Monday, May 24, 2010

Former Jesuit Of 40 Years

I did my service as a combat infantryman with General Patton's Third Army, 87th Infantry Division. I went into combat in the Alsace - Lorraine. We were the first infantry to penetrate into Germany. After a fierce battle we were surrounded by German tanks and I ended up a kriegsgefangenen, a prisoner of war.

After I was liberated from prison camp, I felt called by God to religious life and in 1948, I entered the Society of Jesus and spent the next forty years as a Jesuit priest. While doing PHD studies in philosophy at Louvain University in Belgium, I spent my summers as a substitute chaplain with the American armed forces in Germany. I became very aware of scores of g@y men serving in the medical corp of the army who provided sensitive and compassionate service to their fellow GIs. But they universally reported living in daily fear that by some accident their g@y identity would be revealed and they would face dishonorable discharge.

Once again I felt called by God to bring the message of God's love to my GLB-T brothers and sisters. On my return to the United States, I undertook a two year study of h@m@sexuality from psychological, theological and scriptural perspectives. Convinced that the traditional Catholic understanding of h@m@sexual was based on misunderstanding of both scripture and psychology, I published the result of those studies in my book: The Church and the H@mosexual in 1976. I helped found the New York City chapter of Dignity, as a spiritual home for Catholic g@y men and l@sbians. For almost 45 years I have been involved in a ministry of compassion to my g@y bothers and sisters. 
Link (here) to John McNeill's full post (here)

No comments: