degree in Philosophy and a four year Post Graduate degree in theology. Put that on a resume and apply for a job, especially in this economy.
Priest’s salaries and incomes are very carefully manipulated by the hierarchy to keep them in a state of indentured servitude. Retirement for priests is 75 years of age in my diocese. Priests are kept in a state of economic servitude by their bishops. You can begin to see why extremely few priests will make public statements of support for marriage equality. Gay priests fear that if they speak, they will find themselves abandoned by many of the people they serve and in some cases by their families.
The gay priests I have known, like many gay men, have only come to begin to accept their sexuality much later in life than their straight counterparts. In my experience most gay priests have been sensitive and supportive of their LGBT parishioners. Targeting priests who are struggling with their own sexuality will simply not work as a strategy. It will drive out of the active ministry many priests who are quietly working on behalf of LGBT people. It will drive many gay priests more deeply into the closet. It will drive some gay priests into greater self-loathing. It will strengthen the power of the hierarchy by providing them with “thought/conduct police” which will further intimidate priests. Finally, this strategy runs a serious risk of casting the LGBT movement as resorting to extortion. While it is understandable, that a society which grew up with Watergate may have grown cynical, we need to remember that the end does not justify the means. The means which we employ define who we become.
Deception, lies, promotion of myths, and encouragement of bigotry are all hallmarks of the California Yes on Prop 8 and Maine Yes on Question 1 campaigns. National Public Radio reports the FBI announced that hate crimes against LGBT people has increased by 10% in 2009 from 2008. I cannot sufficiently express my horror and revulsion that the hierarchy of the Catholic Church is an accomplice to these despicable acts.
I full empathize with the frustration and just anger of the people at Church Outing. However, if we permit ourselves to be seduced into following the morally corrupting and corrosive example of the Catholic hierarchy, to win at any cost, we may find that we become like them. Such a victory would be very hollow indeed.
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I think that I agree with Father Geoffrey Harrow that outing sympathetic gay priests is not a good strategy. However, a lot of priests who loudly condemn homosexuality are discovered in compromising positions (often soliciting sex in men’s rooms or adult book stores), and they definitely should be outed. I am also struck by the terrible position of priests as indentured servants to the hierarchy. It is hard to think of priests as so weak and dependent, but I suppose it is true. If so, that is a good warning for any potential priest (especially if they are gay) about their vocation.
I have no sympathy for people who somehow hear a calling to participate in an organization that both thinks LGBT people are sinners, and actively opposes civil rights for LGBT people. No one who enters the priesthood in the Catholic Church can claim to be unaware of Catholic doctrine on homosexuality, as well as their duty to uphold and support this doctrine. “Oops, I missed those lessons!” Nuh-uh.
“It will drive out of the active ministry many priests who are quietly working on behalf of LGBT people.”
I’d prefer to see them driven out, and leaving an inherently dysfunctional organization, and one that has been dysfunctional for centuries, and follow any impulses to do good work unshackled of an inherently sick system. (This is a whole other discussion, but I just don’t think a virgin birth has ever happened, or that Bernadette really saw the “real” Virgin Mary, or that St. Jude watches over the sick, etc. If you want to make the world a better place, focus on reality, not fantasy. And acquire knowledge about reality. If I am at risk of dying in a hospital room, and for a doctor I have a choice between someone who has a lot of knowledge about science and someone who has great religious faith, I’ll take the doctor who has lot of knowledge about science. Interestingly enough, I think most priests would as well. Most of them still have some rational capacities.)
“It will drive many gay priests more deeply into the closet. It will drive some gay priests into greater self-loathing.” Their choice, and a problem of their own making. If you are in fact a closeted gay priest, self-loathing is in fact appropriate. The solution is to come out and stop supporting a gay-hating organization.
“It will strengthen the power of the hierarchy by providing them with “thought/conduct police” which will further intimidate priests.” I’d call it the “moral consistency police.” If you are going to support the Catholic Church, the Catholic Church should know the truth about you.
“Finally, this strategy runs a serious risk of casting the LGBT movement as resorting to extortion.” Extortion implies that the particular truth being threatened for revelation is inherently bad. It’s 2009 — aren’t we over the notion that homosexuality is something to blackmail people over? It’s extortion only if there is something “wrong” with it. But the whole point is that THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH IT.