“And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds, and binding with briars my joys and desires.” William Blake – “Garden of Love”

Pope Francis strongly reaffirmed the Vatican ban on gay priests.

What the Pope knows and won’t say, is that if the Catholic Church rooted out gay and bisexual priests, there would be just enough priests left for two tables of bridge. When you included the Cardinals, you’d have two four-man teams of bocce. 

There was a newspaper article on how conservative the new batch of seminarians is. I’m not so sure. They, like me at their age, probably have the sexual experiences and emotions of a 12-year-old. Once they get past their guilt over masturbating, they’ll sneak with fear into a gay bar. Sad but true. Yet there’s hope in The Garden of Love.

Recently, I participated in the Imago Dei conference at the University of Dayton. It was the 50th anniversary of the first conference on homosexuality and the Catholic Church. There were perhaps 35 people at the 1974 “Bergamo Conference.” Imago Dei attracted lay people, brothers, nuns, and priests. The brothers and priests were out of the closet. Among the laity, there were several young gay theologians teaching their own theology in Catholic Universities. It gave me great hope to see 130 people — gay, lesbian, bisexual, straight, transgender and nonbinary — celebrating their sexuality, their gender identity, and their loving, committed marriages.

When I returned to Detroit from the conference 50 years ago, I was a changed man. I was already out to my folks and my peers at the Catholic newspaper, and had started, with others, Dignity/Detroit. But I felt a powerful awareness that my life would be dedicated to the Gay Civil Rights Movement, inside and outside the church. 

Bergamo was like a modern Pentecost. We each went forth as ministers with our own language. Some participants sought change within the church. Others defied the church but stayed with its rituals and beliefs. My ministry ended up being with those gay and transgender Catholics who hate the church but can’t get untangled from the briars that keep them attached with guilt to the faith of their youth.

I identify now as a gay Catholic, even though I won’t recite the Apostle’s Creed. As much as I miss the rituals, I feel astonishingly hopeful that one day we’ll all be freed of the fear that makes us insist we’re a conservative, straight seminarian. 

Gay priests in black gowns are walking their rounds, feeling that their joys and desires are bound with briars. They’re spoken of disparagingly by the Vatican and by the general public who accuse them of being behind the priest sex scandal. As gay men, they feel attractions to other men and must decide for themselves whether they’ll stay in service to the church but express their sexuality secretly or break free and decide on their own if they’re still Catholic. 

Pope Francis, we’re here.