I monk gay. The celibacy without love is not celibacy

Terence Weldon article taken from the blog Queering the Church (Great Britain), of February 26, 2011, freely translated by Giacomo Tessaro

Trappist friar Matthew Kelty was Munich at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky (United States) and was the last confessor of Thomas Merton. He made his coming out at the age of 90.
I would like to reflect on the coming out of Father Matthew and on his belief that being gay is a gift, in particular in the pursuit of monastic celibacy.

Charles Richard Kelty Jr. was born in Boston in 1915. He was an early student and school marked love for poetry that lasted all his life. He studied at the seminar of the company of the divine word (Svd) in Techny in the Illinois and in August 1946 he was ordained a priest and took the name of Matthew.
1947 at 1951 was a missionary in Papua New Guinea, then again in Illinois until 1960.
In February 1960 he was accepted in the Trappist community of Gethsemani and in 1962 he assumed the votes of strict observance. Durased the novitiate came into contact with Thomas Merton, who was assigned to him as spiritual director. Merton had made creative expression an important component of his spirituality through the well -known use of the written word, and encouraged the new monks he directed to do the same.

“What Father Matthew remembered of his first monastic formation was the way Merton encouraged the novices to seek their way of artistic expression, any type of expression, just like he himself had done with the written word.
The creativity, spiritual or not, was to be the watchword at Gethsemani, and even today a superficial look at the Abbey shop show how many monks they seriously took the invitation of Merton to creativity in the field of writing and fine arts.
Father Matthew Kelty was no exception, even if he came to express his creativity later than others. As Merton did, he abandoned Gethsemani for a certain period, with the intention of returning to you, unlike Merton.
He spent three years (1970-1973) in a small Cistercian community in Oxford in North Carolina, then another nine years (1973-1982) in Papua New Guinea, as a hermit. Then he returned home to Gethsemani.

Fu lì che fece della sua vita un capolavoro: si volse all’arte dell’omelia domenicale, molte delle quali furono più tardi filmate e messe in rete. Il suo modo di celebrare l’Eucarestia era proprio questo, una celebrazione rituale, un evento teatrale la cui solennità artistica egli ebbe sempre in mente. Queste rimangono tra le sue creazioni artistiche settimanali più commoventi.
Ma padre Matthew Kelty si dedicò anche alla parola scritta. La sua corrispondenza personale ha il respiro di una poesia; qui le parole scoprono una gentilezza che talvolta mancava alle mani meno callose di Merton.
Padre Matthew scrisse anche un libro, ma per ragioni molto meno personali di Merton; ragioni, chiamiamole così, politiche. Il libro è una raccolta di omelie e saggi spirituali intitolata “My Song Is Of Mercy” [Il mio canto è un canto di misericordia] ed edita da Michael Downey nel 1994.” 

Fu in una pagina di quella raccolta che padre Matthew uscì allo scoperto, affermando che essere gay è un dono, un dono che lo aveva aiutato nella scelta del celibato. Questo ha delle importanti implicazioni per l’odierno ed esibito orrore dei preti omosessuali, con la sua presunzione che l’identità gay significhi necessariamente una vita sessuale attiva oppure l’identificazione con la paventata “agenda gay” (qualsiasi cosa essa sia).
Obviously both are possible for some people, but never inevitable. Much more important, this self -identification is a sign of health and fullness that Father Matthew describes as an "integration process":

"There is no one with a greater vocation, a greater ability, which was created especially for this process of the people we call gay, which start from their first day the integration process of which others do not have the slightest idea before the age of 40." (From "The gift of being gay")

My readers will know that I am strenuously opposed the imposition of mandatory celibacy as a alleged universal rule for all Catholic priests. However, I am happy to accept it as a freely chosen way, which for some can have a spiritual value.
I also agree with Pope Benedict when he says that this arduous discipline can become easier in a community that supports you, like the monastic one of Father Matthew.
What I found particularly interesting in the argument expressed in "the gift of being gay" is that for homosexual men celibacy becomes possible as an expression of love; Not the carnal, human love, but the love of God. In the tradition of spirituality and Christian mysticism, the use of erotic images to express love between my mystic and God is well consolidated.

When God is depicted as the second person of the Trinity, the undoubtedly male Jesus Christ, for men who adopt this approach to contemplation the image that will result will be homoerotic, for some more intensely. This will obviously be more likely for men who have identified themselves as gays than for heterosexuals or those who try not to recognize their homoerotic instincts.
That's why Father Matthew Kelty concluded that, for those who want to remain celibate, being gay is a gift that makes this path easier than for heterosexual. (Someone should go to tell the Vatican.)

However, while Father Matthew specifically wrote about his celibate monastic context, the argument that is at the base is valid for all of us, even for those who do not feel the need or the desire to embrace the spiritual discipline of celibacy.
We all need to practice and develop a spiritual life (a precious defense against the poorly direct hostility of the institutional Church). Whether we decide to embrace voluntary celibacy or not, the use of homoerotic images as a metaphor of love between us and God, and as a means of experiencing that love directly in our spiritual life, has a very high value.

And those who are neither gay men nor straight women? Therefore, despite traditional tradition sees God as a male, this is not essential.
The Trinity can be more carefully designed as omnisexual and the Holy Spirit is specifically feminine. Choose the genre you want for your personal image of God, the principle remains valid. Here is a long extract from his obituary taken from religion dispatches:

"Sex is not a problem. Love is a problem.

The most surprising piece and one of the most moving in this volume is the epilogue, entitled "Celibacy and the gift of being gay". Father Matthew Kelty decided, in view of his ninetieth birthday, to leave his monastic reserve and try to describe with what gifts gay Christians and lesbian Christian could contribute to the complex weaving of Christian communion.
He did this because he felt a responsibility towards the "minimums between us" who had not taken the path of acceptance in such a easy way as many of the 60s and 1970s had hoped. But you can also grasp more than an echo than Matthew learned from the heterosexual torment of Merton.
It is however true that, given the climate you breathe in our country, it will take a while to let love act.
And then to let him grow deeper, bigger, wider. I wish it was clear: ... [this] is the reason why many heterosexuals abandon celibacy after ten or twenty years: they cannot come to terms there: they need an external woman to awaken the inner one, especially in our culture. Maybe you act better if you are less divided ...

And, given that those who tend to worry, here will worry about sex, the answer is simple: sex is not a problem. Love is a problem. Where there is no love we can see sex emerge. All men want love, even celibates.
Sex can be a way of loving, but it is absurd to say: without sex no love, it is absurd as if to say that sex is love. A celibate priesthood, a community of celibates are a grace for the Church, a singing of the kingdom (where there will be no marriage but everyone will be in fullness) and a joy for those who participate.
There is no one with a greater vocation, a greater ability, which was created on purpose for this process of the people we call gay, which start from their first day the integration process of which others do not have the slightest idea before the age of 40. Are blessed! (My song is a song of mercy)

In breve, ha scritto per gli altri, mai per se stesso. Anche in questa, la più personale delle confessioni spirituali, il soggetto non è affatto padre Matthew: è l’umanità, il mondo, la Chiesa, il suo sconcertante, universale e compassionevole abbraccio della Creazione, della quale si considerava parte indelebile.
Merton fece molte pressioni per ottenere il permesso di vivere leggermente appartato dalla sua comunità, in un piccolo romitorio sulla collina vicina al dormitorio del Gethsemani; che alcuni monaci si risentissero delle sue suppliche speciali e del suo trattamento di favore era inevitabile.
Ma padre Matthew non lo fece mai: invece, attribuì a Merton il merito di aver fatto tornare lui e gli altri monaci ai valori centrali del misticismo e della solitudine. Solo così il monaco può trovare l’amore divino nel quale il celibato acquista un senso.

Curiosamente, tale immagine dell’amore infuso di Dio venne a padre Matthew dalla sua prima esperienza con una motocicletta. “Un giorno tutto andò al proprio posto e io venni montato sulla moto” diceva giocosamente e maliziosamente. “È un buon modo per fare l’amore? Non lo so. So solo che era un modo giusto per me.” L’incontro con la sposa che abbiamo dentro non si ottiene semplicemente chiedendolo.
His hand must be conquered; His love must be demonstrated. The heroic effort is taken for granted ... Nonetheless many find it, and these are the people who have really lived. They are the ones who know God and who will see his face because they know what love is. Remember the central intuition that made its monastic life possible: "Sex is not a problem. Love is a problem."

This is probably his most original intuition, which he did not have to Merton (unless he was decisive counter -exercise) but it was absolutely his. The question of celibacy is often discussed too superficially, as is obvious that it happens when the mystical side is neglected. Doing this means reducing celibacy to an act of value that will most likely end up ruining the person.
Celibacy, without a deep love involvement, is a disaster. It is not even celibacy, it is simply not getting married. And in the world there are also too many people like that, married or not. Sex is not a problem. Love is a problem. So celibacy is coarsely misunderstood if you imagine it as a life as a bachelors without sex.

This only reiterates the obsession with the sex of our time. Celibacy is a love story, a love story with God. Here is what you will find in Father Matthew: a quiet, passionate, sometimes overwhelming love of God.
Father Matthew was infusion of this love, which gushed from him in every homily, every letter, every charming gaze. His most used prayer was a prayer for peace.

His fundamental spiritual orientation was directed to an eternal mercy, a mercy that he sang like a song and lived as a love story.
And while American Catholicism continues to rethink its relationships with Rome and its cultural future in times of crisis, it remains very important for us to remember that voices like that of Father Matthew have existed in the Roman Church and in other churches. Because good people leave us every day, and every day others arrive. "

Original text: "The Gift of Gay" - The Priest Who Came Out, Aged 90!