Posted on 01/08/2006 5:54:51 PM PST by Ellesu
THIBODAUX, La. (AP) - Deciding he had to practice the honesty he preached, a popular priest has told his family, his bishop and the people in his parish that he is gay.
The Rev. Jim Morrison said he had been working since October on the letter which he sent early this month to 300 members of the congregation at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church and 200 members of the student ministry.
He mailed the letter and handed his bishop a copy on Jan. 2, about a month after the Vatican released a policy statement saying people with "deep-seated" homosexual tendencies should be kept out of the priesthood.
Saturday evening, the pews at St. Thomas Aquinas were full.
As pastor, Morrison told the congregation, "I ask you constantly to trust me. I ask you come to me with your life, all the blessings, all the struggles."
"But it's not a one-way street," he said.
Morrison said he told his parents, four sisters and two brothers before he mailed the letter.
"I wrestled with talking to my parents," he said. But, he said, the family talks were "very positive."
In the letter he said that for years, he had counseled people struggling with their sexual orientation to be honest about it with people they love.
"I have come to realize that while I was encouraging others to be honest, I was not putting these words into practice in my own life," Morrison wrote.
He said he wasn't looking for attention or approval but trying to be more true to himself, God and those he serves.
"I thought it took a lot of courage," Winnie Faucheux of Thibodaux said after the Saturday evening Mass. "I love him. I think he's a wonderful person. I think the community's going to grow from him being honest."
Morrison said he has kept his vows of celibacy and is not in any romantic or sexual relationship. Being celibate and gay is not against Catholic doctrine, so he does not plan to resign, he said.
Nor is he being asked to, said Louis Aguirre, spokesman for the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux.
"He's not being asked to do anything but to continue his ministry," Aguirre said.
In a written statement Saturday, Bishop Sam G. Jacobs said the Roman Catholic Church makes a clear distinction between homosexual actions and orientation.
The Vatican's statement says homosexual acts are intrinsically immoral, but people don't choose their sexual orientation and should not be discriminated against because of it, the bishop wrote. And, he wrote, people should be judged by their acts.
Morrison, a priest for more than 18 years, has been pastor of St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church at Nicholls State University for more than three. Students often drop by to chat, drawn by his warmth and wit.
He has led three other churches in Houma and Chauvin, and has been director of vocations and seminarians for the Diocese of Houma-Thibodaux. He also helped found a school for at-risk Terrebonne youths and creating a benefit race to support that school. He has traveled to Nicaragua to minister, mentored youths hoping to become priests and won awards for his service.
After Hurricane Katrina, Morrison welcomed storm evacuees with pets to the St. Thomas Aquinas Center when some other shelters wouldn't allow animals.
"As Jesus says, one judges a tree by the fruit it bears. A good tree does not bear bad fruit and a bad tree does not bear good fruit," Jacobs wrote. "In my short tenure as bishop of Houma-Thibodaux, I have known Father Jim Morrison to be a compassionate and energetic priest who has provided good pastoral ministry to the people he has served. Unless I discover otherwise, as with all of our priests, I support him in the good that he does for our people."
Jim Morrisson/Back Door Man ping.
"Too late. The kids would be more surprised if he revealed he was straight."
LOL!
I'm not a Catholic but it seems to me that his public confession about his homosexuality is also a public statement that he supports present church doctrine.
I you are inclined towards homosexuality then you should not be ordained.
He's already ordained but celibate and wishes to continue in the priesthood.
His public confession means he agrees to follow church teaching.
Celibacy trumps sexual orientation, Hetero or Homo.
I think his honesty and sincerity should count for something.
...ok...maybe I coulda used a better analogy...oops!, I did it again.
That's the question. This guy probably has a million duties and responsibilities around the parish, and all he can think of is coming out of the closet? Put a sock in it and get on with the job.
Thanks - will ping the list later tonight or tomorrow.
Alot of the priests that I have dealt with make Liberace look macho.
There have been numerous discussions and articles about this. Homosexual priests have a way of saying "I'm celibate" and actually MEANING that "I'm not married". They don't necessarily mean "I am CHASTE" (ie no sex).
It's called "parsing" words.
Well I'd like to think the guy's sincere but I'm an optimist.
Father Mo-jo RISIN'...
If a person has no intention of ever acting on base impulses, s/he will not identify with said impulses. Desires that are ignored gradually go away. By focusing on them, they increase and get stronger.
Furthermore, the position of the Catholic Church is that no one who has same sex attraction or identifies as "gay", or who supports the gay agenda, should be a priest.
His sexual orientation. Priests are human with lusts just like anyone else. The only caveat is that they're not supposed to act on their carnal desires. What makes this priest gay is that when he goes to confession, he confesses to carnal thoughts and fantasies involving men, instead of women. Even though he's not acting on the desire, his desire is for men, not women.
since we're picking the nit, most dictionaries list at least two meanings for celibate: 1. unmarried 2. abstaining from sex.
What he meant to say was, "when I see a hot guy in the congregation I get all tingly between my legs and I want to touch his firm loins and feel his hot flesh against mine." If we are going to celebrate honesty, let's get really honest.
That my friend is a the granddaddy of all lies. It's utter and total BS. I won't name my temptations, but they haven't diminished over the years despite my refusal to indulge. To this day some of my lusts are managed only through the same force of will that I put in place years ago to keep them in check. Luckily for me, in my case they're all heterosexual in nature, but the principle remains the same.
Since he declares himself to be gay, he might also follow the wise policies of many other pastor-teachers who adapt a policy to never place themselves in a compromising position with women, i.e. they only counsel in groups and open door sessions with witnesses present with no doubt as to their credibility.
Of course, since he cannot communicate with either men or women in private now, he might either consider complete isolation or only public servitude.
One further point. If he is indeed born again, then he has given up the old man, the old sin nature, and if he is genetically predisposed to 'gayness', he has given that up long before entering seminary, and has now advanced to the point of putting on the mind of Christ rather than ever entertaining 'gay thoughts'. Of course, if this has not yet happened, the issue isn't a gay predisposition, but rather he needs to conitnue his walk in faith and mature to the point of rejecting any such temptation in spiritual self-esteem.
Ouch ... this guy's got no mojo ... wrong Morrison ... can't fool me.
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