Thoughts from a priest-reader on my thoughts on homosexuality and the priesthood:.... I agree with 90% of it, but I do think there is some room to be careful with those of homosexual orientation in the intake process. Heterosexual orientation is normal for the male, and homosexual orientation is, many times, accompanied by other behavioral problems that feed into its weaknesses. For some reason, and I don’t really know why, during my previous tenure in Cincinnati, I became the father-confessor for a group of homosexual men (I told them the truth about what they did, but I didn’t yell, so they kept coming back).
What I observed was a group of guys who were almost all obsessive-compulsive, and who adopted the moral compass of whomever they were with at the time; in the confessional, they agreed with my exhortations to chastity, outside, well . . . . Anecdotally, I believe that the disordered orientation brings other problems with it, including, many times, a promiscuity (the search for dad) which is much harder to control than the heterosexual Friday-nite out stuff.
I don’t agree with the idea that the orientation is biological (orientation and masculinity are related, but not necessarily so); I still persist in the old psycho-social model of absent or ineffective male father figure, and strong dominant mother figure as the most acceptable explanation. The worst thing that ever happened to homosexual men was the APA declaring homosexuality a lifestyle, not a pathology (under political pressure at the time). I’ve known many homosexuals who couldn’t find help in the mental health community; they’d be told by therapists that there’s nothing wrong with them (then why do I feel like cutting my wrists all the time? as one once said to me). The healers no longer have to come to grips with a really difficult pathology; they were all cured by decree.
I know of many homosexual priests, both in Cincinnati and St. Louis, good men who labor under a heavier burden than many of their brother priests. I would never advocate hunting them down and throwing them out; many are close friends. But I do believe that vocations directors and formation directors and bishops and seminary rectors need to take into account the additional pressures and problems that many of these candidates will bring with them. The call to celibacy and chastity is for all normally acquired Latin rite priests (I am not, of course, normal in any sense [editor's note - he's married]) a call to a way of life and faith. Each man has his own story, but I believe that some come burdened in ways that many of us cannot understand, and obedience to the call of celibate living for the Gospel is more difficult for them. We need to take that into account, as well as the heroism of the men we have now who struggle with this problem.