JUDY VALENTE: This priest is homosexual.
PRIEST "X": We're certainly aware that there are lots of priests who are gay.VALENTE: The Catholic Church teaches that it is not a sin to have a homosexual orientation. But the Church also says the proper role of sexuality is between a man and a woman, and calls homosexuality "intrinsically disordered." This has alienated many gay Catholics.
PRIEST "X": It's a very charged subject in the Church right now.
VALENTE: And as for homosexual acts, the Church calls them "gravely sinful." Although this gay priest is celibate -- as all priests are required to be -- he does not want to be identified.
PRIEST "X": I don't want to stand before a congregation and them think of me as a gay person, precluding what I'm trying to do there, precluding what I'm trying to do ministerially there.
VALENTE: No one has precise figures on the number or percentage of priests who are homosexual. There are only estimates. Sexuality, or sexual preferences, are not subjects easily studied in a scientific survey. But there are many anecdotes and impressions.
Rich Rasi is a gay man who once served as a priest in the Boston area. He is no longer an active priest but recently officiated at a worship service for gay and lesbian Catholics.
Mr. RICH RASI: A lot of the recent literature has said, you know, straight priests are leaving the priesthood because there are so many gay people there's not a place for them.VALENTE: Chris Pett, who is also gay, was an active priest in Illinois for 12 years.
Mr. CHRIS PETT: There is absolutely a predominance of gay men who are priests, in my experience.
VALENTE: Richard Sipe, a psychotherapist, has studied celibacy and sexuality in the priesthood for 40 years. Now married, Sipe had been a Benedictine monk for 18 years. He taught in three different seminaries. Sipe estimates that 30 percent of the priesthood is homosexually oriented.
RICHARD SIPE: And by the way, when I say that these men are homosexually oriented, I'm not throwing rocks at them, any more than if I would say they're heterosexually oriented. Nor am I implying that they aren't faithful to their vows and practicing celibacy.
VALENTE: Last year, in a widely discussed book, Father Donald Cozzens, then rector of the Cleveland Seminary, wrote of the "growing perception that the priesthood is or is becoming a gay profession."Jerome Listecki, auxiliary bishop of Chicago, acknowledges that the priesthood may have a slightly disproportionate number of gay men -- perhaps more than 10 percent -- but he rejects studies, cited by Cozzens, that [say] as many as 50 percent of seminarians are homosexual.
Bishop JEROME LISTECKI: The only thing I can tell you is that is not my experience. That might be Cozzens's experience. And even if it's Cozzens's experience, if that's his perception, we should deal with it. We should deal with it, because it does cast a certain pall on the priesthood.
VALENTE: Why do you think gay men would be attracted to the priesthood?
Bishop LISTECKI: I believe it's the caring and nurturing nature of the priesthood, which is part of the nature of ministry.
VALENTE: Father Richard McBrien is a theologian at the University of Notre Dame. He says that while gay men may have a sincere vocation to the priesthood, they may be drawn to it for other reasons as well.
Father RICHARD MCBRIEN: Let's be frank about it. I mean, gay people are persecuted in this society. They're hounded. They're looking for respect. They're looking for a vocation or an occupation or a profession that will give them a kind of immediate respect. And since it's a celibate profession, people will not automatically say, "Ah, he's not married." Doesn't make any difference. None of us are married.VALENTE: The priesthood has lost heterosexual men, not only because thousands have left to get married but also, apparently, because of the current climate in some seminaries.
Father MCBRIEN: Some of them who feel they have a genuine vocation for priesthood go into a seminary and feel very alienated by the gay culture. I don't say this in any homophobic sense. It's just the reality.
Bishop LISTECKI: What if it verges on the majority? Well, I think the bishops would have to take a look at assessing whether or not, you know, orientation might be a criterion they evaluate, whether or not someone should be studying for the priesthood. Because suddenly, for the common good of the Church, they would have to take a look to see whether or not this does a detriment to the whole concept of the priesthood.
VALENTE (to Priest "X"): Do you think that the average Catholic would care if a priest were open about his homosexual orientation?
VALENTE: But for now, whatever the arguments about its sexual teachings, Church officials foresee no change.
