Posted on 10/18/2005 8:01:42 AM PDT by NYer
It wasn't until two years after his ordination as a Roman Catholic priest that the Rev. Fred Daley acknowledged he might be gay.
"I was coming down the stairs for morning Mass, and I felt this real deep ache and pain in the pit of my stomach," he said. "It was the first time I was recognizing an ache within that my activity and work and ministry was covering up, and avoiding something."
A light went on, he said.
"I began to become aware of my sexual feelings and desires," he said. He was 27.
Almost 30 years later - after a painful, prayerful and mostly lonely journey - he disclosed his sexual orientation to his Utica congregation in May 2004. As speculation grows that the Vatican is preparing a document that would bar gays from ordination, Daley says he's proud to be a celibate, gay priest.
He said news of the forthcoming Vatican document and visits to American seminaries worries many people - clergy and lay, gay and straight - that the Roman Catholic Church does not welcome gays in its pulpits or pews.
"The church is least faithful to Jesus when it is in the business of excluding," Daley said. "The church should be rejoicing that gay men are ready and willing to use their talents to energize the church. To deprive the church of these gifted men would be a terrible loss."
Daley and other gay priests say the attention to sexual orientation blames gay priests for problems in the church, including the clergy sexual abuse crisis and the shortage of priests. It also reinforces stereotypes of gays as immoral and unable to control their sexual impulses, Daley and others say.
"To the extent the church uses outdated and inaccurate information about homosexual orientation, they are indirectly encouraging the oppression and physical violence against gays and lesbians," Daley said.
Daley, pastor of St. Francis de Sales Church in Utica, is the first priest in the seven-county Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse to publicly disclose he is gay. He is thought to be among just a handful of gay priests in the country who have done so.
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I think I found the answer in the first sentence.
A light went on, he said.
Could it be satan?
He's gay, Jim!
His first case of the blues? Me thinks not!! And, if so, leave the priesthood for cripes sakes. Don't bring others down with you.
Anyone ever see the Simpsons episode with the gay steel mill? For some reason that just popped into my mind.
I'm sorry but I simply do not believe this. I know that from the age of 14 to 19 I was a walking hormone. I was sexually attracted to just about everything female in the world. Is this man saying that he had no sexual stirrings at all until he was 27? I just don't believe it and if he was sexually attracted to females as a youth how did he suddenlly become homosexual? And of course, if he was sexually attracted to males how did he not know that as well?
"To the extent the church uses outdated and inaccurate information about homosexual orientation ...It's the idea of a static, irreparable "homosexual orientation" that's outdated and inaccurate, Fr. Daley.
Isn't it true that the vast majority of the abuse was performed by homosexual priests? That isn't in dispute, is it?
A_R
My guess is that this priest is a liar and is part of the Lavendar Mafia that is undermining the Church from within and he thinks that we'll be more sympathetic to him and his agenda if we believe that just all of a sudden, at the age of 27 and while already a priest, he became gay. Pure BS.
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After this statement, it's impossible for me to believe anything else this man says.
That's it! That's whats wrong with this article. I don't buy this for a second. He also uses the word 'repressed' feelings. Is this perhaps an example of someone who was sexually abused as a child? And why did these feelings suddenly stir in the morning, on his way to say Mass?
The story sounds contrived.
If he is celibate, why "disclose" to the parishoners?
Why??????
We don't want to know anything about your accursed "sexuality". Shut the #!*! up and stop giving scandal. Why does anybody need to know that you're attracted to other men? A truly celibate person does not make an issue about his sexuality and certainly doesn't spring a "guess what?" coming out moment on the Catholic families and children who come to Church on Sunday expecting to receive the sacraments and hear the Word of God proclaimed.
Anyone who feels the need to inform the world of their sexual impulses is not celibate. Not by a long way. He may not currently be having sex but he's certainly preoccupied with the thought and it may not be far away.
The St. Francis de Sales parish listed in the Syracuse Diocese web site indicates that a Father John Buehler is the pastor and Father Daley is the parochial vicar.
I will be the first to admit that these sites are seldom kept up to date including my own.
Got any examples of 'outdated and inaccurate', Padre?
Considering that he states he did not realize his sexual orientation until age 27, I'm guessing his discernment process was a bit sketchy.
And possibly not Godly either.
Such folk have their own definition of celibate; not married.
Exactly! What on earth could it possibly matter to anyone, IF this priest is celibate AND chaste?
However, as someone else mentioned, "celibate" in the gay subculture of the priesthood (and possibly elsewhere) simply means "unmarried". It does NOT mean "no sexual activity of any kind" like some of us used to assume it meant...
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