Heterophobia among clerics is a thing, and it’s killing the priesthood. As a priest, I have advanced credentials in philosophy, Sacred Scripture, and ancient languages, but I spend some of my time these days writing about LGBT issues and the clerics who promote it, for example here, here and here.
With so many clergy that are gay or gay-friendly these days, it’s hard, as a straight cleric, to just have normal fellowship with other priests. The once-great fraternity of diocesan priests that existed in past decades no longer exists.
The big problem among diocesan clergy today that separates one priest from another is sexual orientation. When only straight priests were ordained in the past, a priest did not have to worry about another priest hitting on him. In a similar vein, in the past, straight priests did not have to worry about gay clerics being openly hostile to them simply because they were straight.
In normal circumstances, straight men and gay men do not live under the same roof. Sitcoms on TV like to depict this sort of thing as normal, but in real life, straight and gay men don’t bunk together. Their temperament and behaviors are radically different, and they don’t readily mix any more than oil mixes with water.
But in recent years, with the great flood of homosexuals into the priesthood, clerics have seen this phenomenon occur, and the results of this forced marriage have been disastrous. Gay clerics, who are in the majority, have driven out straight ones in droves. Gay bishops have, in many instances, exacerbated this bad situation by elevating other gay clerics to the episcopacy. Being straight condemns a priest to having the worst assignments in a diocese, as well as pretty much nixing all chances of advancement.
The Only Remedy
Heterophobia is alive and well among the gay clerics in our Catholic Church. This problem will not be brought to an end until homosexual men are no longer ordained and until gay clerics who have been ordained but do not want to live chaste lives are removed from the clerical state.
Your browser does not support the video tag.
In 2005, the Congregation for Catholic Education at the Holy See issued an important document on this topic titled Criteria for Discernment of Vocation for Persons with Homosexual Tendencies.
In this document, the Holy See made it clear that practicing homosexuals should not be admitted or ordained to Holy Orders.
In the light of such teaching, this Dicastery, in accord with the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, believes it necessary to state clearly that the Church, while profoundly respecting the persons in question, cannot admit to seminary or to holy orders those who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called “gay culture.”
Sadly, like many things issued by the Holy See in recent years, this prohibition to stop the ordaining of gay men into the clerical state has been ignored.
Shared Experience
Just recently, I had a meal with a group of other straight priests. During the meal, we had a lively conversation about our experiences as diocesan priests getting stuck living with gay clerics. We talked about how it was to deal with heterophobic gay priests in the same rectory.
King’s book described “bull queers”
I realize that I am probably the first man alive to use the term heterophobic, or heterophobia, but it perfectly fits the lived experience of normally oriented men who have to deal with bull queers, who are all about their own deviant sexual preferences and their lusts.
I am borrowing the term “bull queers” from Stephen King’s book, The Shawshank Redemption. They were a group of men in the prison who used the other inmates for their own perverted pleasures.
There should not be a gay priest in any rectory. So if there is, from the onset, a slew of problems comes from this sad reality.
For starters, the gay priest is envious of the straight priest. This is because of the straight priest’s ease at talking with other men — not having to hide his proclivities and not having to live a double life. This results in the gay priest in a rectory keeping his distance from his straight colleagues.
In our dinner conversation the other day with my straight confreres, we laughed and joked about our common experiences of giving it our best to live with gay priests. We had to suffer through many lies because these men cannot openly talk to a brother priest about who they are and what they do in their free time.
At dinner, one of my friends offered this anecdote:
Straight priest: “How was your vacation Joe? You went to Key West again this winter, right?”
Gay priest: “It was fun, and I got to lie on the beach for a week.”
Straight priest: “Did you go with your cousin Fred again?”
Gay priest: “Yes, Fred likes to do the same things on vacation that I do.”
Straight priest: “Yes, I can imagine.”
My confrere, offering this anecdote to us, summed up his chuckle with something along these lines: “Joe is such a fool to think that I don’t know exactly what type of man he is. That Fred who hangs out with him all the time is no cousin but a lover.”
The gay priest he was talking about had even recently taken to wearing makeup and jewelry. Talk about two tells for any man’s orientation.
With fellow straight priests, in the course of an evening dinner, it’s laughable to talk about our bizarre encounters with heterophobic clerics. But not all of it is funny.
As a man, I have suffered enough in the course of my life from bull queers who raped me when I was a boy. I did not become a priest to have to suffer living with gay clerics.
God has condemned sodomy in all its forms — this is clear in Sacred Scripture. Why, in 2023, do so many pretend that God’s Sacred Word no longer applies?
If we do not address these questions, our Church is doomed!
