CATHOLIC CHURCH
Homosexuals and the Catholic priesthood

IN THE NORTHEAST
• The Rev. John Baldovin has taught at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley and is now a professor of historical and liturgical theology at Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, Mass. His books include Worship, City, Church and Renewal (Pastoral Press, 1991) and Bread of Life, Cup of Salvation: Understanding the Mass (Sheed and Ward, 2003). He recently delivered a paper, "Priesthood and Sacramental Ministry: History and Theology," at a 2005 Boston College conference on the Roman Catholic priesthood. Contact 617-492-1960, jbaldovin@wjst.edu.
• Thomas Groome is a professor of theology and religious education at Boston College, where he directs the Institute of Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry. His primary area of interest is the history, theory and practice of religious education. He wrote Educating for Life: A Spiritual Vision for Every Teacher and Parent (Crossroad General Interest, 2001) and is the primary author of various religion textbook series from W.H. Sadlier, most recently the Coming to Faith series. His most recent book is What Makes Us Catholic: Eight Gifts for Life (HarperSanFrancisco, 2003). He delivered a paper, "The Future of Ministry in the Catholic Church: Our Best Hopes," at a June 2005 conference on the Roman Catholic priesthood at the college. Contact 617-552-8449 or 617-552-3880 (department), thomas.groome.1@bc.edu.

IN THE EAST
• The Rev. Stephen J. Rossetti is a psychologist and head of the St. Luke Institute in Silver Spring, Md., which treats psychologically troubled clergy. He told The Washington Post that he sees "unique challenges" for priests with homosexual inclinations. Contact 301-445-7970.
• Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry in Mt Rainier, Md., which serves gay and lesbian Catholics, has been critical of reports that the Vatican statement would target gay priests. Contact 301-277-5674, director@newwaysministry.org.
• The Rev. John Strynkowski has worked in the Vatican and was executive director of the Secretariat for Doctrine and Pastoral Practices of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops until recently. He is rector of the Cathedral-Basilica of St. James in Brooklyn. He was a speaker at a 2005 Boston College conference on the Roman Catholic priesthood. Contact 718-399-5900.
• The Rev. Richard John Neuhaus, editor of the New York-based religious and public affairs journal First Things, has said he sees the upcoming document as an attempt to curb "a growing influence of gay lifestyles in seminaries and other church institutions." Contact 212-627-1985.
• The Rev. Gerard McGlone, a Jesuit psychologist and a vice president of St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia, believes some tightening of the admission process is appropriate: "I think to a certain extent the Vatican is correct in trying to weed out unhealthy expressions of the homosexual experience." But he is also worried that tougher guidelines might backfire by encouraging gay or sexually confused priests to deceive themselves about their own orientation, which could lead to a subsequent crisis and pathology. Contact 610-660-1388, gmcglone@sju.edu.
• The Rev. Anthony Figueiredo is a theologian at Seton Hall University in New York state and is involved with the seminary's formation program there. Religion News Service quotes him as saying that the upcoming Vatican statement will be aimed at counteracting the growing influence of "gay lifestyle" on the priesthood. Contact 973-275-2060, figueian@shu.edu.
• Ronald E. Long teaches in the religion program at Hunter College in New York. He is the author of Men, Homosexuality and the Gods: An Exploration Into the Religious Significance of Male Homosexuality in World Perspective (Harrington Park Press, 2004). Contact 212-772-4987, rlong@hunter.cuny.edu.
• John J. McNeill, a psychotherapist and former Jesuit, ministers to gays and lesbians with psychotherapy, workshops, lectures and retreats. According to his web site, "in 1988, he received a further order from Cardinal Ratzinger directing him to give up all ministry to gay persons which he refused to do in conscience." He continues with this work and, among other books, wrote The Church and the Homosexual (Beacon Press, 1993). Contact jjmcneill@aol.com.

IN THE SOUTHEAST
• Mark Jordan is a professor of religion at Emory University in Atlanta and an expert on issues of homosexuality in Catholic life, especially in the priesthood. He is the author of The Silence of Sodom: Homosexuality in Modern Catholicism (University of Chicago Press, 2002) and The Invention of Sodomy in Christian Theology (University Of Chicago Press, 1998). He calls on the church to recognize its many gay Catholics among the leadership and the faithful. He also posits that the culture of Catholicism and gay culture have much in common and that male desire has been a central fact of the priesthood. He is on sabbatical in the 2005-2006 academic year. Contact 404-727-0643, mjorda2@emory.edu.
• Charlotte Rolnick Schwab is a psychotherapist and author who has lectured on the issue of sexual abuse and clergy, especially in Judaism. She draws parallels between what is happening in the Catholic Church and what goes on in other denominations and faiths. Schwab is the author of Sex, Lies and Rabbis: Breaking a Sacred Trust (1stBooks Library, 2002). Crucial issues, she says, are careful screening of candidates before ordination, policies for reporting by victims and follow-up to complaints, monitoring of clergy, and removal of offenders when it is established that abuse has occurred. She lives and practices in Delray Beach, Fla. Contact 561-638-4757, DrSchwab@DrCharlotteSchwab.com.

IN THE SOUTH
• Jason Berry, a Louisiana journalist, broke the first stories of sexual abuse by priests in 1985. He wrote Lead Us Not Into Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children (University of Illinois Press, 2000) and, with Gerald Renner, Vows of Silence: The Abuse of Power in the Papacy of John Paul II (Free Press, 2004). Contact 504-865-1793 or 504-329-7522 (cell), berr167@bellsouth.net.
• The Rev. Angelus M. Shaughnessy is a Capuchin friar stationed in Birmingham, Ala., as minister general to the Franciscan Missionaries of the Eternal Word. He teaches on Eternal Word Television Network and through video and audio tapes. He is an orthodox Catholic. Contact 205-271-2900, padre@fatherangelus.com.
• Paul R. Dokecki is a professor of psychology and special education in the department of human and organizational development of George Peabody College at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. He is also on the faculty of the religion department. He wrote The Clergy Sexual Abuse Crisis: Reform and Renewal in the Catholic Community (Georgetown University Press, 2004). Contact 615-322-8418, Paul.R.Dokecki@Vanderbilt.edu.

IN THE MIDWEST
• R. Scott Appleby is professor of religious history at the University of Notre Dame and John M. Regan Jr. director of the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies there. He teaches courses in American religious history and comparative religious movements and is the co-editor of Being Right: Conservative Catholics in America (Indiana University Press, 1995). Contact 574-631-5665, appleby.3@nd.edu.
• Edward P. Hahnenberg is assistant professor in the theology department at Xavier University in Cincinnati. He is a theological consultant to the U.S. Bishops' Subcommittee on Lay Ministry and is author of Ministries: A Relational Approach (Crossroad, 2003). He can discuss the role and future of lay ministers in the priest shortage. Contact 513-745-3517, hahnenbe@xavier.edu.
• James Davidson, a sociologist at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., specializes in the study of American Catholicism. He and Dean Hoge of the Catholic University of America co-authored a 2004 study of American Catholic attitudes. Contact 765-494-4688, davidsonj@cla.purdue.edu.
• The Rev. Richard J. Hauser directs the graduate program in Christian spirituality and is rector of the Jesuit community at Creighton University, Omaha, Neb. He says that the commitment and ability to live celibately is the essential condition for ordination to priesthood, for gays and for straights. Contact 402-280-2700, hausersj@creighton.edu.
• The Rev. James Bacik is the pastor of Corpus Christi University Parish in Toledo. He is also a campus minister and adjunct professor of humanities at the University of Toledo. His books include Apologetics and the Eclipse of Mystery (University of Notre Dame Press, 1980) and most recently, Catholic Spirituality: Its History and Challenge (Paulist Press, 2002). He delivered a paper, "The Priest as Pastor: History, Theology and Practice," at a conference on the Roman Catholic priesthood in June 2005 at Boston College. Contact 419-531-4992, bacik@ccup.org.
• Susan K. Wood is a professor of theology and associate dean for the School of Theology Seminary, St. John's University, Collegeville, Minn., and she is member of the Sisters of Charity order of Leavenworth, Kan. Her books include Spiritual Exegesis and the Church in the Theology of Henri de Lubac (Eerdmans, 1998) and Sacramental Orders (Liturgical Press, 2000). She can discuss the historical development of the priesthood, the current crisis in priestly identity, the shortage of priests and the role of lay ecclesial ministers who often fill in for pastors. Contact 800-544-1816.

IN THE SOUTHWEST
• Sarah Brennan is clinical director of the Samaritan Counseling Center in Albuquerque and an expert on sexual abuse and clergy perpetrators. During the course of a decade, Brennan treated hundreds of priests at a center for clergy sex offenders in Jemez Springs, N.M., operated by a religious order, the Servants of the Paraclete. The center closed in 1994. Contact 505-842-5300, sbrennan@samaritancc.com.
• Robert Goodkind is a psychologist in private practice in Albuquerque, N.M. He also worked at the Paraclete center treating abusive priests in the 1980s and 1990s and is conversant with the pathology of the clergy abuser. Contact 505-256-1021, kmwissel@msn.com.

IN THE WEST/NORTHWEST
• The Rev. Howard Bleichner is an adjunct faculty member in the department of systematic and historical theology at St. Patrick's Seminary and University in Menlo Park, Calif., and is a member of the Vatican II Sabbatical Program, a continuing priestly formation program at St. Patrick's Seminary near Menlo Park. Bleichner wrote View From the Altar: Reflections on the Rapidly Changing Catholic Priesthood (Crossroad 8th Avenue Press, 2004). He is a Sulpician priest with 40 years' experience in seminary formation. He formerly was rector of the theological college at The Catholic University of America. He blames seminary problems today on self-actualization psychology, a seminary influence in the late 1960s and 1970s. Contact 202-756-4900, 650-325-5621.
• Spokane, Wash., Bishop William Skylstad, is president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. He recently wrote in his diocesan newspaper that "witch hunts and gay bashing have no place in the church. … There are many wonderful and excellent priests in the church who have a gay orientation, are chaste and celibate, and are very effective ministers of the Gospel." Contact 509-358-7300, bishop@dioceseofspokane.org, or through his executive assistant, Mary Cole, mcole@dioceseofspokane.org.
• The Rev. Robert E. Goss is a former Jesuit priest who now is senior pastor of the Metropolitan Community Church in the Valley in North Hollywood, Calif. He has been an activist in gay rights organizations, and among the books he has co-edited are Take Back the Word: A Queer Reading of the Bible (Pilgrim Press, 2000) and Gay Catholic Priests and Clerical Sexual Misconduct: Breaking the Silence (Harrington Park Press, 2005). Contact 818-762-1133, pastor@mccinthevalley.com.