I am a gay man, and at
that point, I had served as a Benedictine monk for 25 years and as a Catholic
priest for 21 years. During that time, I
lived my vow of celibacy faithfully, believing that God had called me to this
way of life as a radical witness of God’s love for me and my love for God. I had not questioned the church’s teaching on
homosexuality as far as my life was concerned.
I had been living exactly as the church had told me I should live.
How could they say that
my witness was not valid, should never have been allowed to happen? As I prayed about my feelings of betrayal, I
knew that I could not stand by silently and let such a document go
unchallenged. IF such a document
actually came out, I would have to find a way to oppose it because it was
simply not true. As I was praying, I was
listening to a CD by “Casting Crowns” when I heard the song, “The Voice of
Truth.” I knew God was calling me to
“speak the truth in love,” and God reassured me, “The truth will set you free.” And so it has.
I grew up as the oldest
son of a Catholic family in rural Iowa.
We were farmers and had a love of God that showed itself in our love for
the land and all that God had made. Our
family went to church regularly. We
never missed Mass on Sundays or Holy Days.
I attended religious education at our local parish, and began to wonder
about a vocation to the priesthood as a boy.
In 8th grade, I made the mistake of admitting my interest in
the priesthood when our teacher asked if any of us were considering a vocation
to the priesthood. From that time on, my
nickname among my classmates was “Pope Pierson,” and my course was already
being set.
Around
the same time, I was also becoming aware of myself as a sexual person. I knew I was not interested in girls the way
my other male classmates were, and I assumed that was a “sign from God” that I
was meant to be a priest. Marriage did
not hold any fascination for me, and I saw no need to date as my friends were
doing. I was a very good student, and
put my energies into my studies, the debate team, and into playing trumpet in
our high school band.
“Homosexuality”
was not an issue for me. I was not like
“them.” I did not want to wear dresses
and makeup. It never occurred to me that
my interest in the men’s underwear ads in the Sears catalog, rather than the
women’s underwear ads, was an indication of something else going on inside me.
My
vocation to the priesthood was furthered in my junior year of high school when
I attended a SEARCH retreat at the urging of our assistant pastor, Father Burns. It was on that retreat that I head for the
first time in my life that God loved me “unconditionally.” That Good News moved me so profoundly that I
decided I wanted to devote my life to spreading the Good News of God’s love for
us by being a priest. When I got home
from the retreat, I went to talk to Father Burns about how I could begin the
application process to become a seminarian.
He
told me that I needed to attend a Catholic college so that I could take the
theology and philosophy courses required for entry into a seminary. When I asked about Catholic colleges, he
recommended St. John’s University, in Collegeville, Minnesota, which was his
own college alma mater. That is all it
took for me to send in an admissions application to St. John’s, and in
September of 1974, I began my life at St. John’s as a freshman in college.
Shortly
after I arrived at St. John’s, I met another student named Mike, who was also a
farm kid from Iowa. Mike had been one of
the speakers on my first SEARCH retreat, and as time went on, we became good
friends. We had a lot in common, and
without my being aware of it at the time, I began to fall in love. Mike was straight, and dated several of our
female friends in college. I never spoke
about my feelings for Mike with him, but I think he must have suspected
something. I was very jealous and
possessive of our friendship, which caused quite a bit of tension between us
from time to time. It was while I
processed those feelings with my confessor, Father Rene, that I began to ask
myself the question, “Am I gay?”
My
first reaction to the question was one of denial. I thought my problem was that I had never
dated any girls, and so I began to date a friend of mine at the College of St.
Benedict. I also dated another female friend
at home that following summer.
Meanwhile, Mike graduated from college (he was a year ahead of me) and I
decided to enter the seminary at St. John’s as a “pre-divinity” student for my
senior year, sponsored by the Diocese of Sioux City, IA. I told myself that it did not matter if I was
gay or straight because I was going to be a priest.
That
year as a college seminarian at St. John’s Seminary was very important in my
on-going vocational discernment. I fell
in love with community life and with prayer the Liturgy of the Hours. My priest mentors, especially Father Alfred
Deutsch, OSB, showed me a way of life that I had never considered before. That fall I took a medieval history course,
and read the Rule of St. Benedict for the first time. I liked what I found in the Rule. Was God calling me to be a monk as well as a
priest? Second semester, I took a class
called “The Benedictine Tradition,” where I had the opportunity to read Worship
and Work, the history of St. John’s Abbey, written by Father Colman Barry,
OSB. I could really identify with their
story. Was God calling me to be a monk
at St. John’s? Shortly before I
graduated in May 1978, I made an appointment with the abbey vocation director,
Father Julian. I decided after that to
continue to pray and discern my call by following the plan I had already in
place to attend seminary as a first year theologian, as a diocesan seminarian,
at St. Meinrad School of Theology, another Benedictine seminary in Indiana.
The
summer between college and seminary I lived and worked with a diocesan priest,
Father Louis Greving, at the Grotto of the Redemption, in West Bend, IA. I found out that Father Greving had
considered being a monk at St. John’s after having been a student there in the
1940’s. He had decided to stay with the
diocese, but he understood the choice that I was facing, and was very
supportive of my discernment. I saw,
first hand, how lonely it could be as a diocesan priest amid the cornfields of
Iowa, and I knew that if I was going to live a healthy life as a celibate, it
was going to be in community, not living by myself. As soon as I arrived at St. Meinrad in the
fall, I connected with a Benedictine spiritual director, Father Sebastian,
asking him to help me discern if I should change my plans, and apply for entry
at St. John’s Abbey. By December 1978, I
was set to return to St. John’s and begin their admissions process as a
candidate for the abbey in February 1979.
Upon
arriving as a candidate, I met a young junior monk, a few years my senior, and
we quickly connected. I fell “head over
heels” in love once again, and this time the feeling was mutual. When I went to confession, I asked my
confessor, Father Rene, “Should I continue as a monk, or should I leave the
monastery?” Rene suggested that I begin
to see a priest counselor in our community, Father Roman, and after several
months of visiting with Father Roman I decided that indeed I wanted to be a
monk, and that I could live as a celibate.
With Father Roman’s help, I learned that I needed to set boundaries in
my relationships with those to whom I felt attracted. Ryan and I talked about all this, and decided
that we wanted to continue as celibate friends and monks at St. John’s. With a renewed sense of purpose and call, I
made temporary vows as a monk of St. John’s Abbey on July 11, 1980, and I have
lived those vows ever since.
As
a junior monk, I re-entered seminary studies, and had occasion to fall in love
several times over the next few years with seminary classmates and other young
monks. Each time I recognized what was
happening. I asked God to help me to
love in a celibate way, and I found myself developing several warm and
supportive friendships. By the time I
was faced with making solemn vows, my permanent commitment as a monk, I had
experienced living as a gay celibate for four years, and even though it could
be challenging at times, I knew that I could do it. I made solemn vows on July 11, 1983, was
ordained a deacon on August 6, and was ordained a Benedictine priest on June 2,
1984.
After
my ordination, I was assigned to be the assistant pastor at Holy Rosary Church
in Detroit Lakes, MN, which was about two and one half hours northwest of the
abbey, near Fargo, ND. While I enjoyed
my time in “DL” as assistant pastor, and later as pastor, for six years, I
discovered that I had been right about my need to live in community. I lived with one other monk for part of the
time, and I also lived alone in the rectory for a year and a half. That experience convinced me that I needed to
return home to St. John’s, and so I applied to work on the staff of St. John’s
Seminary as Director of Field Education and Vice Rector. I began my new position in July 1990.
As
a member of the seminary staff, I was asked to serve as a formation director
(in the external forum) and as a spiritual director (in the internal forum) for
several seminarians. The operating
assumption of the seminary staff seemed to be that all the students were
heterosexual, since all the formation activities in the area of celibacy talked
about their relationships with women. I
knew that several of the men I was working with were gay, but that fact was
never acknowledged publicly. As a result,
we never publicly addressed their issues around living a healthy celibate life.
When
one of our students DID acknowledge his homosexuality, he was drummed out of
the seminary by our very homophobic rector.
At a time when the church was just beginning to deal with the reality of
clerical sexual abuse (the early 1990’s) we were encouraging our gay candidates
to avoid dealing with their sexuality openly, thereby enabling anyone with a
less than healthy approach to sexuality and celibacy to hide in secret.
After
a change in rector, I decided it was time to change our approach to celibacy
formation. I came out to our abbot,
Timothy Kelly, and to our new rector and seminary staff. I asked for their support to allow me to
begin addressing the concerns of gay seminarians as well as those of our
straight seminarians. We began a more
open discussion about the need to set boundaries in all our relationships, with
women and with men, depending on our own sexual orientation and what we knew
about ourselves as sexual persons preparing to live as celibates.
It
was also at this time that the monastic community at St. John’s Abbey began to
discover that several of our own men were being accused of sexually abusing students
in our Preparatory School and our University, as well as in the parishes we
served. The media frenzy that took place
as the result of those accusations was very difficult for the monks of St.
John’s to deal with. All of a sudden, it
was difficult to be a monk of St. John’s, especially a gay monk. Since many, if not all of those accused of
abuse were believed to be gay, I found myself equating being gay with being an
abuser. Intellectually I knew that there
was no inherent connection between the two issues, but the official church
reaction to the abuse accusations said otherwise. A long buried sense of shame over my own sexual
orientation began to grow as I listened to some around me wonder if we had been
wrong to admit gay men as priests.
It
no longer felt OK to be honest about my sexual orientation. I still believed that openness and honesty
was necessary for healthy celibate formation, but it did not feel safe to be
honest. I had a deep conviction that we
were about to recreate the very conditions in the seminary that caused our
problems in the first place. My
frustration only increased when I was asked to take over as rector of the
seminary in 1997. Now I was responsible
to approach the bishops we served to recruit new students for our program. My shame and my frustration continued to grow
as my need to “support the party line” meant I had to give up trying to encourage
students to be honest. If I could not be
honest, how could I ask others to do so?
My shame turned into depression, as after two years as rector, I knew I
had to resign. Admitting to Abbot
Timothy that I had begun to experience suicidal thoughts, I asked to be
relieved of my duties as rector of St. John’s Seminary.
I
was so grateful when Abbot Timothy said “yes” that I allowed myself to think
that a change of job would solve everything for me. When Abbot Timothy asked me to move to our
monastery in the Bahamas to work in our high school down there, I agreed to go,
thinking that I would benefit from a “geographical cure.” Little did I know that I was going from “the
frying pan into the fire.” The culture
of the Bahamas is very homophobic. On top
of that, I found out about a month after I arrived that the one monk I felt
connected to in the community down there was dying from a liver disease. When he died in January 2000, I fell apart. After enduring panic attacks and sleepless
nights for several weeks, I broke down and begged Abbot Timothy for help.
Abbot
Timothy suggested that I go for an evaluation to a treatment center near
Toronto, Ontario, called the Southdown Institute. Their diagnosis was major clinical depression
and their recommendation was at least four months of residential
treatment. With Abbot Timothy’s
permission, I agreed to go to Southdown, eager to find the healing I knew I
needed.
The
six months that I spent at Southdown were the best six months of my life. There were very difficult days, but most of
the time I could tell I was getting at the source of my pain and I was getting
better. I became reacquainted with the
God who loves me unconditionally, and I learned that I did not have to try so
hard to be good. My spiritual director
at Southdown counseled me to “row the boat gently down the stream.” I could trust that God would take me where I
needed to go as long as I did not resist the process.
My
sexuality was an important factor in my own depression. I discovered that many of the priests and
brothers in treatment at Southdown were gay and most, if not all of us, were
trying to overcome the sense of shame we developed growing up in the Catholic
Church. We were told at Southdown that
sexuality, whether gay or straight, is a gift from God that is meant to be
“celebrated” even as celibates.
“Celebrate my sexuality? How do I
do that?” I asked one of my therapists.
His answer was, “You’ll find out.”
It was not a very helpful answer at the time, but he was right. I have come to celebrate my sexuality by
getting to know other gay Catholics, priests and lay people, single and
celibate, and those faithfully committed to a partner. Those relationships continue to affirm me in
my belief that my sexuality is good. It
IS a gift from God.
One
experience while I was at Southdown continues to remain a vivid memory for me,
inspiring my ministry still. On a Sunday
in July, one of my friends asked me to go with him to visit St. Mary’s Anglican
Church in Toronto. St. Mary’s had a
reputation for very “high” liturgy and my friend wanted to experience their
worship. I agreed to go because he
needed a companion, as we all did, to leave the grounds at Southdown. St. Mary’s reputation was well-deserved. There was more Latin and incense than I had
experienced for years in a Catholic Church.
As we sat in the pew while the others went to communion, I picked up the
hymnal to sing along. The text of the
communion hymn was very familiar to me:
“There’s a wideness in God’s mercy, like the wideness of the
sea.
There’s a kindness in his justice which is more than
liberty.
There is welcome for the sinner and more graces for the
good.
There is mercy with the Savior; there is healing in his
blood.”
As
we continued to sing this very familiar text, I was surprised to discover a
verse that I had never encountered before:
But
we make God’s love too narrow by false limits of our own,
And
we magnify God’s strictness with a zeal God will not own.
In that moment, it was as if the
clouds were opened and I could feel God’s loving gaze upon me. Again, I knew that God loved me and that
nothing anyone else could say could change that fact.
A
few months after I returned to St. John’s from Southdown, I was appointed
Chaplain and Director of Campus Ministry at St. John’s University. It had been my dream job for years, and I
never believed I would actually get to do it.
I loved working with the students, especially preaching and presiding at
student liturgies. The only thing I did
not like about the job was the extent to which I ended up getting involved in
the politics of promoting the Catholic character of our university.
Along
with Campus Ministry, I was asked to serve as a Faculty Resident in Benet
Hall. One day a pair of roommates came to
talk to me about the grief they were getting from others on the floor. They were both “out” as gay men, and had
decided to live together as friends for support. Every now and then, someone would write an
anti-gay slur on the message board outside their room. When I asked them what they wanted to do
about it, they asked me not to make an issue of it, because they feared further
problems if we tried to address it on the floor.
When
I turned to other student development colleagues for advice, they said,
“There’s not much we can do. After all,
we are a Catholic school, and you know what the church says about
homosexuality.” Yes, I did know what the
church says about homosexuality:
The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual
tendencies is not negligible. They do
not choose their homosexual condition; for most of them it is a trial. They must be accepted with respect,
compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign
of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s
will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of
the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #2358)
Obviously, my colleagues were not as
informed as they might be, and I decided to start a Safe Space training program
on campus, with a particular focus on why, as Catholic campuses, we needed to
be concerned about our gay and lesbian students at St. John’s and St.
Benedict’s.
In
the fall of 2004, one of the women who worked as a student campus minister at
St. John’s was kicked out of the music group for the student “prayer and
praise” group on campus because she was a lesbian. Another student in the group had tricked her
to come out to him, and then used the information against her to get her out of
her leadership position. She had come
out to me sometime before that, confiding in me that she was considering the
possibility of religious life, and so I knew she was living according to church
teaching. When she decided to file a
student human rights complaint against the prayer group, she asked me to be her
advocate, and I readily agreed to help her.
As
the student human rights complaint process unfolded, the case got quite a bit
of publicity on campus. People knew
where I stood on the issue, defending her right to be who she was without
discrimination. Eventually the faculty
panel assigned to adjudicate the complaint found in her favor, reprimanding the
leaders of the prayer group, and demanding that she be invited to rejoin the
group. The leaders agreed to invite her
back, knowing that she would turn down their invitation. The issue was “settled” though many on campus
felt that the leaders of the prayer group got off too lightly.
After
that, I was “out” as an ally on campus, and periodically I received some pretty
nasty messages from a handful of angry students. One student called me a “pseudo-Catholic
priest” and another went so far as to call me “demonic.” It was at the same time that I first heard
the rumors about the Vatican document banning gay men from the priesthood. When I read that article in the St. Cloud
Visitor in September 2005, a tidal wave of grief and shame washed over
me. It felt like I was being attacked
from above and from below. I could feel
myself slowly slipping back into depression again, but this time I recognized
the symptoms and decided that I could not let that happen again. I needed to fight for my own sense of
dignity, and for my own mental health.
I
realized that if I came out as a gay priest in opposition to the document there
could be some publicity generated by my actions. Since I did not want my family or my
community to discover that I was gay by reading it in a newspaper, I decided to
first come out to them via a letter that I wrote to my confreres, my family,
and my close friends to whom I had not yet come out. After I sent the letter, I waited for the
reaction that would surely come. It was
all positive and supportive. Each one of
my siblings called me to share their love and support. I received similar reactions from friends and
confreres. If any confreres did not
support me, they did not tell me. The
love and support I received from those I cared about showed me that I could
move forward with my plan to “speak the truth in love.”
As
I reflected on experience as Director of Campus Ministry, I knew that there
would be a conservative backlash against me and the university administration
if I continued to serve in Campus Ministry after directly opposing a document
issued by the Vatican. Even though the
document had not yet been published, the constant rumors from Rome indicated
that it would be difficult for me NOT to oppose it. I decided to resign my “dream job” as
Chaplain and Director of Campus Ministry because I did not think I could
survive the political firestorm that I imagined would result, and I did not
want to put the university administration into the position of having to choose
between defending me and the need to defend the Catholic image of our schools
against complaints from conservative bishops, alums, and donors.
When
I went to explain the decision to Abbot John and Brother Dietrich, the
president of St. John’s University, both of them were very supportive but also
very concerned about what might happen to me.
Brother Dietrich, having read my letter to family and confreres, wanted
me to run any further statements I might make by our Director of Abbey
Communications, Mr. Lee Hanley. Brother
Dietrich was concerned that I have some seasoned advice about how a wider
readership might interpret my written statements. At the time, I resented his suggestion,
seeing it as only a way to protect the university, but I agreed to do it. In the end, I was very grateful for Lee’s
help in crafting the e-mail announcement that I would send to the campus
community announcing my opposition to the document and my resignation from
campus ministry.
The
long awaited document was finally promulgated at the end of November. It said:
Deep-seated homosexual tendencies, which are found in
a number of men and women, are also objectively disordered and, for those same
people, often constitute a trial. Such persons must be accepted with respect
and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be
avoided. They are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and to unite to
the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter.
In the light of such teaching, this Dicastery, in accord with the Congregation
for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, believes it necessary
to state clearly that the Church, while profoundly respecting the persons in
question, cannot admit to the seminary or to holy orders those who practice
homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the
so-called "gay culture".
Such persons, in fact, find themselves in a situation that gravely hinders them
from relating correctly to men and women. One must in no way overlook the
negative consequences that can derive from the ordination of persons with
deep-seated homosexual tendencies.
I decided to send my campus e-mail
message on December 15, after classes were over for the semester and students
were getting ready to head home for Christmas break. Here’s the message that I sent to the CSB/SJU
campus community:
After weeks of waiting and rumors, the Vatican’s document on homosexuals
and the priesthood has been released.
Although the document does not bar all homosexual men from
aspiring to the priesthood, it comes close.
The only men with “homosexual tendencies” that might be admitted to
seminary and priesthood are those for whom it is a “transitory problem.” Men with “deep-seated homosexual tendencies”
should not be admitted to the seminary or the priesthood. The directive seems to apply even to those
who have been celibate for years. I say
“seems to” because the language of the document is so vague and unspecific. The discussion and conflicting
interpretations of the document, even among U.S. bishops, underscore the
instruction’s lack of clarity.
Speaking as a celibate gay priest, there are several assertions in the
document that I do not accept as true. I
do not believe my own sexuality is “objectively disordered” or that it puts me
“in a situation that seriously obstructs [me] from properly relating to men and
women.” I am not an infallible person,
but I cannot remain silent about my disagreement in conscience with this
document, or the church’s teaching on homosexuality. My sense of honor and integrity demand that I
speak out on my own behalf and to support other gay and lesbian Catholics as we
try to stay faithful in a church that judges us incorrectly and harshly.
The last two months have been very difficult for me personally,
triggered in large part by the negativity around the issue of homosexuality
that I hear from the church at large, but also from this campus community. When I have answered such attacks on gay
people in a compassionate and caring way, I was sometimes criticized for not
upholding the church’s teaching. It has been a painful experience, and while I wish I
could just let it “roll off my back,” I cannot.
Neither can I compromise my integrity anymore by trying to conceal my
thoughts and feelings to escape criticism.
This puts me in a very difficult position as Chaplain and Director of
Campus Ministry for St. John’s University.
Because I can no longer honestly represent, explain and defend the
church’s teaching on homosexuality, I feel I must resign. I have submitted my resignation to Br.
Dietrich, effective January 15, 2006.
I look forward to some time off to visit family and friends before
returning to the abbey to begin a new assignment in the monastery. Please keep me in your prayers.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
Fr. Bob Pierson, OSB
When
I clicked the “send” button around 8:00 pm, I had no idea what would happen to
me, but I felt a sense of peace come over me that’s hard to describe. I had done what I felt called to do by God,
and I knew I could live with the consequences whatever they might be. Within an hour of my sending the message to
our campus e-mail system, there was a phone message on my voicemail from a
reporter from the St. Cloud Times.
I was not in my room, and so I did not get the message until around 11 pm. I decided not to return the call that night
because I wanted to get a good night’s sleep and I knew once I started
answering questions, that would not be possible.
The
next morning a story appeared in the Times summarizing my e-mail
announcement to the campus, saying that I could not be reached for
comment. By the time I got to my office
around 9 am, there was a message from the university director of media
relations asking me to call him. The
story in the Times had been picked up by the Associated Press, and media
outlets from the Twin Cities (newspaper and television) had contacted him about
my story. He asked me how I wished to
respond, and I told him I would talk to the reporters from the St. Cloud
Times and the Minneapolis Star Tribune. I knew that lots of people in Minnesota read
those newspapers, and so it was a way for me to explain why I had done what I
had done to all those people in St. Cloud, Detroit Lakes, and the Twin Cities
who knew me from my ministry with them.
I decided not to give any TV interviews, probably because at that point,
I did not trust myself enough to say the right things on camera.
I
did give one other interview to Joe Young, the editor of the St. Cloud
Visitor. I trusted Joe to “get it
right,” and I appreciated his questions which allowed me to elaborate a bit on
my reasons for opposing the Vatican document.
Joe’s story made it to the Catholic News Service, and from there it was
picked up by the National Catholic Reporter, appearing in their January 27,
2006, issue. Thus ended my “fifteen
minutes of fame.” All in all, I received
approximately 400 messages (e-mail, snail mail, Christmas cards, and phone
calls) from people around the country.
Of those almost 400 messages, only one was negative. I was overwhelmed by the support I received
from Catholics and others who heard about what I had done. One of the letters that meant a great deal to
me was from a seminary rector that I had gotten to know at seminary rectors’
meetings when I was rector. Here’s a
quote from his letter:
Even though I am sure that your resignation is a loss for the
University and for the students, I want to support your decision. I wrestled with the same dilemma as we
awaited the publication of the Vatican’s letter. If it had been a shade stronger than it was,
I would have done the same thing you did….
I find the letter offensive and gratuitous. It is hard for me to believe that the bishops
and the Vatican are so out of touch, so hypocritical, so willfully ignorant of
science, or God forbid, so vindictive that they would further jeopardize the
sacramental life of the Church.
After I was finished in
Campus Ministry, I decided to take a three week vacation, driving out and back
to California, visiting family and friends along the way, and spending a week
on retreat with the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange, CA. It was a very holy time for me. I had no idea what kind of ministry I would
do, but I was not worried. I knew that
God was with me, and that God would provide.
Shortly
after I arrived home, Abbot John asked me to take over as director of our Abbey
Spiritual Life Program, giving retreats, parish missions, and providing
spiritual direction for regular directees as well as those on private
retreats. I have continued to stay
active with our campus LGBTA Faculty/Staff group, and I have joined our local
St. Cloud/Central MN PFLAG group. In
December 2009 I was elected to serve on the Board of Directors for the Catholic
Association for Lesbian and Gay Ministries (CALGM). As Vice President for Conferences for CALGM,
I am the conference chair for our 2011 Conference in Albany, NY, on the theme,
“Setting the Table for LGBT People in a Diverse Church.”
God is so good. I continue to “speak the truth in love” and
the truth has set me free!
Fr.
Bob Pierson OSB Guestmaster
St. John’s Abbey Guesthouse
