“It started with a crush,” I said, and the confession landed with a ridiculous, traitorous lightness.“One of the seminarians.I never, um, I never acted on it.Nothing happened.But knowing what I felt, that it was there… I thought maybe that meant I didn’t belong here.I kept praying to make it go away.Then I kept waiting for that quiet certainty other men talk about, and it never came.”
He let out a long, soft sigh and shook his head once, slowly enough that there was no scolding in it.“Henry,” he said, and I heard the careful patience in the way he set the name down.“Being homosexual is not a sin.Acting on sexual desire outside the sacrament of marriage is what the Church calls disordered.”
I remember thinking, absurdly, about the way he’d taught us about the difference between inclination and act — theological nuance presented at the front of a classroom in his calm baritone.The distinction should have been comforting.Instead, it felt like an extra hinge on the door I was trying to close.
Then he asked me, sharp and direct in a way that made my stomach drop: “Have you ever had sex?”
My cheeks flamed, hot and ridiculous.I’d rehearsed every theological argument and every reason for leaving in my head a hundred times, but no one had given me a script for answering that question.
“No,” I said.“I haven’t.”
His smile came back, a little gentler, and there was a touch of irony in it I couldn’t quite read.“Then what is the problem?”he asked.“If you’re called to the priesthood, the vow of chastity protects both the Church and the priest.It’s not about denying who you are.It’s about promise and service.Desire, in itself, is not the end.As a priest, you don’t act on those impulses, whether they point toward a man or a woman.”
His words should have unknotted something in me.They should have offered a way to patch the torn edges of my doubt.Instead, what I felt was more complex, like a layered garment I couldn’t shed.There was relief, the smallest, most treacherous relief, that I had never crossed that boundary, but my relief did not equate to a calling to be a priest.Relief did not turn absence into conviction.
“How can I stay,” I heard myself say, voice thinner, “when I don’t believe I have what a priest should have?I can’t pretend.I can’t spend a life pretending I’m answering a call that never came.”
He paused, the kind of pause that collects a dozen things and weighs them.I watched his hands — those hands had presided at Mass for decades, had steadied troubled students, had ironed cassocks and written letters of recommendation.They told stories of their own: a life of practical faith, of steady work.When he spoke again, it was low and deliberate.
“You are one of our finest minds, Henry,” he said.“You have discipline, charity, intellect.And you would be an asset to the Church.Don’t throw that away on fear.”
The word “fear” landed like a gauntlet.I’d expected anger.I’d expected paternal disappointment, maybe a measured admonishment.Instead, he named the thing I’d been living inside for years.He saw it and called it what it was.
I thought of all the hours I’d spent studying, the way I’d lingered after class to ask questions about the saints, about desire, about sin and salvation.An image of Rector Redcay passed through my mind at the front of the lecture hall, leaning on the lectern, his voice making the Dead Sea scrolls feel alive.I admired him in a way that made my chest ache; he had been a lighthouse for me, and now I felt like I was steering away and leaving him to watch the shore alone.
“I can’t be the priest I’m asked to be,” I said finally.“Lying to myself and others is wrong.I respect the vocation, I respect what it asks, but I don’t have the interior peace needed for the priesthood.The answer is no.”
His face was unreadable for a heartbeat, then softened into something like sorrow.“You admire the Church,” he said.“You admire its beauty and its order.That doesn’t mean you have to stand at the altar to serve it.Service takes many forms.What will you do next?”
“What will I do?”I asked.The question was partly literal, partly a howl.It contained all the small, panicked thoughts I’d been carrying: how to pay my bills, my reputation, the look on people’s faces, the way the other men might talk.It also contained the dull practicalities — a life that suddenly needed to be chosen.
“A teaching post,” I said, almost before I’d decided I would allow myself to think it.“Theology.Religious studies.Something adjacent.”My voice faltered.Saying it aloud made it feel both braver and lonelier.“I don’t know for certain.I only know that I can’t do this.”
Rector Redcay leaned back and steepled his fingers.“Teaching would suit you,” he said.“You have the mind for it and the patience.It would be honest work, and you would still be forming minds, shaping faith in a different way.”
His approval should have eased me.Instead, guilt pinched at the edges of whatever relief I felt.I admired him, and I wanted his blessing.Selfishly, I wanted him to be proud of me rather than disappointed.“I’m sorry,” I said, and it was the truest thing I’d spoken in weeks.“I’m sorry if I… if I let you down.”
He smiled then, and there was no condemnation in it.“You’re not letting me down, Henry.You’re choosing a path that might be truer to who you are.We shepherd many kinds of souls, and the good shepherd knows when to let a lamb go explore the meadow.”
Rector Redcay leaned back in his chair, studying me for a moment, then said, “Have you ever heard of the Claremont School of Theology?”
I shook my head.
“It’s in Los Angeles.My alma mater,” he said, and there was a flicker of fondness in his eyes, the kind you reserve for places that shaped you.“Weather’s wonderful year-round, and their faculty are some of the finest in the country.If you earn your PhD there, you’ll be able to find a position anywhere you like.At a university or a seminary, public lectures, you name it.”
The words felt as if someone had opened a window.There was still a storm outside, but at least I could breathe.
“I… thank you, Father.I…” My voice stumbled, catching on the lump in my throat.“Thank you.”
I started to rise, still shaky, but he lifted a hand.“Sit.I’ll type out your letter of recommendation right now.”
I sank back down as he swiveled toward the hulking typewriter on the side of his desk.The old keys clacked in a steady rhythm, punctuated by the metallic ding at the end of each line.His fingers moved with surprising speed for a man his age, and I realized he’d probably written hundreds of these—maybe thousands—each one a bridge between where someone stood and where they might go.
Watching him, I felt a deep gratitude that almost hurt.Gratitude for his generosity, for not shaming me when I expected it, for seeing the part of me that could still serve, even if it wasn’t at the altar.But beneath it was the persistent ache of guilt, sharp and sour.No matter what he said, it still felt like I’d failed him.Failed the Church.Failed God.
The clacking stopped.He slipped the page free, read it over with a small nod, then folded it neatly and slid it into a crisp white envelope.With a firm press of his thumb, he sealed it and extended it toward me.
I took it carefully, like it was more fragile than paper had any right to be.“Thank you, Father,” I said.My voice was steadier this time, though the guilt still pressed against my ribs.“And again, I’m sorry.For letting you down.”
