"It was like a death sentence": the shocking testimonies of Catholic priests who revealed their homosexuality

The crisis of baduality in the Catholic Church goes beyond abuse. This goes to the heart of the priesthood, in a closet that traps thousands of men, said journalist Elizabeth Dias in an investigation of gay Catholic priests that she published this Sunday The New York Times.

It was in 1982 and Gregory Greiten was 17 years old. He was retired with his clbadmates from Saint-Laurent., a Catholic seminar for teenagers who wish to become priests. Camp officials asked each child to choose one of the following conditions based on his preferences: burn over 90% of his body, whether paraplegic or homobadual.

None of the children pronounced the word gay, this game that leaders called the game of life.

Seven years later, Greiten went to the window of his seminary room and hung one leg to the edge. "I'm really gay," he reminded the Milwaukee priest now, adding, "It was like a death sentence."

For years Church leaders dissuaded parishioners from shame and insisted that "homobadual tendencies" are "behavioral disturbances". And yet, thousands of priests are homobaduals.

The stories of homobadual priests are hidden from the outside world, they know each other only if they know each other.

"The vast majority of homobadual priests are not safe"says Father Bob Bussen, a priest from Park City, Utah, who was discharged about 12 years ago after celebrating a mbad for the LGBTQ community.

"Life in the closet is worse than being the scapegoat," he said. "This is not a closet, it's a cage."

In the United States, fewer than a dozen priests have dared to publicly badume their homobaduality. However, gay men in the United States make up about 30 to 40 percent of the country's Catholic clergyaccording to the investigations of the same priests.

The atmosphere for gay priests has become more dangerous. The fall of Theodore McCarrick, the powerful cardinal who was accused last week of badual abuse of children and youth, has heightened accusations that homobaduality is at the root of the crisis abuse in the church.

Even Pope Francis has become more critical in recent months. He called "homobaduality" in fashion, he recommended that men with "this deep tendency" not be accepted into the Churchand homobadual priests exhorted to be "perfectly responsible, trying never to create scandal".

"It's my life," he says New York Times a priest from the northeastern United States who asked to remain anonymous. "You have the impression that everyone is on the witch hunt for things you have never done."

Before a priest knows that he is gay, he already knows the closet. The code is taught early, often in the seminary. Duo Numquam, semper three, the warning goes. Never two, always three. Move in trios, never in pairs. Do not walk alone, do not go to the cinema in couple. Superiors have warned for years: any friendship between men is too dangerous, it could become something badual and become what they called "a special friendship".

Father Greiten was 24 years old when he realized that he was gay and considered jumping out of his bedroom window.. He did not jump, but he confided his despair to a clbadmate. His friend was also gay. FIt was a revelation: there were other people who were studying to become homobadual priests. It was just that no one was talking about it.

A priest, whose parish has no idea of ​​his homobaduality, was reminded of a badtail a few years ago, during which other priests said "abominable things" on a homobadual bishop. He intervened and confronted them. He lost three friends that night. "I broke the code by announcing that I was gay," he said. "It was a conspiracy of silence."

Many priests reported having bad with other men to explore their badual identity. Some saw badgraphy to see how two men had bad. In the end, they found more anxiety than pleasure.

A priest had bad for the first time at 62, without compromise, with a man that he met online. The relationship was discovered and reported to the bishop and since then he has never experienced such links.

A little over a year ago, after meeting a group of gay priests, Father Greiten decided that it was time to end his silence. During Sunday Mbad, during Advent, he told his parish that he was gay and single. They jumped in applause.

His story has become viral. A 90-year-old priest called him to tell him that he had spent all his life in the closet and that he wanted the future to be different. A woman from Mississippi wrote to ask her to leave the south to become his priest.

For some church leaders, this support could have been even more threatening than their baduality. Father Greiten had committed the capital sin: he opened the door to debate.

The Archbishop of Milwaukee, Jerome E. Listecki, issued a statement in which he stated that he would like Father Greiten not to have published his badual preferences.. The letters called it "Satanic", "Gay Grime" and "Monster" who sodomized children.

For years, church leaders have been deeply confused by the relationship between homobadual men and badual abuse.

A study after study shows that homobaduality is not a predictive factor of badual abuse on a child, this also applies to priests, according to a famous study conducted by the John Criminal Justice College Jay following the 2002 revelations of child badual abuse in the church.

Blaming homobaduals for badual abuse is almost certainly one of this week's main themes at the Vatican, at a much-anticipated four-day summit on badual abuse.. Pope Francis called the world's most powerful bishops in Rome to educate them on the problems of abuse, after very serious cases in the United States, Australia, Chile and elsewhere.

The event has worried gay priests. A few years after the 2002 scandal, the Vatican banned gay men from attending seminars and ordination. When the crisis of abuse resumed again last summer, the former Vatican ambbadador to the United States, Msgr. Carlo Maria Viganò, accused the "gay networks" of American cardinals of working in secret to protect the aggressors. Y This week, a sensational book entitled "Sodom" will be released in Europe ("In the Vatican Closet" in the United States) with the aim of revealing a vast gay subculture at the Vatican.

In the Netherlands, a group of gay priests made the unusually bold decision to write to Pope Francis, urging him to allow gay and single men to be ordained.

Father Greiten wishes to speak with Pope Francis himself. "I heard my story about how the church traumatized me to be a gay man," he asked in the air.

"It's not just about the crisis of badual abuse," he said. "They are badually traumatizing and hurting another generation, we have to get up and say that more badual abuse, more badual trauma, more badual injury, we have to be successful in terms of baduality.".

For the moment Father Greiten was preparing for his fifteenth trip to Honduras with doctors and medical equipment.

He reflected: "What would happen if every priest was allowed to live freely, openly, honestly? It's my dream."