Coming out Catholic

>> A gay man talks to his priest

by JOHN CUSTODIO

The Catholic closet

"Why must the Catholic Church get so worked up over sex, particularly gay sex? What's the big deal?"

It was to be my first question. I'd anticipated a somewhat difficult, even adversarial interview, so my plan was to come out (so to speak) swinging. Why not nail the issue from the get-go, right? Proud activists don't pussyfoot.

This one does. I can't be too hard on myself, though. He's my parish priest, after all: the Reverend Monsignor Barry Egan-Jones, parochial administrator of St. Patrick's Basilica, the largest and most important parish for anglophones in Montreal. At 60-something, the Monsignor's manner is authoritative, not to say gruff; he intimidates me. I find myself behaving like the good little Catholic boy I was raised to be: deferential, eager to please.

"What's this about?" he asks. And I--sweating beads and wondering why I'm so nervous--tell him I'm writing about my difficulties with the Church's teachings. He raises an eyebrow and I'm overcome with the need to impress him, so I list my "credentials": my parents were devout and sent me to Catholic private schools, where I served as both altar boy and choir boy and won several religion medals; the Christian Brothers who instructed me seriously thought I was destined for the priesthood. My point, in other words: I know my catechism, Monsignor, so please take me seriously.

The religious language

Here's how I pitched this article to my editor: "Matt: I have to give this idea some thought, since it would involve a sort of coming out for me; if I don't do it, please keep it confidential. What if I were to interview my parish priest? I'm hesitant because I'd be exposing a part of myself I'm not entirely comfortable with. Of course, it's precisely that conflict--my struggle to reconcile (or accept as irreconcilable) my sexual identity and politics with my 'spiritual' (even writing the word's embarrassing) needs--that would make this an interesting piece." His response: "You're worried about coming out Catholic?"

The irony isn't lost on me: I'm prouder of my publicly queer profile than of my privately Catholic one. Even my closest friends don't know I've started going to mass again. Some of them wonder why I'm no longer available for Sunday brunches. (I tell them I'm on a sacred music kick.)

It's helpful, I've found, to think of religion as a kind of language. I grew up speaking Catholic, so I'm fluent and comfortable in it. I can choose not to speak it, and have done so frequently, but I can never really unlearn or forget it. Decades could go by without my ever setting foot in church, but I'll always know the liturgies, the prayers, the traditions: they are a part of me. In the proverbial foxholes in which there are no atheists--and I've been in them a lot, especially recently--I speak Catholic.

Meanwhile, back at the rectory

In Doris Lessing's England vs. England, a man on a train has a nervous breakdown because he's unable to reconcile certain aspects of his personality. He's travelling to Oxford, having spent his holidays at home. Here's the crux: home for him is a mining town in northern England; his people are decidedly working class, and he's at Oxford on a scholarship. He realizes that class war is being waged in his own psyche. It's one of the finest portraits of an identity crisis I've ever read.

Now, sitting across from Monsignor Egan-Jones, contemplating my own inner conflict, I think back to that story and I'm heartened. This battle has been fought many times, after all, and sexually-

liberated queer trounces dutiful altar boy every single time.

"I'm gay," I tell him. "But that's not a confession!" I add, a little too vehemently. He nods like he saw this coming. "On the other hand, I'm not prepared to disavow my sexuality. My question is this: am I free to continue to worship--in the Catholic Church generally, here at St. Patrick's specifically--as an unapologetic, sexually active, openly gay man?"

"Why wouldn't you be?"

"Okay," I say, flustered by this challenge. "Let's try this: Why don't you start by explaining the Church's official position?"

"You already know it."

Is he trying to be difficult, I wonder. "Please, Monsignor, for the purposes of this article...." He obliges. Under church law, he tells me, human sexual practice must fulfill two conditions. First: it should be procreative, not recreational--at least not primarily so. Second: it must occur between a man and a woman, and only after they have committed themselves to each other through the sacrament of marriage.

The propagation of souls, the stability of the family, the sacredness of the body.... It's a discourse with which I'm all too familiar, so in the middle of it I find myself wondering: Why am I here? What exactly do I want out of this interview? To debate with him, prove him wrong? Convince him, perhaps--convert him, even?

Should I point out, for example, that historians have evidence which proves the Church used to be far more tolerant, and even had an official liturgy to celebrate gay marriages? Should I tell him gays and lesbians procreate and raise families too, and have loving, committed relationships? Should I accuse and lay blame?

Reconciliation

Why am I here? With the force of true revelation (had I been on a horse, I'd have fallen), the answer comes to me: for his permission! His blessing, so to speak. But for what? Sex? The idea is laughable, really--and sad. Altar boy, it seems, is not so easily vanquished.

My moment of self-recognition changes everything, though, and forces me to face facts: the Monsignor and I will never agree. Either I accept the Church's views and agree to voluntary celibacy, or the Church alters its teachings and reverses centuries of homophobic prejudice, now carefully encoded as doctrine; it's hard to say which is more unlikely.

Fortunately, like most North American clergy, Egan-Jones is relatively liberal. He is careful to show compassion for my "conundrum," and quick to reassure me that I'm still welcome in the church. I point out that according to Church doctrine, I am living in a state of sin, unrepentantly. "That's true," he says, "but the Church also teaches that the final court of appeal is your own conscience. In the end you stand before God alone." I tell him I can live with that.

When the interview is over, we part ways cordially. He says he hopes he'll see me again in church; I tell him he will. As I walk home, smiling and feeling extraordinarily blessed, I remember some graffiti I read when I was a boy. I didn't understand it then; today, it's hilarious and terribly apropos: "My karma ran over my dogma." Or, as a comedian once observed: you don't choose to be gay, you're chosen. l

... more divers/cité