An eleventh-century Benedictine bishop believed there were so many gay men in the Catholic priesthood that he wrote a diatribe against his bretheren. “The Book of Gommorrah,” as he called it, was part condemnation, part sex catalogue. His call for reform went as high as then-pope Benedict IX, whom he named the chief “devil” behind acts Catholics still deem mortal sin.
A thousand years later, Catholics are still grappling with what place—if any—gay men can have in the clergy. In January, the Vatican issued new guidelines, applicable only to Italian priests, that say same-sex orientation cannot bar candidates from the priesthood as long as they remain celibate. And scholars are still trying to reckon the number of gay men within the all-male Catholic clergy, with estimates in the last fifty years ranging from as low as 10 percent to as high as 60. In 2000, Donald B. Cozzens, a Roman Catholic priest, wrote in The Changing Face of the Priesthood that 58 percent of clergy were gay, with the number even higher for young priests.
While news like this often re-starts old debates about the viability of celibacy and an all-male priesthood, it can also function as proxy for disagreements about sexuality in the church, with many conservatives worrying that gay priests are more likely to break their vows, or even engage in harmful or predatory behavior. Liberals, by contrast, tend to see panic around gay priests as tied to panic around sexual incontinence more generally.
But conservatives worried about a gay priesthood may have to reckon with the facts on the ground, which show movement in the opposite direction. A new study by Mark Regnerus, a sociologist at the University of Texas, makes the case that the number of gay men in the American priesthood will plummet to an all-time low, just 2 to 3 percent, by 2051. In addition, younger priests say they struggle much less with celibacy than their elders, and fewer than ever say they are aware of a “homosexual subculture” in their seminaries or dioceses.
“If this holds, and all other things being equal, you would expect the number of homosexual priests to shrink even further,” Regnerus said from his office in Austin. “It won’t disappear entirely, but it will shrink further.”
Catholics are still grappling with what place—if any—gay men can have in the clergy.
These findings underscore a growing divide between the American Catholic Church’s clergy and its laity on matters of sexual identity. They also point to the phenomenon of the young, conservative priest, who has succeeded the Vatican II–era’s liberal priest, turtleneck-clad and guitar-strumming, as the archtypal priest of the political moment.
Regnerus and his co-authors, Brad Vermurlen of the University of St. Thomas and Stephen Cranney of the Catholic University of America, base their findings on a study conducted by The Los Angeles Times in 2002, which asked American priests about their sexual identity, among other things. They repeated those questions to a similar number of Catholic clergy in 2020. Their work appears in the most recent edition of Interdisciplinary Journal of Research on Religion.
In addition to the slumping number of gay priests, the study reports priests ordained before 2000 are more likely to identify as gay or “somewhere in between” homosexual and heterosexual than those ordained after 2000—11 to 15 percent versus 2-3 percent. It also shows 55 percent of priests ordained after 2000 agreed that “celibacy is not a problem for me,” while that figure was 20 points lower among those ordained before 2000.
Regnerus and his co-authors also found that younger priests are far more likely to classify homosexuality as “always sinful” than their older cohort—33 percent ordained before 1981 compared to 89 percent ordained after 2010. The study did not ask about sexual activity, only sexual identity. Respondents could claim to be gay, straight, or somewhere in between, while observing their required vow of celibacy.
“When you scrutinize the results by age group is when you notice something interesting—predictors of sexual orientation,” Regnerus said. He noted that in 2002, the more recent a priest’s ordination, the more likely he was to identify as gay. “Now, more recent ordination predicts not being homosexual,” he continued. “And political conservatism predicts heterosexuality in both times. They don’t cause each other, but they are associated.”
Regnerus and his co-authors also found that younger priests are far more likely to classify homosexuality as “always sinful” than their older cohort.
Regenerus’s work has not been without controversy. In 2012, he came under fire from some of his fellow sociologists for a study he conducted, with funds from an anti–gay marriage organization, that seemed to say children with LGBTQ parents were more likely to be depressed and abuse drugs. He later admitted there were flaws in his methodology, although both an internal audit by the journal that published the study and a University of Texas inquiry cleared Regnerus of any wrongdoing.
Regnerus’s analysis also did not examine the shadow role the clergy sexual abuse scandal may play in a priest’s sexual identity. The original Los Angeles Times study was conducted in 2002—the same year The Boston Globe’s investigation team broke open the story of widespread abuse and cover-up by church officials, including Boston’s then-Cardinal Bernard Law. Since 2000, tens of thousands of Americans have claimed to be victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests.
A crackdown on abusive priests followed, and it often fell hardest on gay men. In 2005, the church’s Congregation for Catholic Education advised that seminarians could have previous experience with “homosexual tendencies,” but only if they were an “expression of a transitory problem … overcome at least three years before ordination.” Three years later, the Vatican required psychological screening for candidates for the priesthood. Those exhibiting ”uncertain sexual identity” and “deep-seated homosexual tendencies” were to be denied ordination.
The new guidelines issued by the Vatican in January seem to reverse that policy—but only for Italian priests. And they have been issued only for a trial period of three years.
“It is a step forward,” Francis DeBernardo, the executive director of a group that supports gay Catholics, told The New York Times. “It clarifies previous ambiguous statements about gay seminary candidates, causing lots of fear and discrimination. And this clarification treats gay candidates in the same way that heterosexual candidates are treated. That type of equal treatment is what the Church should be aiming for in regards to all LGBTQ+ issues.”
Some American Catholics have called for the removal of all gay clergy, and some American bishops, archbishops and cardinals have agreed. In 2019, The New York Times estimated that as many as 75 percent of Catholics priests may be gay, with only ten of them formally “out.”
And those who do come out—or are rooted out—may lose their livelihood, their housing, and their community. In other words, priests may have more reason to hide matters of sexuality today than they did in the 1970s up through the 1990s. But Regnerus believes the numbers are accurate.
“I don’t think we were terribly surprised by our numbers, because of the scrutiny that the bishops began to display concerning homosexuality and seminarians around twenty years ago,” Regnerus said. “The fact that we find fewer homosexuals in the priesthood signaled that their scrutiny is working in the way that they designed.”
Of course, fewer gay men may be pursuing the priesthood. “The Catholic closet,” as the seminary and the priesthood were sometimes called, may be less attractive to gay men, who have so many options now, than it once was.
The study raises a number of alarms for Peter Cajka, a Notre Dame scholar and author of a forthcoming book on clerical sexuality. He notes that the numbers are likely to be celebrated by those in the church hierarchy who see a link between homosexuality and immorality.
“For them, fewer homosexuals in the clergy means priests are less likely to break their vow of celibacy and less likely to break doctrine,” Cajka said. “They may think the heterosexual priest may be attracted to women, but he may be able to maintain his celibacy more easily. Less breaking of celibacy means the priesthood is going to be preserved. It’s a highly dubious argument.”
And it comes at a cost, Cajka continued. “What’s to be lost is men who truly serve the church, men who are good priests, men who do remain celibate but have a sexual orientation that is homosexual in nature.”
And there could be fallout in the pews, as well. Multiple studies show American Catholics have grown more liberal on issues of sexuality than their clergy. According to the Pew Research Center, in 2014, 70 percent of Catholics said homosexuality “should be acceptable by society,” up from 58 percent in 2007. Church teaching describes homosexuality as “always a sin.”
“The laity have gay sons and daughters,” Cajka said. “What type of advice can these priests give on these issues? What happens to pastoral outreach to homosexuals? Does a heterosexual male give better advice on those questions? I would just say the gap is getting larger.”
Regnerus agreed.
“The question will be how much does this push away Catholics who are not totally engaged,” Regnerus said. “I am sure that some of this will add to the reasons why they do not want to return. I think, at the same time, the church would say we would love for them to return, but we are not going to change our positions to get them to return.”