UNITED STATES
Washington Post
By Ben Brenkert September 17
I’ve come out as gay three times in my life. Most challenging was not telling my conservative family, at 14, but rather a group of men who promised to love and to labor alongside the materially and spiritually poor — my class of Jesuit novices, men who would someday become Jesuit priests or brothers.
Even as a teen, I felt called to join the priesthood. I attended mass daily and studied the stories of saints like St. Anthony, medieval missionaries like Matteo Ricci and mystics like Hildegard of Bingen. I wanted to be like them. And I was drawn to the opportunities to serve God by helping others. I worked as a religious education teacher with students with disabilities.
Over time, I prayed and reflected about working with LGBT youth who felt lost and rejected by those closest to them, alienated by a Church that made them foreigners. It was a feeling I knew too well.
In 2005, I joined the Jesuits, one of Catholicism’s most progressive religious orders. I was nervous, at first, that being gay would be a problem. After all, the church opposes gay marriage; many members of the church believe practicing homosexuality is a sin.
But I was open and transparent about my sexual orientation from the beginning. Before I committed, I talked to my vocation director. He was a gay Jesuit; he assured me I’d be welcomed into the Society of Jesus, that I wouldn’t have to go back into the closet. I met other gay Jesuits who told me the same. I hoped that I might be able to help nudge the church in a more accepting direction, pushing it to accept and support its gay and lesbian members.
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