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Article: Proud to be a celibate, gay priest: he says church should rejoice that gay men are ready, willing to serve.(NATION; Fred Daley )
- Article from:
- National Catholic Reporter
- Article date:
- November 11, 2005
- Author:
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It wasn't until two years after his ordination as a Roman Catholic priest that Fr. Fred Daley acknowledged he might be gay.
"I was coming down the stairs for morning Mass, and I felt this real deep ache and pain in the pit of my stomach," he said. "It was the first time I was recognizing an ache within that my activity and work and ministry was covering up, and avoiding something."
A light went on, he said.
"I began to become aware of my sexual feelings and desires," he said. He was 27.
Almost 30 years later--after a painful, prayerful and mostly lonely journey--he disclosed his sexual orientation to his Utica congregation in May ...