c. 2000 Religion News Service

(Andrew M. Greeley is a Roman Catholic priest, best-selling novelist and a sociologist at the University of Chicago National Opinion Research Center. Check out his home page at http://www.agreeley.com or contact him via e-mail at agreel(at)aol.com.)

(UNDATED) The Kansas City Star has announced that four times as many Roman Catholic priests have died of AIDS as the national proportion of men dying from AIDS. While I am skeptical about the Star’s methodology, I don’t find it difficult to believe the AIDS death rate among priests is higher than that of the general male population although still relatively low.

Clearly, there is a higher percentage of priests who are homosexual than there is of male homosexuals in the national population, which is usually assumed to be about 5 percent.

There is no reason as far as I’m concerned why gays can’t be ordained.

There have been gay priests, gay bishops, gay popes, and probably gay saints. There are many priests with a homosexual orientation who are generous, sensitive and excellent priests.

However, if a gay man becomes a priest he should give up the gay “lifestyle” and live as a celibate as do most _ not all _ heterosexual priests.

The church got itself into this problem because given present the shortage of vocations it has allowed the ordination of large numbers of gay men, many of whom were either unwilling or unable to honor the celibate commitment. Some of these men, immediately after ordination, returned to the gay lifestyle, including gay bars, gay sex rings and gay lovers.

Exactly how many gay priests there are today is anyone’s guess. I have been told that perhaps 35 percent to 40 percent of the younger priests are gay but I view such estimates with considerable doubt. There are, however, a lot of them. Some live celibate lives; others do not. Again no one knows what the proportions are.

There is but one answer to the mess many bishops have made of the situation: ordain only mature, self-possessed men who, to the best of their ability, will keep the promises they have made, no matter their sexual orientation. There may be fewer priests in such circumstances, but the church will have many fewer problems.

At one time some seminaries were dominated by gay faculty and students. Perhaps these situations no longer exist. However, in some places faculty members still tell their students they’re gay and take some of them to gay bars and gay students sleep with each other at night, doubtless creating some envy among the straight students.

Such situations are appalling. I do not understand why bishops tolerate them. Perhaps they do not want to face the fact that in many of their decisions about ordination they made mistakes, sometimes after overruling the strong advice of seminary rectors.

The mistake is not in ordaining gay men, but in not being more cautious about whom they ordained. Now they have a priesthood that is substantially gay, many of whom are active gays. No wonder there is an AIDS problem.

Consider the inconsistency: the church, on orders from Rome, routinely opposes gay rights laws. Yet it tolerates the right of active gay priests to remain in the priesthood _ as do many priests who will no more report an active gay priest than they would report an active pedophile priest. Gays, it should be stressed, are not necessarily pedophiles and pedophiles are not necessarily gay.

Nevertheless, while the church wrings its hands about having to hire gays to teach in its schools under gay rights laws, it has no hesitation about assigning active gays to teach in its seminaries.

Some straight priests wonder if the church is not more tolerant of sexually active gay priests than of sexually active straight priests. If I had the habit of picking up women in yuppy bars, they tell me, the bishop would call me in immediately. But they can hang around gay bars and pick up lovers and nothing happens to them.

You should not be writing about these things, some will say. You’ll shock the laity. Gimme a break! Stop patronizing the laity! Do you really think the laity doesn’t know what’s going on? Do you really think they can’t spot an active gay priest on their parish staff? The only reason not to write about the situation is to cover up for the bishops who allowed it to happen.

The Kansas City Star gives the church due credit for the enormous compassion it has for gay priests. It also repeats the usual nonsense that celibacy is to blame for the problem _ as if the active gay priests are men for whom celibacy has become an impossible burden.

Is celibacy harder for gays than for straights? It is very hard indeed for those men of either orientation who are not happy in their work. For those who are happy it may be no more difficult than marriage.

DEA END GREELEY