THE KANSAS CITY STAR

Monday, January 31, 2000

(The Star began researching AIDS in the priesthood more than four years ago. In the last 18 months, the newspaper examined scores of death certificates and church documents and interviewed hundreds of priests, church officials and AIDS experts nationwide. The newspaper also visited a sex education school for priests in Maryland and an AIDS hospice in Florida. Last fall, the newspaper conducted a random nationwide survey of 3,000 priests to learn their views on AIDS in the priesthood and how the Catholic Church has dealt with the issue. )

SPECIAL REPORT: AIDS IN THE PRIESTHOOD

By JUDY L. THOMAS

INTODUCTION: Priest's stories carry crucial messages

By MARK ZIEMAN

Editor and Vice President

SPECIAL REPORT: AIDS IN THE PRIESTHOOD

By JUDY L. THOMAS

Part: ONE

A) Catholic priests are dying of AIDS, often in silence

B) Priests speak out in national survey

C) AIDS, gay-related issues trouble many denominations

D) Homosexuality, AIDS and celibacy: the church's views

E) Florida priest finds acceptance, fulfillment after devastating news

PART TWO

A) Seminary taught spirituality, liturgy and Latin - - sexuality was taboo

B) Journal reveals pain, acceptance

C) Issue prompting church to deal with homosexuality among priests

INTRODUCTION:

Priests' stories carry crucial messages

By MARK ZIEMAN, Editor and Vice President

The credibility and worth of any newspaper series should rest squarely on the stories themselves, not on columns such as this one. Our series beginning today on AIDS in the Catholic priesthood is no exception.

That's why I urge you to read our coverage for yourself. And that's why I hope that your final impression will be one of balance, accuracy, thoroughness -- and compassion.

But I realize questions might remain. Why did The Kansas City Star examine this issue? What about the priests' right to privacy? Are we unfairly "outing" priests or attacking the Roman Catholic Church?

The reason for the series is addressed at length in today's installment: Catholic priests are dying of AIDS at rates many times higher than the general population, and hundreds of priests believe the church can help address and stem this epidemic.

It's a story that has compelled more than 800 priests to share their private thoughts with this newspaper in a nationwide poll. Scores of others have spoken openly about their own struggle with AIDS or about the deaths of friends and loved ones from AIDS-related illnesses. Church leaders have offered their own personal tales of stricken colleagues and private pain.

We at The Star have responded to this unprecedented cooperation with sensitivity of our own. No gay priest or AIDS sufferer in this series has been named by this newspaper without his cooperation, or, in the case of deceased priests, without the cooperation of, or previous public recognition by, family members or church colleagues. This includes even those priests memorialized in the quilt panels illustrating this series.

The nationwide survey sent by The Star to 3,000 priests across America was completely voluntary and strictly confidential. Church leaders, from local dioceses to the Vatican in Rome, were encouraged to respond to the newspaper's findings and to provide context; when responses are unclear or not forthcoming, The Star cites Catholic doctrine and church policy.

As reporter Judy Thomas so forcefully writes in today's story, AIDS in the priesthood strikes straight at the heart of church doctrine. Homosexuality and AIDS are controversial topics, difficult for the church to address. That includes Catholics in Kansas City and Catholics in our newsroom, including me.

But the fear of controversy should never excuse silence. Dying of AIDS is a preventable tragedy. Ignorance and fear and death can give way, through compassion, to knowledge and understanding and life. That is the message of the hundreds of priests whose stories we begin to tell today.

That is the message of the series itself.

PART ONE:

A) Catholic priests are dying of AIDS, often in silence

Hundreds of Roman Catholic priests across the United States have died of AIDS-related illnesses, and hundreds more are living with HIV, the virus that causes the disease.

The actual number of AIDS deaths is difficult to determine. But it appears priests are dying of AIDS at a rate at least four times that of the general U.S. population, according to estimates from medical experts and priests and an analysis of health statistics by The Kansas City Star.

In Missouri and Kansas alone, at least 16 priests and two religious-order brothers have died of AIDS since early 1987.

The deaths are of such concern to the church that most dioceses and religious orders now require applicants for the priesthood to take an HIV-antibody test before their ordination.

For the nation's 60 million Catholics, served by 46,000 priests, the AIDS issue goes straight to the heart of church doctrine -- a doctrine that teaches compassion and forgiveness but also considers homosexual relations a sin and opposes the modern practice of "safe sex."

In a nationwide confidential survey of 3,000 priests by The Star, two-thirds of the more than 800 responding lauded the church for being caring and compassionate to priests with AIDS. Often, the church covers medical costs, gives them a place to live and cares for them until they die.

Most priests, however, said the church failed to offer an early and effective sexual education that might have prevented infection in the first place. Two-thirds said sexuality either was not addressed at all or was not discussed adequately in the seminary. Three of four said the church needed to offer more education about sexual issues.

"Sexuality still needs to be talked about and dealt with," said the Rev. Dennis Rausch, a priest with AIDS who runs an AIDS ministry program for Catholic Charities in the Archdiocese of Miami.

"I've been trying to get into the seminary here for the last several years to do an awareness course for the guys, so when they come out, they at least have some knowledge."

Many priests and behavioral experts argue that the church's adherence to 12th-century doctrine about the virtues of celibacy and its teachings on homosexuality have contributed to the spread of AIDS within the clergy. Unwittingly, the church has kept fledgling priests -- some of whom were as young as 14 when they entered seminary in the '60s and '70s -- uneducated about the reality of a sexual world and its temptations.

Rich Sugg/The StarFormer priest John Hilgeman, a St. Louis activist, has made many panels for the AIDS Memorial Quilt. After a friend in the priesthood died of AIDS, he wrote "Silence Equals Death" -- in Latin -- on a panel but covered it up when other priests objected to the statement.

Moreover, by treating homosexual acts as an abomination and the breaking of celibacy vows as shameful, the church has scared priests into silence, some say.

"I think this speaks to a failure on the part of the church," said Auxiliary Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of the Archdiocese of Detroit. "Gay priests and heterosexual priests didn't know how to handle their sexuality, their sexual drive. And so they would handle it in ways that were not healthy.

"How to be celibate and to be gay at the same time, and how to be celibate and heterosexual at the same time, that's what we were never really taught how to do. And that was a major failing."

Roman Catholic cardinals in the United States and high-ranking church officials in Rome declined requests to discuss the issue. The Vatican referred questions to local bishops.

In a statement released Saturday, the Rev. Patrick J. Rush, vicar general of the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, said: "The numbers of HIV-AIDS deaths of ordained clergy pale in comparison to the tidal wave in our country and throughout the world. Through their ministries, all of our priests offer their lives to serve others."

Rush said the Catholic Church has responded with compassion to those who suffer from AIDS.

"Faith reminds us that the afflicted are our brothers and sisters, men and women in God's image. They deserve our care, respect and support."

In an earlier interview, Bishop Raymond J. Boland of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph said the AIDS deaths show that priests are human.

"Much as we would regret it, it shows that human nature is human nature," Boland said. "And all of us are heirs to all of the misfortunes that can be foisted upon the human race."

Boland thinks church leaders now are doing a better job.

"I do feel today that a lot of our men get many opportunities -- the standard of spiritual direction, the standard of formation is much higher," Boland said. "And in all of the seminaries, we have people who are trained counselors."

Through the years, the issue of AIDS deaths among priests has been so sensitive that many of those who later died kept their illnesses a secret. Some death certificates listed AIDS-related conditions such as pneumocystis pneumonia but never mentioned the disease itself. Other certificates were falsified.

But within the church, many have been touched by the disease. To the surprise of researchers and some church officials, 801 priests responded to The Star's survey on AIDS and the priesthood -- a response rate of 27 percent. Nearly 60 percent said they personally knew at least one priest who had died of AIDS. And one in three said they knew priests who were living with HIV or AIDS.

The survey had a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.

The Rev. Tom Casey, an Augustinian priest from the Boston area, cared for a priest who died of AIDS in 1991. Casey said the church bears some of the blame for his death.

"They have created a tremendous amount of homophobia," Casey said. "They're schizophrenic in the sense that they're wonderful when it comes to caring for people, but on the other hand, most churches don't generally have a healthy understanding of sexuality."

Casey said his friend, a deeply spiritual man, contracted AIDS through sexual relations.

"Part of it was repression, denial, and an acting out, which he realized was inappropriate," Casey said. "But because of that one part of his life that he had not addressed openly, it turned out, unfortunately, to be deadly."

The Catholic Church clearly is not alone. Clergy in other denominations also struggle with sexuality and have died of AIDS. But the Catholic Church's condemnation of homosexual acts, its requirement that priests be male and its unique demand of celibacy make the issue all the more vexing for its followers.

"There are some very strong social implications behind this," said Robert Goss, a former Jesuit priest who is now chairman of the Department of Religious Studies at Webster University in St. Louis.

Gays are in the priesthood, and not all of them are celibate, he said.

"Both of those issues are explosive issues that superiors and bishops don't want to deal with publicly."

Goss himself left the priesthood after 11 years when he fell in love with a seminarian who was just shy of ordination. The two became longtime partners. The former seminarian died of AIDS in 1992.

Several church leaders respond that the church is dealing with the issue forthrightly. Any criticism, they say, must be tempered by the realization that many priests wish to keep their medical condition private, as do many AIDS sufferers outside the church.

Seminary education on sexuality has been slow to evolve, but so has the acceptance of homosexuality and the understanding of AIDS in the general population. Many of today's priests, whose average age is about 60, entered the seminary in the 1960s, the age of "free love" and sexual experimentation -- not HIV awareness.

The church hasn't abandoned its priests who have HIV or AIDS, some say, and often celebrates their accomplishments.

"There are priests who are gay, there are priests with AIDS, there are priests who are different that are doing wonderful ministry," said the Rev. Jim Nickel, director of pastoral care for Damien Ministries in Washington, D.C.

"No matter what their frailties, no matter what their history, no matter what their differences, there are people out there who are making a difference."

Hiding the truth

Exactly how many priests have died of AIDS or are infected with HIV is unknown, in part because many suffer in solitude.

When priests do tell their superiors, the cases generally are handled quietly, either at the priests' requests or because church officials are reluctant to discuss them.

In 1995, Bishop Emerson J. Moore left the Archdiocese of New York and went to Minnesota, where he died in a hospice of an AIDS-related illness. His death certificate attributed his death to "unknown natural causes" and listed his occupation as "laborer" in the manufacturing industry.

After a Minnesota AIDS activist filed a complaint, officials changed the cause of death to "HIV-related illness." The occupation, however, has not been corrected.

"I think there's still a lot of shame and dysfunction there," said Sue Ledbetter, who helped form an AIDS support group in Wichita in the early 1980s. "In the early days, they wouldn't even recognize AIDS on death certificates. They would put things like 'died of pneumonia, hepatitis.' And the priests probably did have those things. But they got those things because of complications from HIV and AIDS."

Farley Cleghorn, an epidemiologist with the Institute of Human Virology in Baltimore, said it was common practice with early cases not to disclose AIDS as a cause of death.

"The first priest that I saw with AIDS -- this was back in 1982 -- we did not put AIDS on the death certificate, because they wanted us not to," Cleghorn said.

"The law says that you have to be truthful in that it's a legal document, and if you lie on a legal document, you could incur penalties. But there is no auditing procedure for a death certificate. And without lying, you could say that the terminal event was the stopping of the heart and the cessation of respiration."

Cleghorn said he has treated about 20 priests and religious-order brothers with AIDS, all of whom had kept it a secret.

"The church and religious orders need to acknowledge that there is a problem -- that priests have sex and they are susceptible to all sexually transmitted diseases, including AIDS," Cleghorn said.

"I think the most important message is that, just like every other part of the population, priests need sex education and sexual disease prevention."

In the early 1990s, experts who counseled and treated priests with AIDS estimated that about 200 in the United States either had died of AIDS or had contracted the disease. Now, those who work with infected priests say the numbers are higher.

"You're talking several hundred," said the Rev. Jon Fuller, a Jesuit priest and physician who serves as assistant director of Boston Medical Center's Clinical AIDS Program.

The Star alone -- through death certificates and interviews with fellow priests and family members -- found information on about 100 priests who have died of AIDS nationwide since the mid-1980s.

And many priests and medical experts now agree that at least 300 priests have died. That translates into an annualized AIDS-related death rate of about 4 per 10,000 -- four times that of the general population's rate of roughly 1 per 10,000 and about double the death rate of the adult male population.

Other statistics and experts suggest that those estimates are too conservative.

For example, the annualized death rate of priests confirmed by The Star to have died of AIDS in Kansas and Missouri from 1987 to 1999 is 7 per 10,000, or seven times that of the general population.

That death rate is consistent with the rate calculated by The Star after reviewing death certificates of priests who died in California, Missouri and Massachusetts in 1995. The finding: six priests -- or 7.3 per 10,000 -- died of AIDS in those states that year. The AIDS death rate of the general population in those three states in 1995 was 1.8 per 10,000.

A.W. Richard Sipe, a former priest who has spent more than 30 years studying sexuality issues in the church, thinks that about 750 priests nationwide have died of such illnesses. That would translate into an AIDS-related death rate eight times that of the general population.

Joseph Barone, a New Jersey psychiatrist and AIDS expert, puts the number of U.S. priests who have died at 1,000 -- nearly 11 times the rate of the general population.

Barone directed an AIDS ministry from 1983 to 1993 for students at North American College in Rome. While there, he set up an underground AIDS testing program. Over seven years, he tested dozens of seminarians. Barone gave them false names, drove them to their tests in an unmarked car and paid for the tests himself.

"I didn't know who they were; they didn't know who I was," Barone said.

Of those he worked with, he said, 1 in 12 tested HIV-positive.

By the time Barone left Rome, he had treated about 80 priests with AIDS. Most of them were gay, he said, and contracted the disease through sexual activity.

"The tragedy is many of them have been so duplicitous and so closeted," said Barone, a member of the National Catholic AIDS Network.

"They didn't realize what they were doing, not only to themselves, but to other individuals, because of the exponential transmission rate."

Another researcher who has extensively studied the issue of AIDS within the church is the Rev. Thomas Crangle, a Franciscan priest in the Capuchin order in Passaic, N.J. In 1990, Crangle conducted a mail survey of hundreds of priests selected at random.

Crangle said that of the 500 surveys he sent, 398 were returned. About 45 percent of those responding volunteered that they were gay, and 92 -- nearly one-fourth -- said they had AIDS.

"I was surprised," Crangle said. "I felt there was a problem, but I didn't think it was of that magnitude."

'It's never fair to presume'

Many Catholics say it is irrelevant how the priests contracted AIDS. Some caution that it would be wrong to assume that all priests with HIV became infected by engaging in homosexual activity.

"I would never ask a priest how he got it, just like nobody asked me two years ago how I got cancer of the colon," Boland said. "But I would provide for him. I would not write him off and say, 'Because you've got AIDS and because there are doubts about how one can acquire it, therefore you're not a good priest.' "

HIV is spread most commonly by sexual contact with an infected partner. In the early years of the pandemic, most of those with AIDS in the United States were white men who contracted HIV through homosexual relations.

The disease also is transmitted through heterosexual contact, blood transfusions (although the risk is extremely small today), dirty needles during intravenous drug use, or from infected mothers to their babies during pregnancy or birth.

Experts say the incidence of AIDS among priests stems primarily from sexual contact.

As long ago as the early 1980s, the Rev. John Keenan discovered that Catholic priests were contracting AIDS at an alarming rate.

"We looked at what was taking place in the gay Catholic population, and there was a lot of concern about the epidemic proportions of HIV," said Keenan, a Blessed Sacrament priest and clinical psychologist who runs Trinity House in Chicago, an outpatient clinic for priests.

Keenan and his staff developed an anonymous AIDS testing program, then notified priests, bishops and superiors of religious communities.

The response surprised him.

"Originally, it was just for people in our region," Keenan said. "And then we started getting people from all over."

Keenan now runs weekly support sessions for infected priests. He believes most priests with AIDS contracted the disease through same-sex relations. He said he treated one priest who had infected eight other priests.

Charlie Isola, a New York City social worker and psychotherapist, said all the priests with AIDS that he has treated are gay men in their 40s to early 60s who became infected through same-sex relations.

"Some of them had sexual contact in the seminary which continued after ordination, and some of the men had their first sexual contact with other priests or with laymen after they were ordained," Isola said.

Other means of transmission, however, can't be ruled out, since many priests have served as missionaries in countries that have poor medical practices.

The Rev. Luis Olivares, 59, pastor of Our Lady Queen of Angels Church and an activist who ministered to poor immigrants in Los Angeles, died of AIDS in March 1993. Doctors thought Olivares contracted HIV from contaminated needles while being treated for an injury during a visit to Central America.

"I think it's important for people to remember that it's never fair to presume how somebody got it," said Fuller, the Jesuit priest and doctor. "It isn't really relevant."

More important, Fuller said, is the question of when a person contracted AIDS. Because the virus has a long incubation period, a priest may have become infected before taking his vows, Fuller said.

Others argue that failing to address how the priests were infected shows that the church is in denial about the issue.

"The thing about this is it's a public manifestation of the fact that this guy is sexually active," said Maureen Fiedler, director of Catholics Speak Out, a national group based in Hyattsville, Md., that is critical of some of the church's positions.

"And the church just doesn't want to admit it."

A teachable moment

Like some others with AIDS, many priests keep their illnesses hidden for as long as they can. Yet when priests finally do open up, their bishops or superiors generally treat them with compassion.

One of the first priests with AIDS to attract national attention was the Rev. Michael R. Peterson. Peterson was a priest of the Archdiocese of Washington and founder of St. Luke Institute, a psychiatric hospital in Maryland for Catholic priests and religious-order men and women. He died in 1987 at age 44.

The month before Peterson died, he and Washington's Archbishop James Hickey sent a letter to the priests of his diocese and to every Catholic bishop and religious superior in the country.

"I hope that in my own struggle with this disease, in finally acknowledging that I have this lethal syndrome, there might come some measure of compassion, understanding and healing for me and for others with it -- especially those who face this disease alone and in fear," Peterson wrote.

Hickey -- now a cardinal -- added, "Father Peterson's illness reminds us in a personal way of the terrible human tragedy of AIDS in our midst. His suffering challenges us to reach out with renewed conviction and compassion to those with AIDS and their families and friends."

Boland was working in Washington at the time and was friends with Peterson. When Peterson died, Hickey sent Boland to the hospital to identify the body.

"We had his funeral in the cathedral, and the archbishop talked about it," Boland recalled. "You talk about a teachable moment. First of all there was a shock, but when that wore off, they said, 'Gee, this maybe is the model of how we should deal with people in this situation. Even a priest.' "

Peterson's openness and the church's acknowledgment that he had AIDS have been the exception, not the norm. Though more than 12 years have passed, many priests with AIDS continue to suffer in silence.

Missed opportunity?

The Rev. Harry Morrison entered the seminary in 1969 after graduating from college. Though older than many fellow seminarians, he wasn't any wiser when it came to sex.

Several years in the seminary didn't help.

"When young men go into seminary, they don't even know what celibacy is," said Morrison, a California priest who has AIDS. "A lot of this technical language, these Latin phrases, all you know is there's something to be afraid of. You don't even know exactly what it means."

Morrison said one phrase seminarians learned was adverte oculos.

"That's an old, old, old admonition," he said. "It means turn away your eyes. Eye contact is dangerous. And that's all a seminary faculty member would have to say. They would walk past you and they would just simply say, 'Custody of the eyes."'

Another warning was about "particular friendships."

"That was the main issue," Morrison said. "In a seminary, you're not supposed to have particular friendships, because they can lead to perdition."

Lack of education and inadequate preparation on sexual issues continues to be a problem in the seminaries, many priests and behavioral experts said.

"In my experience, the great majority of the priests who take that vow are really not developed enough psychosexually," said Isola, the New York therapist.

"During seminary, the questions about sex or homosexuality or sexual feelings were usually dealt with by the novicemaster or the head of training saying, 'If you say the Mass every day and say the rosary every day, the rest of it will take care of itself,' which for many of them just doesn't work."

Several priests, responding confidentially to The Star's survey, offered similar comments.

"I don't think the real problem is HIV/AIDS but rather the basic dishonesty of the church with regard to all sexuality," wrote one gay priest. "Priests and others have to disguise and hide their sexuality in all sorts of ways and of course this leads to unhealthy sexual expression."

Some priests say the church was warned nearly 30 years ago that such problems could develop but failed to take steps to prevent them.

In 1967, the U.S. Catholic bishops voted to conduct an extensive study of the life and ministry of the American priest. The U.S. Catholic Conference published the findings in a 1972 book called The Catholic Priest in the United States: Psychological Investigations.

Most significant among the findings was that a large proportion of priests were psychologically underdeveloped and had failed to achieve a healthy sexual identity.

"For whatever reasons, these priests have not resolved the problems which are ordinarily worked through during the time of adolescence," the report said. "Sexual feelings are a source of conflict and difficulty and much energy goes into suppressing them or the effort to distract themselves from them.

"Most report that their education about sexual development was negative or non-existent; many report no normal developmental social experience."

Gumbleton said the church missed an opportunity in the '70s when the bishops received the report.

"They made it very clear that we had major problems because of underdevelopment of two-thirds of the priests of this country," he said. "It brought out the facts and would have been the basis for developing programs within the seminary to help people to grow into healthy adults with integrated sexuality.

"The report was given to the bishops, and they just said 'Thank you.'...It was a disaster. That study was one of the best things we ever did. I was totally frustrated at the time, and I still remain frustrated. I've always thought that was a huge failure on the part of the conference of bishops."

In 1983, the National Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Priestly Life and Ministry followed up with a 59-page booklet called "Human Sexuality and the Ordained Priesthood."

The booklet's purpose was to provide "a structured, objective basis for priests and bishops to reflect personally and talk about some important realities -- realities which otherwise might not get looked at or dealt with helpfully."

Topics included celibacy, loneliness and relationships. Three pages dealt with homosexuality.

It was, said a priest responding to The Star's survey, "one of the most neglected documents in recent years."

B) Priests speak out in national survey

Six of 10 Roman Catholic priests in the United States know at least one priest who died of an AIDS-related illness, and one-third know a priest currently living with AIDS.

And while most of the priests participating in a recent survey said the church's response in ministering to those with HIV and AIDS has been caring and compassionate, three-fourths said the church needs to provide more education to seminarians on sexual issues.

The Kansas City Star mailed the random, confidential survey to 3,000 priests last fall, and more than 800 responded. The survey's margin of error was 3.5 percentage points. Other findings include:

̣ Seven of those responding -- about 1 in 114 -- said they either have HIV or AIDS or might have but haven't been tested. That would translate into about 400 priests nationwide, an estimate supported by members of the National Catholic AIDS Network. In the general U.S. population, according to figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, between 1 in 300 and 1 in 420 people are infected.

̣ Three-fourths of those responding described themselves as heterosexual, 15 percent said they were homosexual and 5 percent bisexual. Estimates of the percentage of homosexuals in the general population have been widely debated, but those who conduct research on gays and lesbians say the figure is between 5 percent and 10 percent.

̣ Two-thirds of those responding said that sexuality either was not addressed at all in their theological training or was addressed a little, but not enough. Twenty-eight percent said it was "very much integrated into the process."

The response rate was "very good, especially considering the sensitivity and the difficulty surrounding the issue of HIV and AIDS in general," said the Rev. Rodney DeMartini, executive director of the National Catholic AIDS Network.

DeMartini said the response indicates that priests are eager to talk about the issue.

"We're 20 years into this pandemic, and there are a lot of stories that people may feel they had to keep a lid on," he said. "And here's an opportunity to say something, reflect on something that's been a secret or something they haven't been able to talk about.

"I hope it opens the doors to further conversation in the larger community so that we can address the issues here."

The survey found that 32 percent of the priests responding know priests living with HIV or AIDS, and 58 percent knew priests who died of AIDS-related illnesses. Six in 10 either knew priests who died or know priests living with AIDS.

When asked to describe the church's response in ministering to priests with HIV or AIDS, 65 percent said the church had been caring and compassionate. Twelve percent said the church took care of only the priests' basic needs; 2 percent said the church ignored priests; and 2 percent said the church was judgmental and uncaring.

Some priests said the church's response depended on the bishop or superior in the diocese or religious order.

"I was a nurse," wrote one priest who responded to the survey. "I did take care of men with AIDS. Some were priests or brothers. Some were left to die by their superior or bishop. Others were shown great love and compassion."

When asked to rate ways the church could deal with priests' needs and concerns regarding HIV and AIDS, 52 percent of those responding -- including 65 percent of homosexual or bisexual priests -- said it would be extremely effective to provide more education in the seminaries on sexual issues.

"For me, the healthy thing has been coming to grips with my sexuality in light of church teaching," wrote one gay priest. "My personal experience with 'the church' has been very positive in this area for me as a priest. I do wish, however, that the psycho/sexual aspect of spirituality and personhood were better addressed during the seminary experience."

Fifty-five percent of survey respondents -- including 77 percent of homosexual or bisexual priests -- also said it would be extremely effective for the church to encourage open dialogue and communication.

"There is an excessive amount of secrecy in the church and priesthood," one priest wrote. "A dysfunctional church, priesthood, and families feed on shame, isolation and secrets. The entire approach to sexuality, intimacy and honesty must be addressed in the Catholic church."

Changing church doctrine on homosexuality would be extremely effective, said 14 percent of overall respondents, including 41 percent of homosexual or bisexual priests but only 6 percent of heterosexual priests.

However, more than half the respondents -- including 71 percent of heterosexual priests and 22 percent of homosexual or bisexual priests -- said changing the doctrine would not be at all effective.

"The church cannot change doctrine on homosexuality or any other matters pertaining to sex," wrote one priest.

Eliminating the church's celibacy requirement would be extremely effective, said 15 percent overall, including 33 percent of homosexual or bisexual priests and 11 percent of heterosexual priests.

More than half the respondents, however -- including 63 percent of heterosexual priests and 27 percent of homosexual or bisexual priests -- said eliminating celibacy would not be at all effective.

"My Protestant clergy friends say drop celibacy and you start a new problem: divorced clergy," one priest wrote. "Making things 'easier' will not make the problem go away."

Those receiving the survey had mixed reactions. While some refused to participate and questioned The Star's motives, others said they were happy to have the opportunity. More than 100 priests provided additional comments.

"Thanks for allowing us the ability to 'open up' on this very volatile issue," wrote one priest.

Others praised the church's response and offered their prayers.

"I think that as the single largest caregiver in the world to AIDS patients, the Roman Catholic Church is at the forefront of this issue and should be lauded for its efforts," one wrote. "It is fulfilling our Christian duty of caring for those in need while maintaining God's will in regard to its teaching."

C) AIDS, gay-related issues trouble many denominations

By JUDY L. THOMAS

The Roman Catholic church, with nearly 60 million U.S. members, may be the nation's largest denomination, but it isn't the only one grappling with the issues of homosexuality and AIDS.

Talis Bergmanis/The StarIssues related to AIDS have hit "just about every denomination," says the Rev. Fritz Mutti, bishop of the United Methodist Church in Kansas. Mutti and his wife, Etta Mae Mutti, lost sons Tim and Fred to AIDS.

Many denominations have lost clergy to AIDS, and numerous churches are mired in battles over whether to ordain homosexuals or to perform same-sex marriages.

"This has hit just about every denomination and just about every family," said the Rev. Fritz Mutti, bishop of the United Methodist Church in Kansas, who himself has lost two sons to the disease.

But none of the other major denominations sees AIDS among its clergy as a significant problem. And none demands celibacy of its clergy, as does the Catholic Church.

The deaths have forced religious denominations to confront the uncomfortable reality of homosexuality within their ranks.

Homosexuality is one of the deepest issues dividing churches today, threatening to split some denominations as members refuse to budge on their beliefs.

Attitudes toward homosexuals range from calling them to repentance and conversion, a view espoused by the Southern Baptists, to ordaining noncelibate gays, a position of the United Church of Christ.

Most large denominations fall somewhere in between.

In the Southern Baptist Convention, whose 15.9 million members make it the country's largest Protestant denomination, "we have taken fairly strict, specific positions on the practice of homosexuality," spokesman William Merrell said.

"It is described by the Scripture as being sinful, aberrant, a perversion of ordinary sexuality, and it has been given the value judgment by God himself as being an abomination."

Merrell said the church calls homosexuals to repentance and believes homosexuality "can be overcome." He added that the Scriptures also assert that all kinds of sin, including homosexuality, are forgivable.

In November, Georgia's Southern Baptists voted to expel two churches that allowed homosexuals to serve as leaders. The national convention expelled two North Carolina churches in the early '90s on similar grounds.

AIDS among Southern Baptist clergy, Merrell said, "is fairly rare, but anecdotally, I've known of a person or two that were in ministry in Baptist churches that ended up with AIDS."

The United Methodist Church, which has 8.5 million members, teaches that homosexuals, like heterosexuals, are "individuals of sacred worth." But the church also says that the practice of homosexuality is "incompatible with Christian teaching" and calls homosexuals to chastity.

The church does not ordain sexually active homosexuals, and it prohibits same-sex unions.

Like others, the church is in turmoil over the issue. In 1997, a pastor in Omaha, Neb., presided over a ceremony uniting two lesbians. He was tried by a church jury, acquitted and placed on leave. In November, he was defrocked for officiating at a marriage of two men.

In January 1999, 68 Methodist ministers blessed the union of two lesbians in Sacramento, Calif. A bishop in California has filed a complaint against them. And in March 1999, a minister in Illinois was suspended for blessing the union of two Chicago men.

The Methodist Church also has lost clergy to AIDS -- including a former bishop of the Texas Annual United Methodist Conference who died in 1987 at 70. After his death, it was discovered that the bishop was a closeted homosexual who had been leading a dual life for at least 35 years.

"He never told anybody," Mutti said.

Mutti said he knows that other Methodist ministers have died of AIDS, "but I don't believe anybody in our conference has."

The 5.2-million member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America prohibits same-sex unions but allows ordination of homosexuals as long as they remain celibate.

The issue of whether to ordain sexually active gays and lesbians came up at the church's national assembly in August, but the assembly declined to change its policy.

Church spokesman John Brooks said some Lutheran clergy have died of AIDS.

"That's a really difficult thing for a congregation to deal with," Brooks said.

The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) recently rejected an overhaul of its law banning the ordination of openly practicing homosexuals.

At the annual meeting of the 2.6 million-member denomination in June, delegates defeated an attempt to strike a constitutional clause prohibiting single, noncelibate heterosexuals or homosexuals from being ministers.

The church also prohibits same-sex marriages.

This year, the church's highest court will hear appeals on three homosexuality disputes from its Northeast region.

Church officials acknowledge that some ministers have died of AIDS.

"I'm personally aware of a handful," said Jerry Van Marter, director of Presbyterian News Service.

The Episcopal Church, with 2.4 million members, has been debating the issue of ordaining homosexuals for three decades.

A resolution passed at a general convention in 1979 said it was inappropriate to ordain practicing gays and lesbians, said church spokesman Jim Solheim.

"But the church has been arguing ever since then just how binding a resolution is," Solheim said.

Because attempts to write some kind of policy into canon law have failed, Solheim said, each diocese does what it deems appropriate. He estimated that one-fourth of the Episcopal dioceses now ordain openly gay men and women.

As for same-sex unions, Solheim said, "not only are we missing a policy, as a liturgical church, we have no ceremony, no rite, for doing so."

He added, however, that "it is happening quietly on the local level, sometimes with the tacit approval of the bishop."

The Rev. Canon Ted Karpf, congregational and clergy development officer for the Diocese of Washington and co-founder of the National Episcopal AIDS Coalition, said the church has lost priests to AIDS.

"[e]If you looked at the AIDS quilt in 1996 when it was spread out on the national Capitol Mall, there were at least 20 Episcopal priests identified on that," he said.

Karpf said the Episcopal Church has had a national policy on clergy with HIV or AIDS since 1988.

The policy prohibits discrimination against clergy with AIDS in areas of hiring, care or insurance.

The African Methodist Episcopal Church, which has 2.5 million members in the United States, has no written policy on ordaining homosexuals, said the Rev. Vinton R. Anderson, presiding bishop in the Second Episcopal District.

"We haven't had any movement in our church to ordain a homosexual," Anderson said. The church's position, he added, is that human sexuality is for procreation. "We reject homosexuality as a normal lifestyle."

Anderson, who is former president of the World Council of Churches, said few A.M.E. clergy have died of AIDS-related illnesses.

"I've known a couple of younger friends who died with the virus who were clergy," he said. "But they were more than a dozen years ago. I've not seen or heard of any incident in recent years of any of our pastors dying of or being infected with AIDS."

Anderson said, however, that he is concerned with recent figures released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showing a shift in AIDS demographics. In 1998, African-Americans accounted for 49 percent of the total AIDS deaths in the United States while making up only 13 percent of the U.S. population.

Unlike most Protestant denominations, the 1.4-million member United Church of Christ permits the ordination of noncelibate homosexuals and has since 1972.

More than 150 openly gay and lesbian clergy have been ordained in the UCC, said the Rev. Bill Johnson, who handles gay and lesbian issues for the denomination.

Johnson said the decision of whether to officiate at a same-sex marriage is left to the local pastor.

On the issue of clergy dying of AIDS-related illness, Johnson said, "Like every religious body -- even the most conservative -- the United Church of Christ has lost both ordained and lay ministers to HIV disease."

Reform Judaism, the biggest and most liberal branch of American Jewry, is inclusive on issues of sexual orientation, said Rabbi Michael Zedek of Temple B'nai Jehudah in Kansas City.

Homosexuals are not required to be celibate to become rabbis, Zedek said, but responsible relationships are encouraged.

The total number of Reform Jews is difficult to estimate because many aren't associated with a synagogue, but one organization of Reform Jews, the Central Conference of American Rabbis, has 1.5 million members.

Zedek said some rabbis have died of AIDS-related illnesses.

"I know of some tragic circumstances where that has happened," he said.

D) Homosexuality, AIDS and celibacy: the church's views

The Roman Catholic Church has no national policy on dealing with priests who have HIV or AIDS. Nor does the church have specific guidelines on educating priests about sexuality.

Priests and seminarians are expected to rely on church doctrine on homosexuality and celibacy and to follow their bishop's or superior's lead in ministering to colleagues afflicted with AIDS.

Homosexuality

Catholic doctrine recognizes that the number of men and women who have homosexual tendencies is not negligible and says they should be treated with respect, compassion and sensitivity.

But the church also teaches that homosexual acts are "intrinsically disordered" and "contrary to the natural law." Therefore, the church says, "homosexual persons are called to chastity."

In theory, then, a priest's sexual orientation does not matter as long as he remains chaste. In fact, church officials say that many gay men make outstanding priests.

The Vatican made it clear in a letter issued in October 1986 that homosexual orientation should be viewed "as an objective disorder."

The letter was one of the Vatican's most definitive pronouncements on homosexuality. In the letter, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger said that "although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not itself a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder."

That contradicted the U.S. bishops' 1976 position, which noted a distinction between homosexual acts, believed to be sinful, and a homosexual orientation.

In 1997, the U.S. bishops issued "Always our Children," a pastoral message in which they urged parents to love their gay children. In the groundbreaking document, the bishops said homosexual orientation was not freely chosen and parents must not reject their gay children.

"God loves every person as a unique individual. Sexual identity helps to define the unique person we are," the bishops said. "God does not love someone any less simply because he or she is homosexual."

The bishops' message in no way abandoned Catholic doctrine, stating clearly that genital sexual activity between same-sex partners was immoral and that the document was not to be interpreted "as an endorsement of what some would call a 'homosexual lifestyle."' It again drew a distinction, however, between homosexual orientation and sexual activity.

AIDS

While the Vatican has never publicly addressed the matter of priests with AIDS, church leaders have issued several statements about the disease.

In December 1987, the U.S. Catholic Conference's 50-bishop administrative board published "The Many Faces of AIDS: A Gospel Response." It called AIDS "a human illness to which we must respond in a manner consistent with the best medical and scientific information available."

The statement urged churches and individuals to "stand in solidarity with" and show compassion toward people with AIDS. Discrimination or violence directed against people with AIDS, it said, is "unjust and immoral."

The document also opposed the "safe sex" approach to AIDS prevention, saying "this avenue compromises human sexuality -- making it 'safe' to be promiscuous -- and, in fact, is quite misleading."

It added, however, that because the Catholic Church exists in a pluralistic society and many people do not follow the teachings of the church, educational efforts -- if grounded in a "broader moral vision" -- could include "accurate information about prophylactic devices or other practices proposed by some medical experts as a potential means of preventing AIDS."

That statement evoked an instant response from Catholic leaders who feared its comments on prophylactics were ambiguous and may have left the impression that the church was condoning condoms and "safe sex."

In November 1989, the U.S. bishops issued a new statement, "Called to Compassion and Responsibility: A Response to the HIV/AIDS Crisis."

The document, approved 219-4 by the full body of bishops, attempted to clarify the 1987 confusion on condoms, saying that "the use of prophylactics to prevent the spread of HIV is technically unreliable. Moreover, advocating this approach means, in effect, promoting behavior which is morally unacceptable."

The document also presented guidelines for the church and health-care community for dealing with people with HIV and AIDS.

"Without condoning self-destructive behavior or denying personal responsibility, we must reject the idea that this illness is a direct punishment by God," it said.

"HIV/AIDS brings with it new anguish and new terrors and anxiety, new trials of pain and endurance, new occasions for compassion," the bishops wrote. "But it cannot change one enduring fact: God's love for us all."

That same month, the Vatican tried to take the initiative in dealing with the AIDS epidemic by sponsoring an international conference on AIDS, the first of its kind.

During the opening session of the conference, held in Vatican City, an Irish priest shocked the audience by unfurling a banner from the speaker's rostrum.

"The Vatican has AIDS," it declared.

The priest, the Rev. Peter White, was ejected from the conference but welcomed back the next day after explaining that he had AIDS.

White said he had contracted AIDS in Africa while working as a missionary. His shock gesture, he said, had been intended as a call for solidarity for people with AIDS.

Pope John Paul II addressed the conference at its closing session. He said that it was "morally illicit" to promote the use of condoms as a method of AIDS prevention, and he encouraged "a greater and vaster commitment to assist AIDS patients."

"Those who suffer from AIDS ... are entitled to receive adequate health care, respectful comprehension and complete solidarity, just like every other ailing person," he said.

The pontiff also had some words for those in the priesthood:

"Draw close to those who are the least, the most abandoned of our brothers ..." he said. "Be witnesses of the church's love for all those who are suffering and of her preference for those most tried by evil."

Celibacy

The fact that priests suffer AIDS raises the issue not only of gay clergy but also of the church's demand that its clergy be celibate.

Celibacy has not always been the rule for priests in the Catholic Church. Some popes allowed priests to marry until the 11th century, when Pope Gregory VII banned them from doing so, in part to keep priests' families from inheriting church property.

In 1139, the church officially mandated that only celibate men could become priests, a discipline that remains in effect today. Some sects of Catholicism, however, such as the Eastern rite, allow their priests to marry. And in recent years, the church has ordained 70 to 90 married priests -- most of them former Episcopalians who converted to Catholicism.

Today, church leaders say celibacy is a gift from God and an effort to imitate Jesus as closely as possible. Moreover, if a priest is not married, the argument goes, he is freer to devote himself more fully to the church and to those he serves.

But priests are leaving, contributing to a shortage that many church officials think is approaching a crisis level.

In his book Shattered Vows: Priests Who Leave, former priest David Rice said that almost half of all American priests will leave the active formal ministry -- most often, to marry -- before the 25th anniversary of their ordination.

Some priests and behavioral experts say that imposing strict rules on sexuality can actually make matters worse.

"With gay priests, if we continue to say their sexuality is disordered and we continue to tell them to hide and deny who they are, then we're going to have problems, because inner conflict like that can lead to alcoholism, it can lead to sexual abuse, it can lead to violations of celibacy," said the Rev. Robert Nugent, a Baltimore priest and co-founder of New Ways Ministry, a national center on homosexuality.

Most priests concede that celibacy is not easy.

"I don't know of anyone who's ever been ordained who's not thought, `Maybe I should think about marriage someday, maybe I should think about having my own family,' " said Bishop Raymond J. Boland of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph.

He added, however, "I think one of the marks of our society is that the idea of a permanent, lifetime commitment has fallen by the wayside, whether it be the priesthood, or your profession, or marriage."

E) Florida priest finds acceptance, fulfillment after devastating news

By JUDY L. THOMAS

The Kansas City Star

Date: 01/29/00 22:15

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- In early 1989, the Rev. Dennis Rausch was thinking about leaving the priesthood.

Rich Sugg/The Star The Rev. Dennis Rausch, a priest in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., kept quiet about his HIV status for years after learning that he had the virus. But "all my fears were just unfounded," Rausch says. Here, he gives communion at St. Clement Catholic Church in Fort Lauderdale.

Though ordained for nearly a decade and serving as Catholic chaplain at a Florida university, Rausch felt unfulfilled.

"I didn't know what I wanted to do," the Fort Lauderdale priest said. "A lot of things had changed, and I was kind of searching for an angle on my ministry and of being a priest."

Then he tested positive for HIV.

"After about a year ... I slapped myself across the face and said, 'Dennis, you're healthy. You're probably going to be healthy for a long time, so you'd better figure out what you're going to do with your life.' "

For the last 7 1/2 years, Rausch has run the Catholic Charities HIV/AIDS ministry program in the Archdiocese of Miami.

An HIV diagnosis used to be a death sentence, but that's not always the case today. Powerful new drugs have helped create a new class of priests -- those living with HIV and AIDS.

I I I

Born in North Dakota and raised in Montana, Dennis Rausch had yearned to be a priest since he was a young boy. He was ordained a Divine Word Missionary in 1980.

In 1986, Rausch moved to South Florida and eventually became Catholic chaplain at Florida International University in North Miami. It was there that he began counseling and ministering to people with HIV and AIDS.

In February 1989, Rausch decided he should get an HIV test himself. He waited nearly three weeks for the devastating results.

"The first year was really difficult," said Rausch, 47. "I went through anger at myself for being so stupid. You wonder, 'Am I going to get sick and die? How long am I going to be around? What if the bishop finds out? Is he going to ship me off? And if people find out, what are they going to do?'

"Just tons of questions, and lots of fear."

He kept his illness a secret for several years.

During that time, Rausch said, the families of some of his AIDS clients encouraged him to go into AIDS ministry full time. He went to his archbishop with the idea, still not revealing that he had AIDS.

"And he said, 'I've been praying for somebody,' " Rausch said. "So it was a prayer answered."

In July 1992, Rausch left campus ministry and became HIV/AIDS Ministry Program Director for Catholic Charities.

He supervises a "care team" program that groups AIDS clients with two or three volunteers. Rausch also counsels about six clients a week, fills in as pastor in the Fort Lauderdale area and runs the Florida Catholic AIDS Network.

About two years after he founded the AIDS ministry, Rausch told his archbishop that he had AIDS.

"I asked for a meeting with him, and he was great," Rausch said. "I was kind of surprised."

Having AIDS, Rausch said, has allowed him to be more understanding.

"It has helped a lot to be able to identify with my clients, to know first-hand what it's like to go through that and then to live with this disease day in and day out, take the pills, get sick, get better, have bad days, have good days," he said.

Rausch has told members of a few parishes that he has AIDS. It took him a long time, however, to build up the courage. He feared others would reject him.

But the response of his parishioners, Rausch said, has been compassionate. And after telling them, he said with a chuckle, "nobody changed lanes" during communion.

"My line was as long as anybody else's. All my fears were just unfounded."

The people Rausch counsels are also supportive.

"When I found out Dennis was (HIV) positive, it kind of blew my mind," said Raymond H. Brouillette at a recent holiday gathering for AIDS clients and volunteers. "At first, I had a hard time believing it, because he's a priest."

But now, Brouillette said, "he's like my hero."

"He's taught me a lot. He's always busy ministering to someone, and I know I can always call him."

I I I

Rausch now takes about 17 pills a day -- a mixture of AIDS drugs and vitamins. His health is relatively good, but there still are difficult days.

"About six weeks ago, I was really not feeling well, and I had two Masses in a row," he said. "After I finished my homily, I said, 'I need to sit down. And I feel I owe you an explanation of what's going on, because a lot of you probably don't know I'm HIV-positive. I have some good days, and I have some bad days. And today just happens to be a bad day.' "

Afterward, he said, "people sent me cards and told me to take care of myself."

Rausch, who has lost several friends _ two of whom were priests _ to AIDS, said he plans to work in AIDS ministry as long as he can. And he wants other priests with AIDS to know there is hope.

"For guys who are struggling with this disease or struggling with being gay or both, you have to pray, you have to stay close to the Lord," he said.

"You can survive as a priest with AIDS. Your life hasn't ended. It's just taken another corner. There's so much that, as you continue to deal with it, you can do for others."

Strange at it may sound, Rausch said, AIDS saved him in many ways.

"It saved my life, it saved my priesthood," he said. "It gave me goals and direction. I really have come to the point where this disease is a blessing."

The most fulfilling part of his ministry, Rausch said, is helping terminally ill people deal with death.

"To see that sense of peace, that to me is what my ministry is about," he said. "I couldn't do anything better with my life than that."

PART TWO

A) Seminary taught spirituality, liturgy and Latin -- sexuality was taboo

Rich Sugg/The StarFrom 1823 to 1971, St. Stanislaus Seminary in Florissant, Mo., housed young men who were training to become priests. Twenty-six men in the novice classes in 1967 and 1968 spent their days in prayer and meditation. Two decades later, seven had been ordained. Three of those died of AIDS.

The young men came from Kansas, Missouri, Colorado and Texas. Some came from wealthy and prominent families, others from families that were practically penniless.

Many were "cradle Catholics"; others converts. But all had something in common -- a calling to serve God.

They were united as novices at St. Stanislaus Seminary in Florissant, Mo., a 150-year-old Jesuit institution tucked away in the rolling countryside northwest of St. Louis.

At the peak of the sexual revolution, in the Age of Aquarius and during the height of the Vietnam War, the 26 novices in the classes of 1967 and 1968 spent their days in prayer and meditation, preparing to become priests.

At St. Stanislaus and other seminaries, there were rules: Non quam duo, semper tres. Not in twos, always threes. And the young men were told to avoid "particular friendships."

Beyond that, when it came to sex, there was often only silence.

Just over two decades later, only seven of the 26 in the classes of '67 and '68 had been ordained. Three of those seven had died of AIDS.

Critics say St. Stanislaus represents a missed opportunity to prevent the subsequent spread of AIDS in the priesthood.

"Hardly anybody was prepared to deal with the problematic side of sexuality, because in most seminaries and religious communities, it was a topic not discussed," said the Rev. James Gill, a Jesuit priest and psychiatrist.

Church leaders say today they're doing a better job of educating prospective priests about sexuality.

"We go to a number of seminaries, and sexuality is being treated in a much more honest and direct way," said the Rev. Stephen Rossetti, president of St. Luke Institute, a residential treatment program for priests in Silver Spring, Md. "We talk about sexuality, we try to educate people toward how to be a healthy person, have a positive understanding of their own sexuality and yet also be a celibate."

Rossetti's center conducts one- and two-day sessions on human sexuality.

"Then it's supposedly picked up by the seminary faculty adviser, and they continue to dialogue," he said.

Even so, Rossetti said, people sometimes fail.

"And sometimes when they fail, some of them can come down with AIDS," he said. "And that's a terrible thing."

The lives of the St. Stanislaus novices paralleled those of thousands of others who entered the priesthood during a tumultuous era that reshaped not only American culture but also the Roman Catholic Church.

"It was an incredibly exciting time to be alive, to be young," said the Rev. William Hart McNichols, who entered St. Stanislaus in 1968 and is now a renowned iconographer. "The world was moving so fast then. It was the '60s, and gosh, it was wild."

Yet as the "make love, not war" theme resounded and the Second Vatican Council liberalized some of the church's restrictive policies, seminaries continued to avoid a hidden part of their culture: homosexuality.

A magical place

Posing for class pictures outside the novitiate, the St. Stanislaus novices appeared much younger than their 18 or 19 years. Some looked awkward, even slightly out of place, in their black ankle-length cassocks cinched with rope-like belts.

Bill Dobbels of Olathe sat in the front row of the Class of '67, chubby-cheeked and grinning. Also on that row, a fellow novice from the Kansas City area stared solemnly, a scowl on his face.

In the Class of '68 photo, Pat Arnold, fresh from Regis High School in Denver, stood with his hands at his side. McNichols, who had just finished a year at Colorado State University, sat in front and to the right of Arnold, looking more like a gleeful 12-year-old than age 19.

The four soon would develop lasting friendships. Before long, they would find that they had another common bond. They all were gay.

McNichols had grown up in Denver in a family of prominent politicians. His father was governor of Colorado from 1957 to 1963, and his uncle was a popular Denver mayor. Raised Catholic, young Bill McNichols knew by the time he was 5 that he wanted to be a priest.

He entered St. Stanislaus in the fall of 1968. It was even better than he'd imagined.

"It was very, very magical," McNichols said, "sort of the last of the old seminaries. There was this aura of history of a place being lived in, prayed in, died in."

Later, Arnold -- who also entered in September 1968 -- would describe "St. Stans" in his book, Wildmen, Warriors and Kings:

"I entered the Jesuit order and encountered there a spirituality rich with masculine myth, symbols, and lore. ... We male-bonded in life-long friendships and dreamed of heroic lives in service to Christ, like our forebears."

A typical day at St. Stans began around 5 a.m., when the novices went to "morning visit" at the chapel. After prayer, they returned to their rooms for 45 minutes of private meditation. Throughout the day, they studied Jesuit spirituality, history of the liturgy and Latin.

Twice a week, the novices could listen to music after dinner.

"There was a gigantic renaissance going on," McNichols said. "I remember driving home with Pat in the novitiate van and `Bridge Over Troubled Water' came on, and also `He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother.' Those were his two favorite songs.

"And we all just got quiet in the car, because there's a sense of spirituality in both of those songs. And the Doobie Brothers had just done `Jesus is Just Alright With Me.' So over the radio was coming a lot of spirit."

The Rev. Paul Keenan, who grew up in Kansas City and entered St. Stans in September 1967 with Dobbels, said the events occurring throughout the world were shaking the seminaries.

"Just shortly before me, they were real secluded. They spoke Latin all the time, day in and day out," said Keenan, who now is director of radio ministry for the Archdiocese of New York. "By the time we got there, they had loosened some of that up. We had access to TV and radio, stuff like that. We had a lot of fun."

But Joe Kramer, a St. Stans novice in 1965, said lifting some of the restrictions may have had unforeseen consequences.

"Vatican II had just taken place, and everything was changed from `law and authority' to `love,' " Kramer said. "This wasn't a hippie commune, but there certainly was a lot of that element coming in, which allowed people to feel more and open up more. Almost all of us were kids; we were 17, 18, 19 years old. So we weren't very experienced in the world, or in our own emotions."

Or in dealing with their sexuality.

"It was never brought up," Kramer said.

Inner conflict

As Kramer grew to know his fellow novices and superiors at St. Stanislaus, he realized that others were gay like him. He tried to avoid the temptations of sex and learned that it was best not to talk about it.

"We used to have this joke, that the fourth vow is that you're not going to come out," he said, referring to the vows of poverty, obedience and chastity that religious orders require priests to take.

By late 1975, Kramer found the struggle between his sexual identity and his commitment to the church too difficult. He took a leave of absence and never returned.

McNichols said Arnold was struggling with an inner conflict as well. His was more complicated.

"Pat had this darkness, a void inside," he said.

Arnold told McNichols that he often felt that God wasn't with him.

"He had nothing but a desire for God, which any spiritual guide will tell you is God. You can't have a desire for God without God. But every time he'd start to feel that God was speaking to him, then he wouldn't believe it. And he'd fall back into the darkness."

McNichols said that both Dobbels and Arnold contemplated leaving the Jesuit order because they were gay.

"There was this huge issue with everybody gay about how you can't be authentic and be in the church," McNichols said. "Which is still the way a lot of people feel."

The two decided to remain Jesuits -- unlike many of their friends.

Over the next decade, two-thirds of the St. Stans novice classes of '67 and '68 would drop out -- some to get married, some to pursue other interests.

`There were just too many'

In 1985, seven years after being ordained, the Rev. Bill Dobbels tested positive for the AIDS virus.

He confided in the Rev. Bill McNichols, who was working at an AIDS hospice in New York City. Before long, McNichols would receive similar news from fellow St. Stans novice Arnold.

McNichols was horrified -- and angry.

"I've seen a lot of cases where people would get it from a partner who they had no idea was at risk," he said. "But Bill and Pat got it way after it was known how you could get it. I couldn't help but think, `What were you doing? How could you possibly get AIDS now, when everybody knows what's dangerous?"

McNichols isn't sure they even knew when they contracted the AIDS virus.

"I just think the bigger thing was why did they take the chance? They both had so much to offer. If they'd have only been more responsible."

In 1987, the fellow St. Stans novice from the Kansas City area -- who had been ordained in the late 1970s -- died of complications from AIDS.

Later in 1987, Dobbels learned that his HIV had developed into full-blown AIDS. He died in December 1990, just three days before Christmas.

McNichols officiated at Dobbels' memorial service. Pat Arnold attended too, his frail body showing the signs of his battle with AIDS.

Arnold had been teaching theology in Berkeley, Calif., until he became too sick. He finally moved back to Denver, where the Jesuits helped care for him.

"People took very good care of him," said the Rev. Edward Kinerk, a 1966 St. Stans novice who later was Arnold's provincial and is now president of Rockhurst University. "The struggle was to get Pat out of living by himself in an apartment and back into a Jesuit community."

McNichols was working in Albuquerque, N.M., in October 1991 when Pat Arnold's mother called from Denver.

His 41-year-old friend was near death. McNichols rushed to Denver to see him. The next morning, Oct. 23, 1991, Arnold's mother called McNichols at his parents' Denver home to say Arnold had died.

"And that's when I started shaking," said McNichols, who had seen many friends -- not all of them priests -- die during his AIDS hospice work. "People understood that this was a good friend, but nobody could know this was the 150th death for me. They didn't understand that there were just too many. I thought I was unraveling.

"I got on a plane and went home. I couldn't even go to his service."

McNichols quit the AIDS ministry.

"And then I began to paint icons."

An effort to change

St. Stanislaus closed on Aug. 18, 1971.

The Juniorate, or Collegiate Seminary, moved to Fusz Memorial near St. Louis University, where seminarians could receive a better program than was possible at St. Stans.

Then the Novitiate, where the novices were trained, was moved to Rockhurst College to avoid having all the seminary training in the St. Louis area.

After that, Jesuit officials decided that the expense of maintaining the huge seminary solely as a retirement home for Jesuits would be too costly. The seminary was put up for sale.

Those who attended St. Stans have fond recollections of their years there. Yet even those closest to the priests who died of AIDS-related illnesses express shock at the number of deaths.

One priest who was a novice in 1962 is dead. So are three from the combined classes of 1967 and 1968, and one from the class of 1968 who quit just shy of ordination.

"That's quite amazing, isn't it?" McNichols said as he looked at old class photos.

Since the deaths, the Jesuits say they have tried harder to help seminarians face sexual issues.

"The Jesuits have made a much more concerted effort to educate our men on sexuality and celibacy and what that means," Kinerk said. "I think we lived in a climate in the '50s and the '40s in the church where you just didn't talk about things."

Because no one closely monitored the deaths -- and others kept quiet -- it's impossible to know whether St. Stanislaus was the exception or the norm.

When told of the AIDS deaths at St. Stans, the Rev. Thomas Gumbleton, auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Detroit and a vocal proponent of better seminary training on sexual issues, said: "That seems like a very high percentage. But who knows for sure?"

"We could have learned some valuable lessons from those deaths if anyone had been paying attention. But unfortunately, they weren't," Gumbleton added. "They didn't want to know."

B) Journal reveals pain, acceptance

Dennis Dobbels hung up the phone and stared numbly into space, his mind in a blur.

The Rev. William Dobbels

This couldn't be happening. Not to him. Not to his family. And certainly not to his half-brother.

William Josef Dobbels was dying of AIDS. Father William Dobbels. A Roman Catholic priest.

"Bill told Dad and Mom last night," Dennis Dobbels would later write in his journal at his Kansas City home. "I'm sure they were devastated, both by his disease and by the revelation that he has AIDS.

"Dad and Mom did not know, although they may have suspected, he was homosexual. Dad will have to rethink his opinions about homosexuals, I'm sure. He finds it difficult, I'm sure, to believe his son, the priest, and a truly good albeit complex person, has developed this affliction."

Bill Dobbels was born March 10, 1948, the third child of Felix and Rosemary Divine Dobbels of Olathe.

His parents divorced when he was young, and he moved to Texas with his mother. At 16, he returned to Kansas to live with his father, his stepmother and their two children. He began attending St. Paul's Catholic Church in Olathe and converted to Catholicism, the religion in which his father was raised.

A good student at Olathe High School, Bill loved theater and performed in the school's productions of "Our Town" and "Bye, Bye, Birdie." He also staged plays for the neighborhood.

"He was a real joy," Felix Dobbels said. "We never had any problems with him."

Bill graduated from Olathe High in 1966, then briefly attended Washburn University in Topeka before enrolling at Kansas State University. One morning, he called his parents with some stunning news.

"I'm going to become a priest," he declared.

On Sept. 1, 1967, 19-year-old Bill Dobbels entered St. Stanislaus Seminary in Florissant, Mo., near St. Louis.

When Bill arrived at St. Stanislaus, he wasn't interested in all the Catholic ritual.

"He hated the saints and churchy stuff," said the Rev. William Hart McNichols, who entered the seminary in 1968.

Someone suggested that Bill read about St. Teresa of Avila, "because she was very earthy, much more like Bill," McNichols said.

Bill went to the library and picked up St. Therese of Liseaux by accident.

Therese was known as "the Little Flower" because she saw herself like the simple wildflowers in forests and fields, unnoticed yet growing and giving glory to God. She looked at the world as God's garden, and each person a different kind of flower.

She died of tuberculosis in 1897 at 24. As she was dying, she promised to "spend my heaven doing good upon earth."

Therese made a lifelong impression on Bill.

"She absolutely transformed him inside," McNichols said. "He really considered himself a disciple of hers."

For Felix Dobbels, June 3, 1978, couldn't have been more joyous. His son became the first priest in the family.

"It was fantastic," the elder Dobbels said. "We were so proud."

The next day, Bill celebrated his first Mass at St. Paul's in Olathe. After his ordination, he worked for several years as a psychologist. In his spare time, he performed weddings and baptisms for family members.

Yet Bill had a secret -- something he prayed he would never have to tell his family. In 1985, he had tested positive for the AIDS virus.

In May 1986, Bill Dobbels phoned McNichols.

"I'm suicidal."

"Are you serious? What's going on?"

"I just don't believe there's a God. I don't feel God's presence. I don't feel anything but anger and despair."

"But what about Therese?"

"Oh, she's always around."

"Well, if there's a Therese, don't you think there's a God? If she's in heaven, there must be somebody running it."

Rich Sugg/The StarThe Rev. William Hart McNichols, a Jesuit priest and a renowned iconographer, spent years working in a New York City AIDS hospice. McNichols thinks there is hope -- for gays, for priests with AIDS and for the Catholic Church's struggle to deal with the issue.

In the fall of 1987, Bill Dobbels got the news he had been dreading. The HIV had developed into full-blown AIDS and lymphoma. Doctors told him he might live a few months.

He began an intense regimen of chemotherapy. And on Nov. 1, 1987, he called his father and stepmother. They were horrified at the revelation.

"This was like a death sentence," said his stepmother, Gerry Dobbels.

The next night, Bill phoned his half-brother. It was well into the morning when an exhausted Dennis Dobbels closed his journal. Never had he written about something so difficult, so devastating.

"I cried with anguish from the knowledge that his prognosis is not very good," Dennis wrote. "He has known for a couple of years that he had the virus, but he did not tell any of us. Now he's alone -- at least separated from his family -- to come to grips with his grim prospects."

Soon, Bill was keeping a journal of his own. Over the next 2 1/2 years, he faithfully wrote about his battle in what later was published as a book, An Epistle of Comfort.

"I want to share with you my fears and hopes, the truly graced moments along with the real dark feelings that I have had while fighting this disease," he wrote.

Among those "dark feelings" was his anger at God. Why, he would ask, was God letting him suffer so much?

"If this is not a punishment then why doesn't God do something to stop my suffering? True, in the past I was not a 'saint,' but neither was I such a hardened psychopathic criminal as to deserve this."

Then, anger subsiding, he would reason:

"If you had a child[e]would you ever in your right mind inflict the suffering of AIDS on this child you love -- just to punish him or her?

"[e]If you and I would never inflict AIDS on a child, how on earth can we fall for the notion that a forgiving and loving God would do this?"

For a while, Bill Dobbels lived in a small parish house in San Diego with two other priests and remained hopeful that he could beat the disease.

But AZT, an early AIDS drug, didn't help. And as he underwent chemotherapy, long stays in the hospital became routine.

He developed CMV retinitis, an infection of the retina that can cause blindness; cryptosporidiosis, a disease characterized by diarrhea, abdominal cramps, loss of appetite, fever and nausea; Kaposi's sarcoma, a skin cancer; and tuberculosis.

One day, a hospital chaplain stopped by to see Bill.

"I looked up from my bed to see this priest dressed in a surgical gown and wearing latex gloves," Bill wrote. "I felt sick to my stomach. Had I become such a diseased person, so horribly contagious that no one, not even the Church, wanted to touch me?[e]How on earth could I relate my deepest felt fears at that moment to anyone so afraid of me?"

He asked the priest to leave.

"I then broke down crying."

In the fall of 1988, two young priests moved into the parish house where Bill was staying.

"Behind my back these priests held a meeting and voted to move me out of the house," Bill wrote. "This was a very painful event for me, and hearing it shocked me as much as first hearing my diagnosis with AIDS.

"With the tremendous sense of loss and feelings of rejection, I honestly thought I was going to die soon. I was starting to buckle under the added stress this caused me; losing my home and loving friends, I no longer knew why I was fighting to stay alive."

In desperation, Bill Dobbels moved back to Kansas City, where his fellow Jesuits at Rockhurst College welcomed him.

"They took wonderful care of him," his stepmother said.

Nevertheless, he became sicker and sicker.

"Before becoming sick, I felt that there was a lot of light on my path and I knew just where I wanted to go and how to get there," he wrote. "Now there are days, sometimes weeks and months, where I see nothing but darkness. I can recall many nights in my hospital bed long after friends had left. I would look up and see the IV lines slowly dripping into my veins and I felt such darkness come over my soul. During these times I felt helpless and hopeless. I felt too sick to read or to pray, too anxious to sleep. The moments turned into hours slowly ticking away, giving me no comfort. I did not know for sure if there was a God or only a void.

"It's like I've crossed a line and I am on the other side of this nightmare.[e]All I can worry about is whether I can have enough of an appetite today to eat and not waste away. There are times when I feel so separated and isolated."

Still, he prayed.

Some days, he was so weak that breathing itself became his prayer.

In late 1990, Bill Dobbels suffered another setback.

For four years, he had worked on his doctorate in clinical psychology. But now he was too weak to finish.

"I felt a real death in letting go of my degree," he wrote. "I felt that if I died of AIDS the physical death would be the easiest part of the whole process."

The end was dreadful.

Besides lymphoma, he contracted pneumonia and went into respiratory failure. On Dec. 21, 1990, Dennis had his final conversation with his half-brother.

"I was sitting there holding his hand, and he said, 'I'm scared, but I'm ready to go. There's something better,' " Dennis said. "I took that to mean that he was ready to see God.[e]He was on morphine for the pain and having trouble breathing. There were tears, but he was at peace."

At 4:45 p.m. on a bitter Dec. 22, 1990, with the temperature outside barely above zero, Bill died at St. Luke's Hospital.

He was 42.

"This shouldn't have happened," Felix Dobbels said, sobbing. "A son shouldn't have died before his father."

McNichols designed Bill's funeral card. On it was a picture of Bill cradling Dennis' son, Derek, at the infant's baptism.

"To me, it was so beautiful because he died at Christmastime," McNichols said.

"I thought, 'Why not have him with the baby Jesus, rather than ignoring the fact that it's Christmas?' Instead of making it depressing every year that it's Christmas, think of him as holding the child."

* Dennis Dobbels smiles as he recalls a recent encounter at a Kansas City Royals game. A man walked over to say hello, and it turned out that the Rev. Bill Dobbels had counseled him before his marriage.

A few weeks later, Dennis ran into a woman who said that Bill Dobbels had once promised to be her guardian angel.

Everywhere Dennis goes today, he sees signs of his half-brother, much like St. Therese -- sending flowers from heaven.

As Dennis talks, he flips the pages of a photo album. Bill at his ordination. Bill baptizing a baby. Bill with no hair because of the chemotherapy.

So many memories.

Christmas was the Dobbels' 10th without Bill. Yet they know he'll always be with them. And though family members may never fully understand why he died, they're certain of one thing.

He was a good priest.

"Yes, I know how Bill got AIDS," Dennis said. "But to me, the fact that somebody died of AIDS is irrelevant.

"The question is, what kind of person were they? Who have they touched? Who have they helped? And in a priest's sense, who have they brought to God?"

C) Issue prompting church to deal with homosexuality among priests

The AIDS-related deaths of hundreds of its priests force the Roman Catholic Church to acknowledge a reality that it has tried to avoid for centuries.

A significant number of its clergy are gay.

"I really think for society as a whole and the church in particular, AIDS forced homosexuality out of the closet," said the Rev. Paul Morrissey, an Augustinian priest and psychotherapist in New Rochelle, N.Y.

Few statistics are available on the number of priests who are gay.

Psychotherapist A.W. Richard Sipe, a former lecturer in the Department of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University, has spent decades studying the issue. Based on case studies of 2,700 priests, Sipe thinks 30 percent of priests are gay and that half of the 30 percent are sexually active.

Some church officials and medical experts disagree with Sipe's findings.

"I would be very cautious about anybody being able to pin a number on it (the number of gay priests)," said the Rev. Jon Fuller, a Jesuit priest and physician who helps run the clinical AIDS program at Boston Medical Center.

"I think most people would be comfortable to say it's at least the same level as it is in society in general, and likely higher."

A national random survey of priests conducted by The Kansas City Star found that 15 percent of those responding considered themselves homosexual and 5 percent identified themselves as bisexual. Estimates of the percentage of homosexuals in the general population vary, but those who conduct research on gays and lesbians say it is between 5 percent and 10 percent.

Priests and experts offer several explanations for the presence of gays among Catholic clergy. Some say the church gives gays a protective cover for their homosexuality.

"Young Catholic boys trying desperately to honor the strict sexual morality of the church and having no attraction for women see a vocation to the priesthood not only as an honorable way out, but also as a social way out," said the Rev. Harry Morrison, a California priest who has AIDS.

"Because the minute you say to the world, 'I want to be a priest,' people respect you enough not to push the heterosexual game on you any more. And that's a very liberating thing. And I think a lot of people entered the priesthood in that psycho-social mix -- to make it (being gay) livable."

Others contend that the church helps gays deny their homosexuality. Still others maintain that many heterosexual men have left the priesthood to get married, leaving behind a disproportionate number of gay men.

"There have always been the comments made on this that a celibate priesthood must be somewhat attractive for one who is homosexual, because you're joining a fraternity or group which has a status in society, and you don't have to come out of the closet," said Bishop Raymond J. Boland, of the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese.

"I can't argue with that statement. There must be that attraction. Now, how much the attraction has ever been fulfilled is very difficult to know."

One well-known priest who is open about being gay is William Hart McNichols, a Jesuit widely recognized as one of the world's most creative iconographers.

McNichols, who lives in New Mexico, said fellow priests warned him not to reveal his sexual orientation.

"I consulted the provincial at the time. He said, 'Well, it will make you apostolically unavailable,' which means no school or parish will want you."

But McNichols -- and his icons -- remain in demand. In 1993, the Archbishop of Denver commissioned him to create an icon to give Pope John Paul II at World Youth Day.

Though it's been difficult at times to be "out," McNichols said, "in a lot of ways, it's been a blessing, because I haven't had to be repressed."