A cloak of fear hangs over a part of the body of the Roman Catholic Church.
``They are on a witch hunt,'' said a gay priest who says Mass for a group of gay Catholics called Dignity meeting at a Congregational Church in downtown Columbus two Sunday evenings a month.
He has been a priest for 20 years. But he refuses to give his name over the phone. He refuses to even say in which diocese he serves, though diocesan officials know that he is gay and that he ministers to Dignity.
His fear is not without foundation.
The child sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church has put the issue of homosexuality in the spotlight. The most notorious of the accused abusers -- John Geoghan and Paul R. Shanley of the Boston Archdiocese -- have been gay priests charged with molesting or raping young boys.
That has drawn harsh statements from some Catholic Church leaders.
In March, Joaquin Navarro-Valls, spokesman for Pope John Paul II, questioned the ordination of gays. ``People with these inclinations just cannot be ordained,'' he told the New York Times.
Last month, Bishop Wilton Gregory, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, was widely quoted as saying that the Catholic priesthood should not be dominated by homosexual men.
Such words deeply concern gay Catholics.
``Gay priests have been carrying out the church's work for decades,'' said Marianne Duddy, executive director of Dignity USA, a national organization representing gay, lesbian and transgender Catholics. ``They've preached the Gospel, visited the sick, comforted the dying and the grieving, celebrated marriages, baptized children -- all the things faithful Catholics hope for from their pastors.
``Now, when the church faces a crisis, its leaders are willing to sacrifice these good men. How is that a Christian approach?''
Gay and Catholic
Meg Bechter, a 28-year-old Cuyahoga Falls resident, senior psychology major at the University of Akron and employee of Children's Hospital Medical Center of Akron, is a lifelong, devout Catholic, a faithful member of Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Cuyahoga Falls. She also is a lesbian.
``The idea of a backlash against gays and lesbians because of recent events does scare me,'' she said. ``But then I think, `How much worse can it get?' ''
Though Catholic doctrine does not say that it is wrong to be a homosexual, it does say that it is a sin to engage in a homosexual relationship.
Bechter said she came to terms with her sexuality when she was being treated for depression at an area hospital several years ago.
``Oh, my God,'' she thought. ``God made me gay. I am going to embrace it.''
Bechter said she considers herself fortunate because she has a supportive family. She is also part of a diocese-sponsored support group for gays and lesbians.
She believes the clergy scandal has opened up a frank discussion about the topic of homosexuality within the church and that could lead to changes in church doctrine.
``We can't erase the shame until people start talking,'' she said. ``I hope the church will welcome and acknowledge its gay clergy, which will lead to gay clergy being able to openly minster to gay Catholics.''
Gay people, she said, ``are ordinary men and women carrying on ordinary lives.''
Unfairly labeled
One reason the issue of homosexuality in the church is so sensitive is the number of priests who are gay.
Estimates on that number range from percentages in the single digits to as high as 60 percent. Within the general population, such estimates range no higher than 10 percent.
A.W. Richard Sipe, a former priest from La Jolla, Calif., a retired therapist and the author of Sex, Priests and Power: Anatomy of a Crisis, has studied sexuality and the priesthood for 42 years. His research indicates that 30 percent of priests are likely to be homosexual.
``The gay Catholic community is rightfully indignant at some of the church's statements,'' Sipe said, ``and, in fact, a good number of good Catholic priests who are homosexual in orientation have told me how wounded they feel, that they have given their whole life to the church and have been celibate and the church labels them as intrinsically defective.''
The Rev. Donald Cozzens, a Cleveland native and the former president rector of St. Mary Seminary in Wickliffe, said the current climate makes for a difficult time for celibate gay priests.
``For the celibate gay priest today, who is paddling as hard as he can as all priests are at this painful time, the church teaches the orientation is objectively disordered and not the person,'' said Cozzens, the author of The Changing Face of the Priesthood: A Reflection on the Priest's Crisis of Soul. ``That is a hard thing for any gay person to deal with and it can be hard for a gay priest to deal with.''
Cozzens, who sets the number of gay priests at ``considerably more than 8 to 10 percent,'' thinks that good ultimately will come out of the current scandal.
``The priesthood will be healthier and purified,'' he said, ``and the church will be stronger.''
Diocesan outreach
For several years, the Cleveland Diocese has been reaching out to gays and lesbians by holding support group meetings for them, their friends and families.
Sister Rita Mary Harwood, diocese secretary for Parish Life and Development, whose office coordinates gay outreach, said the church needs to offer understanding and pastoral care to its homosexual brothers and sisters.
``The church calls all of us to live a chaste life and outside of marriage to live a celibate life,'' she said. ``And just as the church calls a heterosexual person to refrain from sexual relations outside of marriage, it also calls a homosexual person to refrain from sexual relations.
``The church calls us as a faith community to respect, compassion and sensitivity to persons with a homosexual orientation and says any discrimination in that regard is wrong.''
Harwood said there is much confusion among people in the church and elsewhere over the issue of child sexual abuse.
``It seems that people are equating that with a homosexual orientation, which is not correct,'' she said. ``The information that is available indicates it is not more likely for a homosexual person to have difficulty with sexual abuse any more than it would be for a heterosexual person.''
That confusion, she said, ``causes great concern for persons who have a homosexual orientation.''
The Rev. Norman Douglas, executive director of Heart to Heart Communications, started ministering to gays and lesbians and their families when he was pastor at St. Martha Church in Akron seven years ago.
As part of the diocesan outreach to gays, Douglas now heads support groups for families of gay Catholics.
Their main concern is that people don't confuse pedophilia or abuse of minors with homosexuality, he said.
Someone who is gay or lesbian ``is no more likely to be a pedophile than someone who is straight,'' Douglas said.
Program upsets some
But the church's outreach to gays has upset some people.
Robert Tayek, spokesman for the Cleveland Diocese, said diocesan officials received about two dozen e-mails earlier this month questioning the church's gay and lesbian outreach.
Tayek said it appeared to him that the campaign may have been orchestrated because all the e-mails had the same type of message.
``Why would the diocese be promoting gay and lesbian events when the catecism and the pope have clearly stated this is behavior not to be tolerated?'' one e-mail said. ``Why would you even post the meetings on your website.''
Tayek said the church's position on homosexuality was spelled out clearly in a 1997 statement from the National Conference of Catholic Bishops called ``Always Our Children -- A Pastoral Message to Parents of Homosexual Children.''
Though at times you may feel discouraged, hurt or angry, the statement to the parents said, ``do not walk away from your families, from the Christian community, from all those who love you. In you, God's love is revealed. You are always our children.''
Cleveland resident Brian Halderman is a faithful Catholic who plans to join the Marianist religious order -- the Society of Mary -- this summer as an openly gay man.
``Silence is violence on this issue,'' said the 25-year-old Halderman, a member of Ascension Catholic Church in Cleveland. ``Part of the body of Christ is gay, whether you like it or not.''
Halderman, who works for the Cleveland Diocese as the technology utilization manager in its secretariat for education, said he is bothered by conservative members of the church who believe gay Catholics are promoting a homosexual agenda.
``I have no other agenda than that of the gospel and my work is to build the kingdom,'' said Halderman, who is part of a Cleveland Diocese-sponsored support group for gays and lesbians.
``If we all stayed focused on loving one another and building the kingdom here on Earth, we would live in a better church and a better world.''
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