Father Geoffrey Farrow is a longtime Catholic priest who revealed recently that he is gay and opposed to Proposition 8, the November ballot initiative that would overturn the California Supreme Court's decision earlier this year allowing same-sex marriage. As a result, Farrow has been stripped of his job as a parish priest in Fresno, including his salary and health benefits.
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Gay priest is true to his faith, at odds with his church
Steve Lopez (Los Angeles Times, 26/10/2008)
So who is this Catholic priest from Fresno who stood up and spoke out against Proposition 8, putting his career on the line? As a gay man who finds the church's views on homosexuality so objectionable, why has he been a priest for more than 20 years and subjected himself to such moral conflictAfter reading my colleague Duke Helfand's story about Father Geoffrey Farrow and his recent career-suicide from the pulpit, I was curious.
Farrow agreed to meet me for lunch in the middle of a schedule that's gotten very busy since he became persona non grata to his employer. He's been asked to appear all over the state for rallies against Prop. 8, which would amend the California Constitution to say marriage can only be between a man and a woman.
Gay priest is true to his faith, at odds with his church
Steve Lopez (Los Angeles Times, 26/10/2008)
So who is this Catholic priest from Fresno who stood up and spoke out against Proposition 8, putting his career on the line? As a gay man who finds the church's views on homosexuality so objectionable, why has he been a priest for more than 20 years and subjected himself to such moral conflictAfter reading my colleague Duke Helfand's story about Father Geoffrey Farrow and his recent career-suicide from the pulpit, I was curious.
Farrow agreed to meet me for lunch in the middle of a schedule that's gotten very busy since he became persona non grata to his employer. He's been asked to appear all over the state for rallies against Prop. 8, which would amend the California Constitution to say marriage can only be between a man and a woman.
Father Farrow, who was suspended by his bishop two weeks ago, strolled into the lobby of the Kyoto Grand Hotel in downtown Los Angeles wearing the collar.
"I'm still a priest," he said over lunch, though he fully expected to be disciplined for speaking to his congregation about Prop. 8 and wouldn't be surprised if he's ultimately fired.
For the moment, he's staying with friends in Los Angeles. Farrow, 50, doesn't know what he'll do after the election. He was suspended without pay and said his medical benefits run out at the end of the month.
Farrow, who lived in Cuba until the age of 4, grew up Catholic in Florida and knew as a teenager that he was gay. He dated girls "to keep up appearances" but was miserable about it, and he began questioning his faith.
"If God is omnipotent, why is there evil in the world?" he asked himself as body bags returned to the U.S. from Vietnam.
He looked into agnosticism and atheism, neither of which offered the answers he wanted. In his first year of college in Florida, he studied philosophy, read Cicero and mused on the meaning of history, civilization and the nature of God.
"I have a hunger for the transcendent," Farrow said. "This is too precise," he said of man and the universe, "to be a coincidence." And so he became a believer, once more, in the church he had been "carried to in diapers."
When I told Farrow that as an agnostic, I don't understand that leap, he described God as love and faith as trust."
Trust is fundamental of all human relationships," he said. "Part of the attraction of the relationship with that person is that you're always familiar with them and yet always discovering them.
"I love and trust my wife, I said, but she's real and doesn't need to prove that she exists."
Precisely," Farrow said with a smile, as if I'd described his relationship with God.
When his family moved from Florida to Redondo Beach in the 1970s, Farrow, still closeted as a gay man, joined St. John's Seminary in Camarillo.
Is it possible, I asked, that becoming a priest was a way of avoiding coming to terms with his sexuality? Farrow had, after all, once prayed to God to "please make me normal, please make me normal."
"That's a valid question," he said, but he believes he was addressing his spiritual rather than sexual identity in becoming a priest.
Wasn't it a suffocating compromise? I asked. He had given himself over to a church that has, despite moderating its views in recent decades, condemned homosexuality and marginalized gays, even though in Farrow's opinion a sizable percentage of priests are gay. Farrow conceded that he has considered church teachings "monstrous," especially given the history of violence and suicide victimizing gays. But he said he has always believed in the church, if not in the men who led it. It's like loving a family member despite a falling out, or loving your country even as you doubt its leaders.
"I'm not happy with the current administration," Farrow said, "but I haven't shredded my passport."I asked if he'd had any relationships while serving as a priest.
Yes, he confessed. He seemed near tears and stopped short of sharing the details. But he said it had ended.I wondered again how anyone could go through such an ordeal and remain committed to a church that considers it a sin for a gay person to act on biological urges. Whom do you even talk to for help? I asked.
"There are a lot of clergy who deal with this," Farrow said, telling me many priests in the Fresno diocese are gay. "You speak to each other."
Yes, he confessed. He seemed near tears and stopped short of sharing the details. But he said it had ended.I wondered again how anyone could go through such an ordeal and remain committed to a church that considers it a sin for a gay person to act on biological urges. Whom do you even talk to for help? I asked.
"There are a lot of clergy who deal with this," Farrow said, telling me many priests in the Fresno diocese are gay. "You speak to each other."
But that's a form of silence as well as hypocrisy, and Farrow was increasingly troubled by his double life. Not long ago, he saw a woman crying in a church hallway and asked what was wrong.
"My son just came out to me," she said. "I was having a dinner party and I told him he couldn't bring his boyfriend."
"Do you know what you just did?" Farrow asked her. "You just told your son he was not as important to you as your dinner guests."
Farrow then had his epiphany when he was asked by a Prop. 8 supporter in Fresno to speak up in favor of the measure. He knew he couldn't and that in fact he had to do just the opposite.
"I am morally compelled to vote no on Proposition 8," he told his congregation, saying he had to break "a numbing silence" about church prejudice against homosexuals.
Among the critics in his own parish and beyond, there are those who quote the Bible to condemn homosexuality and gay marriage.
"The Bible is not a book, it's a library written over 15 centuries," Farrow told me, suggesting that Christianity has and should continue to evolve. "People who approach scripture in a literal fashion are attempting to manipulate God himself."
To Farrow, condemning gay and lesbian marriage is as offensive as the condemnations of interracial marriage not too many decades ago." 'Think about the children,' they said, and they're doing the same with this," Farrow said indignantly. "If a child is raised in a home where he's loved, that's a good home.
So why not just quit his job rather than wait to get fired?
Farrow said he still sees the church as home, and believes his new mission is to force this issue whether he's wearing a collar or not.
"They said I've caused scandal to the church," he said. "I think the real scandal is the thousands of gay and lesbian children who feel abandoned by the church of their baptism."
When he was in seminary, Farrow interned as deacon at St. Vincent's Medical Center and worked with terminally ill patients. As the end nears, Farrow told me, people say the things they never could utter. They are "more alive than ever . . . because they realize the futility of fear." He found them all contemplating the same questions.
"Were you true to your conscience? Did you do what you felt was right?"
And one more.
"What do you have in the end but the love you gave away?"
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As most of you know, I was appointed pastor here at the Newman Center on April 15th of this year. When I arrived, I set out to address a series of various projects to repair our facilities. To date, most of these deferred maintenance items have been addressed. In the middle of dealing with contractors, the parish finance committee, the building department of the diocese, neighbors, etc., I received a FAX from the bishop’s office on the 30th of June. It was the bishop’s pastoral letter for the month of July.
This single FAX threw my whole summer, and in fact, my whole life into a turmoil. Recently, I was speaking with some of our parishioners who advocate for the ordination of women. In the course of our conversation, a question arose which has haunted me: “At what point do you cease to be an agent for healing and growth and become an accomplice of injustice?” By asking all of the pastors of the Diocese of Fresno to promote Catholics to vote “Yes” on Proposition 8, the bishop has placed me in a moral predicament.
In his “Pastoral,” the bishop states: “Marriage is much more than simply two persons loving each other. Marriage is naturally, socially, and biologically, directed to bringing forth life.”
Actually, there are TWO ends to marriage: 1) Unitive and 2) Procreative. The unitive end of marriage is simply a union of love and life. The Procreative end is, of course, to create new life. It is important to understand that the unitive end of marriage is sufficient for a valid marriage. The Church sanctions, and considers a sacrament, the marriage of elderly heterosexual couples who are biologically incapable of reproduction. So, if two people of different genders who are incapable of reproduction can enter into a valid marriage, then why is that two people of the same gender, who are incapable of reproduction, cannot enter into a valid marriage.
The objections which are raised at this point are taken from Sacred Scripture. Scripture scholars reveal the problematic nature of attempting to use passages from the Hebrew Scriptures as an argument against same gender relationships. Essentially, these scriptures are addressing the cultic practices in which sex with temple prostitutes was part of an act of worshiping Pagan gods. With regard to the Pauline epistles, John J. McNeill, in his book: “The Church and the Homosexual,” makes the following point: “The persons referred to in Romans 1:26 are probably not homosexuals that is, those who are psychologically inclined toward their own sex-since they are portrayed as ‘abandoning their natural customs.’” The Pauline epistles do not explicitly treat the question of homosexual activity between two persons who share a homosexual orientation, and as such cannot be read as explicitly condemning such behavior. Therefore, same gender sex by two individuals with same sex orientation is not “abandoning their natural custom.”
In 1973, as a result of a greater understanding of human psychology, the American Psychological Association declassified homosexuality as a mental illness. In 1975, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (the Church’s watchdog for orthodoxy) produced a document entitled: “Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics.” In this document, they made the most remarkable statement. They stated that there are “homosexuals who are such because of some kind of innate instinct.” While these statements are hardly glowing affirmations of gay and lesbian persons, they represent a watershed in human perception and understanding of gay and lesbian people.
These new insights have occurred as a result of the birth and development of the science of psychology and understanding of brain development in the 19th and 20th centuries. The California Supreme Court cited and quoted an amicus brief filed by the APA in the Court’s opinion issued on May 15, 2008 that struck down California’s ban on same sex marriage. Specifically, the court relied on the APA’s brief in concluding that the very nature of sexual orientation is related to the gender of partners to whom one is attracted, so that prohibiting same sex marriage discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation, rather than just imposing disparate burdens on gay people.
In directing the faithful to vote “Yes” on Proposition 8, the California Bishops are not merely entering the political arena, they are ignoring the advances and insights of neurology, psychology and the very statements made by the Church itself that homosexuality is innate (i.e. orientation). In doing this, they are making a statement which has a direct, and damaging, effect on some of the people who may be sitting in the pews next to you today. The statement made by the bishop reaffirms the feelings of exclusion and alienation that are suffered by individuals and their loved ones who have left the Church over this very issue. Imagine what hearing such damaging words at Mass does to an adolescent who has just discovered that he/she is gay/lesbian? What is the hierarchy saying to him/her? What are they demanding from that individual? What would it have meant to you personally to hear from the pulpit at church that you could never date? Never fall in love, never kiss or hold hands with another person? Never be able to marry? How would you view yourself? How would others hearing those same words be directed to view you? How would you view your life and your future? How would you feel when you saw a car with a “Yes on 8″ bumper sticker? When you overheard someone in a public place use the word “faggot?”
I remember the first time I heard that word, faggot, I was hanging out with my cousins. They all played on the football team of the Catholic high school in our town. One of them spat out the word in the form of a curse. I was just a kid in the 5th grade, I’d never heard the word before, and so I asked: “What’s a faggot?” A faggot is a guy who likes other guys, was the curt reply. Now pause. Think. What would those words mean to someone in junior high school who discovers that he/she is attracted to people of their same gender? The greatest fear that he/she would have is that they would be rejected by the people they love the most-their family. So, their solution is to try to pass as straight, deceive, and in effect-lie. Of course, this leads ultimately to self loathing. It should come as little surprise that gay teenagers have elevated suicide rates. According to the Center for Disease Control’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey (1999), 33% of gay youth will attempt suicide.
The bishop states: “The Church has spoken out constantly that those with a homosexual orientation must be respected with the dignity of every child of God. Every individual is created in the image and likeness of God and should never be subjected to prejudice or hatred.” A pious thought uttered by a cleric, robbed of any substantive meaning, as the executioner begins his work. Only a few select people actually read those documents. What most Catholics hear about being gay or lesbian at their parish church is–silence. A numbing silence, which slowly and insidiously tells them, “You don’t belong here, this is not for you, and you are not welcome.” It is not the crude overt vulgarity of some churches. But rather, it is the coldness of a maitre d’ who simply won’t seat you, or the club which has put you on a waiting list with no intention of allowing you to join. And simply asks you to wait in polite almost, apologetic tones.
In effect, the bishops are asking gay and lesbian people to live their lives alone. Why? Who does this benefit? How exactly is society helped by singling out a minority and excluding them from the union of love and life, which is marriage? How is marriage protected by intimidating gay and lesbian people into loveless and lonely lives? What is accomplished by this? Worse still, is to intimidate a gay or lesbian person into a heterosexual marriage, which is doomed from its inception, and makes two victims instead of one by this hurtful “theology.” This “theology,” which is parroted by clerics in polished tones from pulpits, produces the very prejudice and hatred in our society which they claim to abhor.
When the hierarchy prohibited artificial birth control, most of the faithful in the United States, Canada and Europe scratched their heads in wonderment and proceeded to ignore them. There is an expression in theology: “the voice of the people is the voice of God.” If your son or daughter is gay/lesbian let them know that you love them unconditionally. Let them know that you are not ashamed or embarrassed by them. Guide them as you would your other children to finding true and abiding love. Let them know that marriage is a union of love and life and is possible for them too.
I do not presume to tell you how to vote but I do ask that you pray to the Creator of us all. Think and consider the effects of your vote on others, especially minorities in our society who are sitting next to you in church, and at work. The act of casting a vote takes you a few minutes but it can cause other human beings untold happiness or sorrow for a lifetime. It can grant them hope and acceptance, or it can cause them to lose civil rights. It can be a rebuff to bigotry and hatred, or it can encourage bigotry and hatred. Personally, I am morally compelled to vote “NO” on Proposition 8. It is my hope that the people of California will join with those others around the world such as Canada, Europe and South Africa who welcome their gay and lesbian family members fully into society by granting them the civil right to marry.
I know these words of truth will cost me dearly. But to withhold them, would be far more costly and I would become an accomplice to a moral evil that strips gay and lesbian people not only of their civil rights but of their human dignity as well. Jesus said, “The truth will set you free.” He didn’t promise that it would be easy or without personal cost to speak that truth.
fr Geoggrey Farrow, 10/5/2008
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