Openly Gay Priest Heads to Africa to Combat AIDS

c. 2006 Religion News Service SYRACUSE, N.Y. _ A New York priest who is one of the few openly gay Catholic priests in the world will spend 18 months in Lesotho, southern Africa, ministering to people with HIV and AIDS. The Rev. Fred Daley said he initiated the assignment and it is not a punishment […]

c. 2006 Religion News Service

SYRACUSE, N.Y. _ A New York priest who is one of the few openly gay Catholic priests in the world will spend 18 months in Lesotho, southern Africa, ministering to people with HIV and AIDS.

The Rev. Fred Daley said he initiated the assignment and it is not a punishment for disclosing his sexual orientation or criticizing a recent Vatican document that said men with “deep-seated homosexual tendencies” should not be admitted to the seminary or ordained to the priesthood.


“My disclosure and ministry to gays and lesbians is a little part of who I am,” Daley said.

Daley begins training for the Catholic Relief Services volunteer program in Baltimore Aug. 6 and expects to be in Lesotho by Sept. 1. When he returns to Central New York, he will spend at least six months speaking to parishes and school groups about the AIDS crisis in Africa.

Daley said he applied for the Catholic Relief Services program because of a lifelong desire to work as a missionary and his interest in other cultures.

After 14 years shepherding St. Francis de Sales Church in Utica, Daley also found himself at a crossroads. He recently celebrated the final weekend Mass at the parish, which is merging with two other congregations as part of a plan to downsize the Diocese of Syracuse.

“I thought, `There’s no way I’m going to get permission to do this because of the shortage of priests,’ ” said Daley, 58. He said he was pleased and grateful that diocesan officials supported his application.

Bishop Thomas Costello, who serves as vicar for priests, said Daley’s public discussion of his sexual orientation _ which included interviews with The Boston Globe, CNN, National Public Radio and ABC’s “Nightline” _ was not part of the decision.

And while the diocese certainly feels the impact of fewer priests serving, a global vision of the church’s role remains a priority, Costello said.


“The church isn’t going to stop its ministry to the world just because there’s a shortage,” he said.

Daley has traveled to countries including Argentina, Mexico, Brazil, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Peru and Chile. He’s been to Africa once, a 10-day visit to South Africa in 1990. He knows next to nothing about Lesotho, his home for 18 months.

“The first thing I did was open a map and look it up,” Daley said of his assignment.

“It’s a beautiful country,” said John Shumlansky, who has directed the Catholic Relief Services program in Lesotho for six months. About one-third of Lesotho’s population is HIV-positive, he said.

“Every weekend at least half of my staff goes to a funeral,” he said. “I don’t even ask what happened. It’s extremely depressing.

Catholic Relief Services, the official international relief and development agency of the United States Catholic Church, reopened its Lesotho site in 2002.


“Drought, poor harvest and the fourth-highest HIV/AIDS infection rate in the world have placed Lesotho in the midst of a complex emergency,” says the group’s Web site.

Shumlansky said Daley will work with priests and nuns. “There’s a big stigma issue,” he said. “Priests may say, `Those people got sick because they were bad.”’

Daley sees a similarity between that attitude and the reactions to AIDS in the United States in the early 1980s. He said he’s eager to learn his new neighbors’ attitudes about sexuality, intimacy and birth control.

“Some priests in rural areas will not give last rites to people in fear of catching it,” he said. “There’s such ignorance and misunderstanding and stigma around the HIV virus. The church can be used as a vehicle of understanding.”

KRE/JL END GADOUA

(Renee K. Gadoua writes for The Post-Standard in Syracuse, N.J.)

Editors: To obtain a photo of of Fred Daley, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.

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