But this couldnt be that priest. That helps to quiet our anxiety and fear. Columba standing on a bluff overlooking a lake behind Saint John's Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota. Following the trail of evidence, The Complete Guide to All the Ways Donald Trump Is Legally Screwed. That said, no one has sex with other residents of his own monastery, a former monk told me, because it is like a Big Brother house. Indeed, much of what these and other early monastic writers produced Columba finds not only alien but even abhorrent. In 2000, Politi published a book-length interview with an anonymous gay priest, entitled La Confessione, republished in 2006 as Io, Prete Gay (I, Gay Priest). Yet in the Church, as in Italian society, its often the case that right appearancela bella figurais all. Paul looked a laughingstock, and the Curia learned a lesson: better to ignore such charges than to amplify them by denial. And finally, at age 22, he turned down job offers in corporate finance to live and travel across India, UK and Europe as a monk. A few small groups of gay Catholics in Rome operate publicly, but because anyone can come to their meetings, it can be risky for priests, especially Vatican officials, to be part of them. Shetty: Brain research shows that we have something called a default mode where we take things we do frequently and make them automatic. This may well have been the first time in history that a Pope has publicly uttered the term gaythe word that most men who feel romantic love for other men use to describe themselvesinstead of the pathologizing 19th-century medical term homosexual. Then, in a lengthy interview with a Jesuit journal, the Pope went further, stating that the Churchs ministry should not be obsessed with a few divisive moral issues such as abortion and gay marriage. A challenge to accept risk in favor of compassion. A challenge to look more deeply at Who is my neighbor? A challenge to be generous, unlike the religious, spiritual person who did nothing to help. Listening to these words, I could not help but wonder: where, in that parable, does this priest see himself? Like the great Benedictine medievalist of the last century Jean Leclercq, he might be easily classified with those gyrovagues, wandering monks roundly condemned by generations of monastic writers. Later, he spent a year at the Institute for Advanced Study, where I was a professor. True, Columba is often far from his brethren at Saint Johns, and his duties often make the rigid observance of the monastic hours impossible. The Church, therefore, is increasingly preoccupied with making sure its leaders are groomed from among boys who look holy: playing dress-up at the American College and going down to Piazza Navona at nine P.M. to say their Breviaries. Sacraments and liturgy, the former priest says, are the kernel of what makes the Church important. When we build these things into our routine, we dont have to think about them; we start to do them automatically. How unlucky! his brother says. Catholic and other religious protesters gather at Dodger Stadium on The way that Cassian drew the most intimate and private realms of bodily and sexual experience into the project of transformation through grace gives Columba hope that we go to God as whole persons, body and soul, never one without the other. The right sees them as a stain in need of removal. That can start tomorrow, or even right now. Francis X. Talbot, S.J., was for many years America's literary editor, and later its editor in chief. He inspired Donatella Versaces winter 2007 clergyman collection.) Perhaps the most vicious of Benedicts nicknames is La Maledetta. The word means cursed in Italian, but the pun derives from the fact that the term means the exact opposite of Benedicts own name in Italian, Benedetto, which means blessedwith a gender change achieved in the process. Part of Kathy Caprinos series The Most Powerful You, Embracing a meditative routine and integrating other actions based on ancient wisdom can transform [+] our lives. How many monks were there in England in the year of grace, 1525? This is a great opportunity to yield control of our lives, to let ourselves truly trust in the goodness and providence of God amidst all that is happening, said Father Casagram. His faith is not a shield against the contemporary world, and his monastic vocation is not born of a desire to escape into some idealized past. If a person is gay and is searching for the Lord and has goodwill, who am I to judge him?, He spoke these words with a palpable warmth, unlike the embattled, wary tone that other Popes have adopted. Whether he received this privileged access from some friend or family member, or from a client, is impossible to say; to see a known rent boy in black leather on a private Vatican balcony does raise an eyebrow. Alongside that are suffering priests who seem sincere all the way down, who are trying to be faithful to God, and also to take care of people and change the institution. A Vatican priest I met withhe actually invited me to stop by his office near St. Peters because he said he wanted to show that this is no secret, though its secret enough that he cant be namedis involved with this group, as part of an unofficial ministry in addition to his official duties. When God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person? the Pope asked rhetorically. I couldnt think of anything to do with my life that could be more powerful or meaningful than that. [10] From 1933: A longtime editor of America offers his thoughts on the agony of writingas well as some of its joys and rewards. The Secret Lives of the Vatican's Gay Cardinals, Monks, and Other Both sides find these clerics to be politically useful. Hence when, in the course of his university studies, he began to love the textual traces of early Christian monasticism, his Catholic faith let him move freely toward an embrace of this tradition with his whole being, but without losing perspective on himself and his world. (Nicknamed Bel Giorgio, or Gorgeous George, the rugged Gnswein skis, plays tennis, and pilots airplanes. Does Making Up Words Like Resenteeism Undermine HR's Credibility? Since launching his video channel in 2016,Jayhas produced over 400 videos, which have amassed more than 7.5 billion views and gained over 37 million followers globally. From there, we have the space to take a step back and practice detachmentto start viewing our circumstances more objectively so that while we acknowledge our emotions, we dont let them make our decisions for us. In 2010, for the better part of a month, one straight journalist pretended to be the boyfriend of a gay man who acted as a honeypot and entrapped actual gay priests in various sexual situations. if you are trying to comment, you must log in or set up a new account. (The cardinal vicar of Rome was given the task of investigating. It depends on what you mean. He was soon joined by his first followers, to whom he gave a short and simple rule of life. Catholic priests are all men and while there are celibate women - typically nuns - much of the debate tends to focus on male celibacy. It all started at age 18 when his friends pressured him to attend a talk given by a monk. Caprino: How can we best train our minds for peace and purpose? Left bloodied by the thieves, the seminarian hollered at the bystanders, Theres three of them and 300 of us!. Yes, his plans had changed, he said, but he was leaving again the next day and would return only after I was gone. Affirmative action is Catholic social teaching in action. All rights reserved. He invited 200 homeless people for dinner in the Vatican gardens. He is reforming everything from the Vatican banks bookkeeping to the contents of the papal wardrobe. At least that's something. When we are detached, we become observers of what is happening in our minds. a former monk who spent most of his life building a 125-foot-tall cathedral almost single-handedly, and . Twelve years ago, Tracy Kemme, 21 at the time, was volunteering in Ecuador when a 12-year-old girl told her that she wanted to be a nun. Gay Priests and the Lives They No Longer Want to Hide - New York Magazine Even while their reliability is questionable, they demonstrate that playing the gay card (even if you yourself are gay) is an ancient Curial tactic. Fr. It was really the combination of being able to learn and study on one hand, and on the other to dedicate myself to serviceto plant trees under whose shade I did not plan to sit, as the monk had describedthat appealed to me. A-. Then we can either release that fear or we can see what its trying to teach us. Awareness of how we are one, especially one in our fragility, said Brother Quenon, is the ground from which we build community. If we can imitate monastic life by being present and attentive to one another in our temporary cloisters during quarantine, we can emerge from this time more attentive to the needs of those in our society. Yet gays in the Vatican, like spies in intelligence services, inhabit boxes within boxes. Of the total, 753,400 members were women, while 191,810 were men, including 136,171 priests and 532 permanent deacons. In an age of postreligious secular scholarship, when most of the finest interpreters of the Christian tradition are at best agnostic, approaching their sources with the same . This monastic identity is the most salient feature of what makes Columba Stewart the man he is, what drives him in his scholarship to understand the earliest history and even the prehistory of monasticism, what gives him the courage to enter combat zones to rescue manuscripts that few people care about and that still fewer can read. Such faith enabled monks like Cassian to do whatever they were called on to do, monastic and pastoral, as if it mattered absolutely, while knowing that from another perspective it mattered not at all. Franciscan | Definition, History, & Facts | Britannica Now, Shetty is a storyteller and podcaster spreading ancient wisdom that hes learned to millions, making it practical, entertaining, and accessible. The order has been regarded by many as the principal agent of the Counter-Reformation and was later a leading force in modernizing the church. Your source for jobs, books, retreats, and much more. Note: An alteration was made in the passage about Marco Politis La Confessione, republished as Io, Prete Gay, in order to give a more accurate description of the book. During the previous few days, I had heard a lot about this man. This order is a mendicant religious order of men, some of whom trace their origin to Francis of Assisi. But unlike the monks, we did not ask for or want this situation, nor it is one for which many of us were spiritually prepared. Without diminishing the catastrophic loss of life and jobs caused by the pandemic, Michael Casagram, O.C.S.O., at Gethsemani said that perhaps Covid-19 is a divinely disguised moment for human breakthrough. Our society revolves around the notion that power and wealth give meaning to existence, that they allow us to take control of our lives. The internal VatiLeaks report, according to La Repubblica, indicated that gay clerics in the Vatican were being blackmailed. The figures were published next to a report of Pope Benedict XVI's meeting with nuns, monks and priests from many countries gathered in St Peter's Basilica in Rome last weekend. So much of our anxiety revolves around wanting to control the uncontrollable, and the pandemic can teach us the futility of this. Rumors are O.K., but not scandal, Politi observes. A layman I know whose job requires frequent trips to the Vatican used to enjoy flirting with a muscular go-go boy who danced on the bar at a gay nightclub in Rome. You can also manage your account details and your print subscription after logging in. But la bella figura matters just as much at ordinary moments. Gregory Hillis is an associate professor of theology at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Ky. When he made to greet the man, the guard signaled him to stay back, raising a finger to his lips in a quiet Shhhhh . We still need it. There are also weekly hikes, in which conversation is permitted and where laughter abounds. Shetty: Especially in stressful times, people turn to leaders for answers. All life is lived in the shadow of death, said Brother Quenon, and we forget that.. Columba Stewart is a monk. The Triumph of the Immaculate Heart From Sea to Shining Sea? For more information, visit Think Like a Monk, and Jay Shetty. Shetty: The principles and ideas I learned as a monk are much of what I share with others, yet I typically couch them in more modern language and blend them with data and with ideas and opinions from giants in business, entrepreneurs, influencers, and so on. Yet dozens of interviews with current and former gay priests, gay monks, veteran Vatican journalists, Italian aristocrats, and gay men at Roman gyms, bars, nightclubs, sex clubs, and restaurants suggest that, riveting as the more graphic stories are, they convey a limited part of the reality of gay clerical life in Rome. What does it mean to get intimate with fear and why is it so important? Sometimes talking to gay priests feels like reading stories by Borges. I still havent run into anyone in the Vatican who has shown me an identity card with gay on it. He pantomimed holding up such a card in his left hand and then went on: When you find yourself with a person like that, you have to distinguish between the fact of a person being gay and the fact of somebody forming a lobby. But I would never have the experience firsthand. Naked but for the towel around his waist, a man of a certain age sat by himself, bent slightly forward as if praying, in a corner of the sauna at a gym in central Rome. One private group of about 50 gay priests and laymen meets once a year, for a kind of retreat. Some gay celibate clerics use the saunas not for sex but to experience a sense of fellowship with others like themselves. There has been plenty of scandal, though. The monks I spoke with acknowledged this, but at the same time they suggested that we can use this moment to live into and be freed by the realization that there is much we cannot control. Why am I being asked to create an account? Caprino: Many people have tried to engage in a meditation practice, but struggle to maintain that practice. Gay lobby? The left uses them to level charges of hypocrisy. He had told me that hed be away and couldnt meet. Reject the cult of intelligence. Youre worth more than that. But my friend kept after me and I finally agreed. Now there were just nine. Its members include friars, nuns, active sisters, and lay Dominicans. His cashmere Catholicism continues to serve him well. These complexities revolve in no small part around our individualistic propensity to elevate ourselves above others. This critical approach to his sources has helped him deconstruct the received traditions of Egyptian monasticism and its influence to recognize, in the fragmentary evidence gathered primarily from Syriac texts, layers of early monasticism, quasi monasticism, and premonasticism as they developed in the towns and countryside of the eastern Mediterranean before the age ofAntony. The Vatican statistics (below) list the number of. The Cistercians of the Strict Observance, also known as the Trappists, is a contemplative religious order. One gay former priest, who still lives in Rome, describes clerical camp as a natural way of expressing [gay identity] while celibate. Socially, he says, it is a key that unlocks a further element of trust. Theres nothing earth-shattering about thisits what every institution doesbut the Church has a lot more experience and practice at protecting itself. And they inhabit a secretive netherworld, because homosexuality is officially condemned. To my mind at least, this speaks of a curious link between the Catholic, decidedly Marian, faith . We must always consider the person., Tales of gays in the Vatican have been told for more than a thousand years. Joe Flynn of the Trappist Monks' Specialty Bakery| National Catholic Ironic, effeminate self-mockeryallowing priests to exercise some limited rebellion against their own isolation and invisibilityis one form of clerical camp. The scope of his concern about abuse of power seems total. At first, I thought, No way! I was far more interested in celebrities, CEOSpeople who had done something with their livesthan some monk. From his early engagement with the foundational texts of monasticism, AthanasiussLife of Antony,John CassiansInstitutesandConferences, and the writings of Evagrius Ponticus, Columba has sought and found a deep resonance between the psychological insightsof these antique men and his own sense of himself. Research from people including Carol Dweck at Stanford supports this idea. There are at least a few gay cardinals, including one whose long-term partner is a well-known minister in a Protestant denomination. A certain part of the clergy feels that no one will care what they do if they are discreet, says Marco Politi, a prominent Italian journalist and longtime Vatican correspondent, and the author of several books about the papacy and the Church. Password reset instructions will be sent to your registered email address. Self-centeredness can breed a sense of entitlement. One monk told me, A lot of us will not condemn. When Paul VI assumed the throne, in 1963, by one account he took his papal name not from any predecessor but from a former lover, a film actor. Someone took notes during what was meant to be a private meeting between Latin-American Church leaders and the new Pope, the former cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, Archbishop of Buenos Aires, now known as Francis. Representative Image. I know a priest who ministers to people in the Curia in that situation, the archbishop said, though he is not assigned officially., That is not me, the priest said, amazed. "Why would you ever want to do that?" Kemme asked, pressing the girl about marriage and children. Catholic Daily Mass - Daily TV Mass - June 22, 2023 - Facebook Because of Covid-19, many of us are living, in a way, like monks, enclosed and isolated in our homes. Please visit ourmembership pageto learn how you can invest in our work by subscribing to the magazine or making a donation. Rarely have I spoken directly about my experiences as a monk, or given details about my monk training. Francis has also said some things that, from a Popes mouth, seem extraordinary simply because they are so down to earthlike his choice to end one homily with the untraditional exhortation Have a good lunch! Yet the first time this Popes words, rather than his actions, made significant headlines was in connection with his comments about the gay lobby.. "There are numerous mandalas, but the world has been through a lot, tremendously, through Covid-19," says Samten.