Posted on 05/03/2007 3:58:41 AM PDT by Cagey
Jim McGreevey's tortured soul-searching took him from governor to "gay American."
Now he could become the Rev. James E. McGreevey.
McGreevey, whose political career ended nearly three years ago amid claims of an adulterous affair with a male aide, is headed to the seminary to decide if he should become an Episcopal priest.
The 49-year-old McGreevey, who said his Catholic faith and upbringing was central to his public persona, has been accepted into a three-year master of divinity program at the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church, the school confirmed Wednesday.
The announcement comes three days after McGreevey was formally accepted into an Episcopal church in Manhattan.
McGreevey will begin taking courses at the seminary in September. The school, also based in Manhattan, is the flagship seminary for the 2.3 million-member Episcopal church.
"We look forward to welcoming him as a member of the General Seminary community," spokesman Bruce Parker said in a statement.
He added that the former governor has met all of the admissions requirements and that his application, like those of other prospective seminarians, was reviewed by a committee faculty members, students, and the admissions director.
Completing the master's program is the typical path to priesthood in the Episcopal Church. McGreevey will also need the support of a parish and a diocese before he can be ordained. He would also likely first serve as a deacon.
A spokesman for McGreevey's church, St. Bartholomew's in Manhattan, declined to comment on the former governor's plans.
"We don't discuss the personal lives of parishioners," Bob Johnson said.
The church held a confirmation ceremony last Sunday, at which about 100 people were either received or reaffirmed into the Episcopal Church. McGreevey is believed to have been one of them.
McGreevey's decision to contemplate a vocation comes as his estranged wife, Dina Matos McGreevey, makes public her version of their often icy marriage in her new book and publicity tour. The two are divorcing and their court filings have become increasingly testy.
His formal embrace of the Episcopal Church marks a complete break from the Roman Catholic religion of McGreevey's family and boyhood, a faith he often detailed in his public campaigns, complete with tales of being an altar boy and learning at the hands of dedicated nuns.
The Roman Catholic church considers homosexual behavior sinful and says gay people should stay celibate. The Episcopal Church -- the American offshoot of the Church of England -- has been ordaining openly gay priests for decades. In the Episcopal Diocese of Newark there are about 20 openly gay priests. The diocese covers seven counties, including Bergen and Passaic.
Louie Crew, a prominent North Jersey Episcopalian who is a friend of McGreevey's, said the former governor's decision is good news.
"There are dozens of priests who are effective because they went through some sort of personal struggle," said Crew, who founded Integrity, an Episcopal ministry for gay people. "Enduring a personal crisis brings a level of empathy which is so necessary to the priesthood."
Being Roman Catholic was as much a part of McGreevey's public persona as his blue suits and striped ties.
Over and over on the campaign trail and again while mayor of Woodbridge and later governor, McGreevey would boast of his Catholic school education and years in parish life.
While governor, he and Dina attended Mass regularly at the Aquinas Institute in Princeton. The couple even had a private audience with Pope John Paul II during their honeymoon in Rome.
But as governor, McGreevey's stance on social issues such as stem cell research and abortion rights put him in conflict with church authorities.
"I love my faith," McGreevey said in an April 2004 interview in which he also said Trenton's bishop and Catholic leaders in Rome were wrong to tell him and other politicians to end their support of abortion rights. At the time, American bishops were questioning whether Catholic politicians who openly support abortion rights should be denied sacraments, including Communion.
During that interview, McGreevey repeatedly said he developed his public position after reading works by John Henry Newman, a ranking Anglican prelate who converted to Roman Catholicism in 1845 and was later named a cardinal.
McGreevey later said he would no longer accept Communion in public.
Two months later, McGreevey stunned the world and his wife by announcing that he is a "gay American" and that he had had an extramarital affair with a staff aide.
That aide, Golan Cipel, denies the affair and has insisted that he was sexually assaulted by McGreevey.
Since his resignation, McGreevey has been through extensive therapy and soul-searching. That included many prayer sessions with an Episcopal group.
"We see him regularly, and he's in good spirits," said Sen. Ray Lesniak, D-Union, a McGreevey confidant. "It's no secret; he wrote about it in his book, when he was young he had a yearning desire to be a priest."
A Fair Lawn priest said McGreevey could inspire others to join the priesthood.
"There are many people who think they don't have what it takes to be a priest," said the Rev. Kevin P. J. Coffee of Episcopal Church of the Atonement. "But actually, God tends to take the bruised and broken reed and work through that."
If nothing else, Coffey said, McGreevey's interest in the church will spark some interesting conversations.
"And any time we have people talking openly about the church and about God, that is not a bad thing," Coffey said.
Why doesn’t this guy just get a job cleaning stalls at the local truck stop and leave us alone?
I have no doubt that Bishop V. Gene Robinson will welcome him with open...
Like any moral charlatan he wants to line up behind him the whole moral weight of the Protestant Reformation and centuries of great men and women. Rather than call a sin a sin ...
What episode of the Twilight Zone is this from??
Priceless.......
So...he was raised Catholic...
and his Catholic upbringing was “central to his public persona”...
and he was married and had kids...
but now he’s gay...
and wants to be an Episcopalian Pastor?
Is this making any sense to anybody?
From his book: ""So instead I settled for the detached anonymity of bookstores and rest stops as a compromise, but one that was wholly unfulfilling and morally unsatisfactory,"
Well, he is divorced.
Twice.
Met all the admission requirements, huh? Like leaving your wife for your gay lover? This guy shouldn't be let into a church without some serious repetence--let alone allowed to lead a congregation. Somehow I doubt he's done much except some much publicized crying. The level of moral confusion and indeed degeneracy to which some churches have sunk is unbelivable to me!
Even forgeting the adulterous gay thing....I Guess the US Episcopal Church is willing to overlook his immoral blatant mishandling of public funds in putting his unqualified lover on the state payroll in a hig-paying life-jepardizing position.
Seems like Mcgreevey’s multiple actions fall about class # two in the course, Immorality 101.
But then again moral leadership seems not to be what many seminaries desire to be about these days.
BTW—my female ex and her same sex lover both left their prior careers and went on to get prostestant seminary degrees in the same exact school, curriculumn and place and have now become ministers in charge of the same church.
Apparently nobody in the seminaries cared that they were marriage-destroying lesbians.
I shudder to think of them with the church mantel providing advice to young people on anything.
Semen-ary.
on the radio a few minutes ago the DJ was saying how that particular seminary was walking distance to scores of gay bars.
and whats with the episcopalians anyway...is there a schism going on now between different groups in the church both here and in the church of england???
“Well now, isn’t that just special?”
He does have a lot of experience at kneeling.
Sure, makes sense. Newman said that for him to remain Anglican would be to ignore history, and became a Catholic. McGreevey apparently said that for him to remain Catholic wouldn't let him ignore morality . . .
Still got expensive taste, I see. No cleansing the sores of lepers for him. St. Barts on Park Avenue, the finest and dandiest jewel of New York, with a legendary boys' choir and the richest parishioners.
Mr. McGreevey, I'd say "Get thee to a nunnery," but I like nuns too much for that.
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