"It is because I have a 34-year profound experience of gay love that I've been able to carry on this ministry… I speak out of a deep personal experience of gay love, which made me really aware of God's love for me… It freed me from my childhood relationship to a God of fear."

Former Jesuit Dr. John J. McNeill thus acknowledged debts of gratitude at the beginning of his Rochester lectures. His partner, Charles Chiarelli, accompanied him to Rochester and tended the book-selling table.

McNeill also acknowledged his late sister Sheila, who was the only member of his immediate family to support his ministry. He displayed a rainbow stole that she gave him.

The 74-year-old, soft-spoken priest mixes the intellectual with the anecdotal. He fielded questions often including philosophical references or a book quote from memory. He seemed equally willing to toss in a personal story. For example, early in their relationship, his partner, Charlie, poured a jar of wheat germ over McNeill's head. When asked why he did that, Charlie said, "I just followed the directions. It says right here on the label to pour this over your favorite fruit."

Lecturer, writer, teacher, and psychotherapist Dr. McNeill was in Rochester October 24-25, 1999, as the guest of the Divinity Schools, Downtown United Presbyterian Church, and Lake Avenue Baptist Church. The two churches take part in their denomination's groups urging full inclusion of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) people in church life and leadership, the More Light and Welcoming & Affirming movements, respectively.

Dr. McNeill's views have not found favor in the official Catholic hierarchy. In seminary, one of his favorite professors said: "John McNeill is the only Jesuit I know who has both feet firmly planted in midair. Wherever he goes, whatever he does, there will be trouble, trouble, trouble!" And from the hierarchy's perspective, so it was. McNeill said his orientation was evident from early on. "By 17 I was fully aware of gay attraction." McNeill also felt drawn from an early age to the Catholic Church of his Irish ancestry. The collision was perhaps inevitable in a church which vows clergy to celibacy and views GLBT parishioners who act on their sexuality as sinful.

McNeill became a priest in 1959 and was accepted into the Society of Jesus, a teaching order in the church. He acquired seven academic degrees. During his Ph.D. oral exams at Louvain University in Belgium, he answered questions in three languages, responding in the language in which the question was posed. He was awarded the degree with the highest honors, Plus Grande Distinction.

During the 1970s he began his ministry to gays through advocacy, pastoral counseling, and writing. In 1974, he helped form the New York City chapter of Dignity, the Catholic GLBT support organization. He took a graduate clinical program in psychotherapy to help better serve his clients, and practiced psychotherapy in New York City from 1975-1998.

After much review and finally approval within the official hierarchy, McNeill's book appeared in 1976 with the title The Church and the Homosexual. It was one of the first books to challenge the church's teachings on the subject, and became a hot subject in the secular media. During a Today Show interview in September 1976, McNeill publicly acknowledged his gayness. The Catholic Church put ever-tighter restrictions on his ministry, which McNeill acquiesced to for 11 years. In 1987, Vatican Cardinal Ratzinger ordered McNeill to either leave the Jesuits or give up his ministry to GLBT people. McNeill chose to leave the Jesuits, although he said he has never been defrocked as a priest. He's still a Catholic and attends mass and confession in his local parish.

McNeill's Rochester lectures covered Mature Spirituality and Mature Prayer Life. His views echo the subjectivity of the French philosopher about whom McNeill did his doctoral work, Maurice Blondel (1861-1949): "Our God dwells within us and the only way we can become one with our God is to become one with our authentic self."

McNeill said we "need a community or spiritual guide or personal counseling to help each other discern what is from God and what is not from God." Would he recommend someone join a church? "That depends", McNeill said. If a person has a deep spiritual life and faith conviction and will not be harmed by it, then he recommends being part of a church in order to reform it. Otherwise, he recommends GLBT people find a supportive spiritual group in their denomination, such as the Dignity organization. (Rochester office: 17 S. Fitzhugh St., 262-2170)

Dr. McNeill's latest book, "Both Feet Firmly Planted in Midair: My Spiritual Journey", is the most accessible of his four non-academic books. He takes the title from his seminary teacher's assessment, though McNeill said "midair" has a different meaning for him today, namely, the Holy Spirit.

The book weaves its author's personal story from his earliest memories of his mother's death when he was four. He decided to become a priest after an incident as a prisoner in a WW-II German POW camp; a fellow prisoner risked his life to give McNeill food, then made the sign of the cross. He ends with a discourse on his recent faith views.

Since he left the Jesuits, McNeill said it one day occurred to him he also gave up the right to be buried in the Jesuit's cemetery. Since he's led seminars for 26 years at Kirkridge conference center, Bangor, PA, he asked to be buried there with the tombstone:

Here Lies a Gay Priest
Who Took a Chance on God

(Photo credit: Jim Tiefenthal. The Empty Closet did not publish the photo.)

(Rev. John J. McNeill's lecture on Mature Spirituality is also on this site.)

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