Utica (RC) Priest Discloses He is Gay

AP Wire (direct feec) | March 30, 2004

[NYer]

UTICA, N.Y. (AP) _ A priest with a history of advocacy for gay and lesbian rights has publicly acknowledged he is gay.

The Rev. Fred Daley, pastor of St. Francis de Sales Church, is believed to be the first priest in the seven-county Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse to publicly disclose that he is homosexual. ``I'm the same person today as I was yesterday,'' Daley said. ``My expectation and prayer is that people will continue to love and respect me.''

Despite a tremendous amount of fear and anxiety about coming out publicly, Daley said he felt called by God to do so and is ready to accept whatever ``rejection or misunderstanding'' he encounters. Daley told his congregation over the weekend. All priests are committed to celibacy, and sexual orientation alone does not lead to dismissal from the priesthood, said Danielle Cummings, communications director for the diocese.

Daley, 56, has been pastor of St. Francis de Sales since 1992. For at least 30 years, the Utica parish has had a reputation for supporting the poor and fighting injustice. Last week, Daley received a ``Real Hero'' award from the United Way of Greater Utica in recognition of his work with the poor.

Daley was ordained in 1974. He also served at St. Mary Church, Jamesville. In 1987, while co-director of vocations for the diocese, he led a group of 16 local Catholics on a 10-day retreat in Nicaragua.

In September 2002, organizers of an interfaith Sept. 11 memorial service in Utica removed Daley as the main speaker after criticism of his advocacy for the gay and lesbian community. Daley has celebrated Masses for gay and lesbian Catholics. Diocesan officials have said his participation in such services is not in opposition to church teaching.

[NYer]

It's already a given that some of the bishops have ordained gay men to the priesthood. If he remains celibate and defends the Catholic Church's teaching on homosexuality, there should be no problem.

"Homosexual unions are totally lacking in the biological and anthropological elements of marriage and family which would be the basis, on the level of reason, for granting them legal recognition. Such unions are not able to contribute in a proper way to the procreation and survival of the human race. The possibility of using recently discovered methods of artificial reproduction, beyond involving a grave lack of respect for human dignity,(15) does nothing to alter this inadequacy."

CONSIDERATIONS REGARDING PROPOSALS TO GIVE LEGAL RECOGNITION TO UNIONS BETWEEN HOMOSEXUAL PERSONS

[Gerish]

If he remains celibate and defends the Catholic Church's teaching on homosexuality, there should be no problem.

From this mornings Post Standard article: In a 1987 interview, Daley said the church's celibacy requirement contributes to the clergy shortage. "If celibacy were optional and if women could be ordained, there would be no priesthood shortage in the Catholic Church. That's my opinion," Daley said at the time.

How does he know he is gay if he is supposedly celibate?

[HarleyD]

If there's nothing wrong with a gay priest you surely won't mind a "gay" Pope or leadership council made up of "gay" Cardinals.

[ArrogantBustard]

In 1987, while co-director of vocations for the diocese, he led a group of 16 local Catholics on a 10-day retreat in Nicaragua.

Neeekaraahhwgwaa, 1987, is an odd place for a retreat.

Unless you're a crypto-Marxist, liberation theology believing poofter.

[ArrogantBustard]

If he remains celibate and defends the Catholic Church's teaching on homosexuality,

he won't be 'coming out of the closet, and celebrating masses for poofters.

[B Knotts]

Bingo. I can only imagine what this guy is saying in his homilies. There is a strong correlation between homosexuality and doctrinal dissent.

That's why we need to get homos out of the priesthood, even if it causes some temporary inconvenience.

[B Knotts]

"If celibacy were optional and if women could be ordained, there would be no priesthood shortage in the Catholic Church. That's my opinion,"

Likewise, if we could ordain goats, there would be no priesthood shortage in the Catholic Church.

[NYer]

If there's nothing wrong with a gay priest you surely won't mind a "gay" Pope or leadership council made up of "gay" Cardinals.

Here's a tip, taken directly from the Bible ...

Matthew
Chapter 7

1

^{1 2} "Stop judging, that you may not be judged.

2

For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you.

3

Why do you notice the splinter in your brother's eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye?

4

How can you say to your brother, 'Let me remove that splinter from your eye,' while the wooden beam is in your eye?

5

You hypocrite, ³ remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother's eye.

[BobCNY]

The posts by everyone leading up to this point assumes because the priest has mentioned that he has a gay orientation he acts on it and therefore should be removed from the priesthood.

Homosexuality is a grave disorder as described in the CCC. But alcoholism, drug abuse, gambling, etc. are also disorders but are not usually reasons to remove someone from the priesthood you see talked about.

If the priest says he can and does live a chaste life, then he is no different than the hetrosexual priest in living a celibate life. This is the situation we are currently in.

I believe that the ordination of gay men into the priesthood was and is a mistake by the Bishops which we are stuck dealing with until the practice is stopped.

[HarleyD]

The Catholic churches' gay priests may wish to consider these verses the next time they have mass and offer the Eucharist to gay and lesbian Catholics.

______________________

1 Corinthians 6:9-10

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God.

___________________________

This isn't a log-in-my-eye problem. The scriptures are clear. By ignoring this problem these people are being deceived.

[Eala]

How does he know he is gay if he is supposedly celibate?

Orientation vs. practice.

[old and tired]

Daley said he felt called by God to do so and is ready to accept whatever ``rejection or misunderstanding'' he encounters.

Oh good grief!

Bob, you make a good point. I'm also struck by the similarity between alcoholism and homosexuality. In my experience, when an alcoholic first goes into recovery, he feels this urge to tell everybody. The difference of course is this priest is not standing up in a church basement going, "Hi, my name is Fr. Daley, and I'm a sodomite." That would be too much like admitting there was something wrong with a homosexual inclination. Instead of bearing his cross with humility and contriteness, he acknowledges his sick proclivity and rejoices in it.

[american colleen]

Service for gay community draws support, protests
Sept. 16, 2002

By JENNIFER WARNICK
Observer-Dispatch

UTICA — St. Francis DeSales Catholic Church was packed Sunday — with people and with rainbows — a symbol of unity in the gay community.

The event went off following a week of controversy that included criticism from the local Right to Life Committee and the removal of the Mass’s organizer from a Sept. 11 public speaking role.

More than 400 people, including a handful of local leaders and clergy, gathered to attend the area’s first Mass for gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgendered people, led by the Rev. Fred Daley.

The main message at the Mass revolved around acceptance, love, forgiveness, peace and unity.

“I just want you to know you’re very welcome here today,” Daley told the congregation as he started the service. He wore a rainbow stole over his white robes.

“We are one family,” he said.

The event garnered opposition early last week when a Right to Life group pronounced it “against the church.”

Sunday’s service was drawn even further into controversy when, because of his involvement in hosting the Mass, Daley was removed Tuesday as the main speaker at “One Region United,” Wednesday’s memorial event for the victims and heroes of Sept. 11.

Utica’s Assistant Fire Chief Russell Brooks, backed by Mayor Timothy Julian, threatened to pull out of the Sept. 11 ceremony if Daley didn’t step aside. Brooks and Julian said Daley’s involvement in the gay community would have brought unwanted controversy and “stress” to the Sept. 11 memorial.

And as expected, Sunday’s Mass did not pass without disapproval.

Though inside there were rainbows, outside there was rain — and more than a dozen protesters to the Mass despite the weather.

The demonstrators, many of them from the Oneida County Right to Life group, held signs on the steps of the church before the service: “Gay sex is evil,” “Love the sinner, hate the sin” and “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.”

“It’s not my truth or the perceived truth, but THE truth,” explained one objector to the Mass, Nicholas Parisi of Utica. “We oppose evil in every quarter.”

According to Parisi, it’s not homosexuals that the protesters were opposed to, but the fact that they have sex outside the bonds of marriage. For that reason, the group also believes that the Roman Catholic church should not sanction a Mass for gays and lesbians.

“You’re not a homosexual if you’re not practicing. It’s not the person, it’s what they do,” he said. “It goes against all the church’s teachings. Sodomy is a sin — it’s wrong.”

There were also two young men who held signs that said, “The Bible is just a book” and “Catholicism preaches intolerance” and “Free your minds: Abolish organized religion.”

As people walked up the steps of the church, the Right to Life protesters would shout to them as well as to Daley, who was in the entryway. Daley merely invited all of the sign-holders to stay for the Mass.

“Don’t listen to them, Father Fred — don’t listen,” one of the two men protesting religious intolerance yelled about the Right to Life demonstrators. “You go inside and have a good service.”

When he took his place at the front of the church, Daley was met by thunderous applause and cheers.

“It would be nice if this happened every Sunday,” he said, smiling.

Flanked by rainbow ribbons and a rainbow flag-covered altar, Daley received laughs and a second standing ovation when he said, “I’m very happy that I wasn’t uninvited to be the speaker today.”

He has spent the week reflecting on his “uninviting” to the Sept. 11 ceremony, thinking “what in the world does that event have to do with a Mass at St. Francis. He decided there was indeed a very deep connection.

Whether it was the young men who turned planes into the World Trade Center or the young men who drove Mathew Shepherd into a field in Wyoming and beat him to death for being gay, the root is the same.

“They were all driven to insanity by ignorance — by fear that turns into hatred, and hatred that turns into violence,” Daley said. “The bottom line is ... all the issues that bring people to suffer are the same, whether it’s terrorism or racism or homophobia.”

Rather than perpetuate violence, he said, people should seek the truth together and it will “set us all free.”

“When in conflict, let’s not try to win, destroy or dissolve the enemy. Let’s disarm them,” he said. “Those who live by the sword, die by the sword.”

He admitted to feeling angry, bitter and embarrassed after being removed as the speaker at “One Region United.” However, he said, we should all take the energy that comes from those feelings and use it for the good.

“I think the last several days have been the greatest teaching moments on homophobia the Mohawk Valley has ever seen,” he said. “I challenge all of us to use this moment as a time to move our community out of ignorance, hatred, fear and violence.”

The key to breaking that cycle is education, he said, which will defeat the myths and stereotypes about gay people that come from as far back as the Middle Ages.

Two fundamentals of that education are first, that no one can choose his or her sexual orientation and second, that the Bible cannot be used to evaluate one’s sexuality, Daley said.

“We can’t use the Bible to hit people over the head with,” he said, noting that he doesn’t think modern theologians are able to use the Bible to prove homosexuality a sin.

The Catholic church and others should not be so obsessed with what people do in private, he said.

“I didn’t tell anyone at the 8 a.m. Mass or the 11 a.m. Mass (what to do in their bedrooms), so I’m certainly not going to tell anyone here at the 3 p.m. Mass,” he said, receiving more cheers and applause. “Certainly no one is going to push me to stand at the pulpit and explain what is intimate.”

At the end of the service, Beverly Bartlett, coordinator of the Mohawk Valley Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender organization, presented Daley with a clock commending him for his courage.

Bartlett said sometime soon the organization would like to work with St. Francis DeSales to establish a monthly Mass for gay and lesbian people.

“We can walk out of this building and commit ourselves to speak the truth,” Daley said. “If we do that there will be someday that our public officials will maybe even hang the rainbow flag.”

After the service, people stayed for refreshments, to visit and to sign a card to Bishop James Moynihan, thanking him for allowing the Mass.

Daley said he spoke to Bishop James Moynihan and Roman Catholic Diocese of Syracuse officials last week to clarify the service and he expected no opposition for Sunday’s Mass. Syracuse and Binghamton area churches have had similar services, he said.

The Rev. Paula McRae of the United Methodist Church was one of the local pastors in attendance — others included clergy from the Jewish, Unitarian Universalist and Presbyterian religions, and other local Catholic priests.

McRae said a protester approached her in the rear of the church with a video camera. The woman was videotaping the service “to send to the bishop.”

“I told her ‘Jesus is for everyone,’” McRae said.

“I believe in the compassion of Christ. Jesus would want it to be this way,” she said, gesturing to the crowd. “Jesus would want everyone here.”

Among the local officials at the service were Utica Common Councilman Bill Phillips and Oneida County Workforce Development Director Dave Mathis, who attended the Mass to show their support for Daley.

“The turnout showed that some people were willing to cross a picket line to show where they stood,” Phillips said.

“Somehow we have a tendency to think we can separate our bigotry,” Mathis said, adding that racists, sexists, homophobes and others are all the same — and none of it is justified. “I think our city took a black eye.”

Being black and living in Utica all his life, Mathis said, he deals with this sort of thing every day.

“But when it happens to someone else, you really realize what’s going on,” he said.

[american colleen]

``I'm the same person today as I was yesterday,'' Daley said. ``My expectation and prayer is that people will continue to love and respect me.''

This statement bothers me somewhat. It isn't so people will love and respect you, it is that we hope through God's grace, that we can be a light on a hill and lead souls to Jesus Christ and his plan of salvation.

[american colleen]

Call to Action likes this parish and the parish priest. For the record, I am not opposed to the priest, but I am opposed to what his agenda appears to be.

Working Parish Snapshsot (With Liturgy and Justice for All)

Name: St. Francis De Sales

Location: Utica, N.Y.

History: Founded in 1887, it is one of the oldest parishes in the Syracuse diocese. Originally a gathering place for Irish and German immigrants, the parish experienced major white flight in the 1960s. However, it reached out to Vietnamese immigrants, many of them Boat People, moving into the area in the 1970s, and has since become heavily Asian. Meanwhile, the parish has opened its sizable facilities to a large number of social service and church groups. Its role as a center for individual and family aid is recognized throughout the Syracuse and Utica areas.

Membership: 400 households, about 40 percent Vietnamese families, 20 percent older Anglo families who remained during the change, 20 percent people from outside the neighborhood who come because they like the community, 20 percent poor and unchurched people including Haitian and Sudanese refugees. Vietnamese families are now central to a thriving parish faith life, serving on the parish council and as trustees and keeping the one-priest, two-sister, two-lay staff busy with baptisms and weddings.

Masses: 4 p.m. Saturday, 8 and 11 a.m. Sunday. The 11 a.m. mass is in English and Vietnamese. Three choirs, frequent reflections during Mass by members of the staff or parish laity. The liturgical style is lively and creative.

Ministry and Outreach: The four-story, former school building is now the Mohawk Valley Refugee Center, and it also houses a young adult television studio and an after-school tutoring program. The former rectory is a live-in center for troubled women. Other parish buildings as well as buildings in the immediate vicinity of the church are used on a cooperative basis with other religious groups for AIDS ministry, a food pantry, community organization offices, a hospitality center and an emergency outreach center. A former funeral home is now a hospice. The area around the church is popularly known as Hospitality Row.

Quote: "The leadership here was way ahead of its time. Instead of closing down, they built bridges to the community. They decided to use the structures creatively. They reached out as Jesus did. The church doesn't run everything, but Catholicism is a very visible presence. There's no ideological struggle or debate about this or about the liturgy in this parish because people opposed to creativity left long ago." Source: Fr. Fred Daley, pastor since 1992. 315 732-6171

[RobbyS]

I think it is as clear as crystal that he rejects the teachings of the Church about sexuality. The Bible is not a guide?

[topcat54]

"I am a homosexual" or "I was a homosexual"?

Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.

Kinda like saying "I am a murder" or "I am a blasphemer".

[rmichaelj]

I have to agree that the man seems to reject Church teaching. You know, there comes a point when we have to look beyond if someone is explicitly denying Catholic Doctrine, vs. undermining it subtly or overtly without saying the actual words. Both are bad. While I will not judge the state of this man's soul, I feel quite justified in saying that his actions endanger both his own soul and that of his parishioners. "Judge not lest ye be Judged" is to always be followed. But that does not excuse inaction in the face of a threat to the Faith.

[siunevada]

The Catholic church and others should not be so obsessed with what people do in private, he said.

“I didn’t tell anyone at the 8 a.m. Mass or the 11 a.m. Mass (what to do in their bedrooms), so I’m certainly not going to tell anyone here at the 3 p.m. Mass,” he said, receiving more cheers and applause.

11 He said to them, "Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her;

12 and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery."

Dude! Stay out of my bedroom! That is just so judgemental. We modern Americans know how life really operates and we can save ourselves, thank you very much! Here, have a rainbow stole. We are a priestly people, after all.