Coming Out in a Catholic Home & Church
‘If you put that on Facebook, I’ll go down to the lake, and your father, he’ll have to sell the house!!!
That was the story of my coming-out conversation with my mum, now almost twenty years ago. Although all those years have now passed, the situation never really improved, and at this stage I have chosen to have no contact with my immediate family rather than continually beat my head against a brick wall. God is my Father; I have Our Lady as a mother & life goes on. However, do things really need to be this difficult, or was it just my family?
After very many years involved in ministry to the LGBT community, I have very sadly come to learn that while my story is pretty extreme, it’s certainly not unique.
Changing the names for the sake of anonymity, a friend of mine, John, we’ll say, eventually decided to tell his parents that he was gay while in his thirties. He was so afraid of his Catholic Dad actually murdering him that the only way he could do it was over the phone. Sadly, his coming-out story led to a breakdown and lifelong medical issues, all from a staunchly Catholic family.
Then there was Tim from Ireland, a very prayerful gay man who, although now almost sixty, has never come out. ‘Why did God give me this?’, he asked me once. ‘In all honesty, I’d prefer if I had a terminal illness’, as he explained the small-mindedness of his local area in rural Ireland.
Then more recently, there was a younger man whose Dad contacted me. Again, he mustered up the courage to tell his Dad by text and although his Dad was brilliant about it, it still begs the question, why by text?
Frankly, I could write a hundred of these types of stories and they are nearly all the same – coming-out in a Catholic family was and still is very difficult and even to this day, tears families and churches apart.
Where does this come from?
In Catholic circles, avoiding sin has always been important and rightly so! However, of all sins, sins of a sexual nature were very often considered the worst and so a poor girl who might have got herself pregnant in the past was effectively judged and scarred for life. Many are those who would have aborted to avoid the shame.
However, as bad and all as this was, there was another type of sexual sin whose name could not even be mentioned in the past and that was ‘homosexuality’, something so taboo and so perverse that as my friend above said, a ‘terminal illness’ would have been preferable.
The lack of talking about it and pushing it away gave it power and so gay people were labelled and judged as if they had deliberately chosen to be gay because they were inherently bad and rebellious.
The shame then that this would bring to the family was astronomical and so as my own mother threatened, she’d have to go down to the lake and my Dad would have to sell the house!!
Gay people were thus seen as rebellious and dangerous and as setting a bad example to the community and so there really were only two options, either stay in the closet all one’s life or come out and leave home as soon as possible!!!
Coming out nowadays in the Church
What is it like nowadays you might ask to be an openly gay Catholic in the Church?
My first experience of this was some years ago in a religious community when I was told to tell nobody that I was gay in case the parents thought that I was a paedophile. If I told people, they told me that they’d kick me out. A year later, unable to take any more, I left.
Some years later when I was more open about my sexuality, a religious superior scolded me for telling people and again, the paedophile card was played. His colleague asked me about my childhood and what wound I had suffered that made me gay? Eventually they gave me €100 and wished me well as I left. I regretted taking the money afterwards but I was broke!
Then, only a few short years ago, all hell broke loose in Medjugorje when I opened up about my sexuality and while one might think that things have been easy since coming to London, nothing could be further from the truth!!
Many in our local church had no problem with me coming to Church as long as I didn’t get involved but when the parish priest invited me to teach the catechism to some kids a few years ago, an angry lady quickly spread rumours all over the parish that I was an abuser! Had the priest not threatened to call the police, she might have continued.
Eventually, I did get to teach the catechism until more ladies got involved and pushed me out unfairly and this of course isn’t to mention the very nasty names that I have often been called around the Church!
Again, you might wonder if it is just me but let me assure you, it’s not just me!
Only recently, a gay man came to our Church because he wanted to become a Catholic. I was asked to step in at the last minute to be his sponsor because the lady who was supposed to be his sponsor suddenly messaged him out of the blue telling him that he was in mortal sin!
Then there was Steve, a lovely gay man who recently became Catholic and wanted to get more involved in his local Church. He was very honest about his life, being gay and having a partner and sadly to say, he was not selected to be a volunteer.
The result of all this is that even today, a lot of people either lie or just leave the Catholic Church completely for the sake of their mental and emotional well-being and perhaps the saddest part is that many just don’t seem to care.
That said, there is hope and I have come to notice that less and less Catholics believe in ‘Conversion therapy’ and thanks to Pope Francis and his love for the marginalised, more and more Catholics are beginning to open their hearts and minds to the LGBT community but in all honestly, this change is happening very slowly and often lacks a deep understanding of the enormous hurts that many of us in the gay community have suffered .
Conclusion
And while I’d like to end this article on a more positive note, I’m afraid that to do so would be disingenuous! For most people, coming out as a gay Catholic is still an excruciatingly difficult process and even more difficult is finding a Church community where one can experience love, acceptance and belonging.
We can only hope and pray that over time, through brave testimonies, good education and courageous leadership from Church leaders, that the age-old taboos and prejudices will be demolished and the young LGBT people coming from Catholic homes will be loved, welcomed and understood, with the appropriate pastoral care for their specific needs.
Perhaps, in the future, instead of talking about going to the lake and selling the house, parents will say ‘We love you. We are proud of you and will stand by you through thick and thin. We’ll work this out as a family’.
Leave a Reply