GAZETTE Tampa Bay Gay and Lesbian News

By Stephanie Bashein Emerson
Our God dwells within us and the only way we can become one with our God is to become one with our authentic selves.-Maurice Blondel

The first thing you notice are his bright eyes, set in a mature man's face surrounded by a neatly clipped silver beard. Father John McNeill looks much younger than his 80 years, something which he credits to his Jesuit training and the love of his partner of 39 years, Charles Chiarelli.

Father McNeill entered the Jesuit order in 1948. He served in the infantry in World War II, and his ordeal as a prisoner of war in Germany taught him what it was like to be the object of both hatred and compassion. This experience brought the young John McNeill even closer to taking religious orders. After the war, he began his studies at Fordham University and went on to become both a Jesuit and a psychotherapist.

In 1976, Father McNeill's seminal work The Church And The Homosexual was published. It was a groundbreaking book in which he methodically and scrupulously refuted three traditional positions taken by the Catholic Church about gays and lesbians: that God intended all human beings to be heterosexual; that homosexuality was a "deviation" and therefore a "sin"; and, if a homosexual was not able to change his or her sexual orientation through prayer or rigorous counseling, they must live totally celibate and loveless lives.

To counter these well-established stances, and in coming to terms with his own sexuality, Father McNeill defended his theory that God created human beings with a "great variety of both gender identities and sexual-object choices." He also explains that "sexual orientation has no necessary connection with sin, sickness or failure; rather, it is a gift from God to be accepted and lived out in gratitude." Father McNeill goes on to say that, since God created human sexuality, enforced celibacy for most people is both unnecessary and psychologically damaging.

Father McNeill is an accomplished scholar who is fluent in three languages. For years he studied the Catholic philosopher Maurice Blondel, whose writings are only available in the original French. Yet Father McNeill speaks and writes with a sublime simplicity that encompasses his audience and helps them to understand his revolutionary theories.

It is this combination of worldly experience and religious training that Father McNeill has brought to his audiences since 1985. He visited Sarasota's Church of the Trinity MCC on Sunday, April 3. While there, he met with Rev. Nancy Wilson (soon to become the Moderator of the worldwide Metropolitan Community Church) and other members of Church of the Trinity. He also met with Bart Coyle and Jim Jablonski, president and treasurer of Dignity/Sarasota, Father Tom Kearney, spiritual leader of the group, and other members of Dignity. Father McNeill is also a co-founder of Dignity/New York and has supported the Dignity movement of affirming gay and lesbian Catholics since its beginning.

Father McNeill spoke at the 11 AM service. He described some of his experiences as a prisoner of war, and brought smiles to all present when he discussed his late sister, who was also a nun. It seems that when Sister Sheila retired, she asked Father McNeill to tell her when he would be speaking so she and approximately thirty other retired elderly nuns could pray for him.

"With that kind of atomic power behind me," Father McNeill said with a wink, "how could I possibly fail?" Sister Sheila also created a beautiful handmade rainbow stole for him, which he wears with great pride whenever he addresses a house of worship.

Father McNeill speaks to his audiences about love, acceptance and gratitude to God. He believes human sexuality is a gift from God that must be respected and explored, and that God wants us to be happy and fulfilled in our sexuality. In his books, he states how gay, lesbian and transgendered people should take their rightful place in society, which means marriage rights and equality under the law.

Father McNeill writes: "Whatever time and energy I have left I will use to the best of my ability to bring the message of God's love to gays, lesbians, transsexuals, and transgendered people. I hope someday to be reunited with a great crowd of my gay brothers and sisters in heaven, where we will eternally celebrate God's goodness."

Yes and amen.

Quotes in this article were taken from Father John McNeill's books, Both Feet Planted Firmly In Midair, 1998, Westminster John Knox Press, and Freedom, Glorious Freedom: The Spiritual Journey to the Fullness of Life for Gays, Lesbians, and Everybody Else, 1995, Beacon Press.

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