The Confession (8 page)

Since coming out I have spent a lot of time thinking about roads not taken. I realized that a part of my journey now must be to close that circle with him. So recently I called him on the telephone, not knowing what to expect. It turns out that he'd watched my coming-out speech live on CSPAN.

“I could tell you were suffering,” he said. “Your coming out was much more public than mine. I'm so happy for you that it's done.”

OF ALL MY FALSE IDENTITIES, THE STRATEGIES IN MY CAMPAIGN
to be accepted, being a sworn Republican is the hardest to explain. In my later political life, I can only be described as a Kennedy Democrat, eager to pursue equitable treatment for the least fortunate. As my friend Eric Shuffler says, during my tenure as governor, being on the cutting edge of liberalism was the only aspect of me that was totally genuine.

Perhaps I felt back then that walking the conservative line would help keep me on the straight and narrow. That by tying myself to the rhetoric of the status quo I wouldn't be tempted to drift the way of my heart—to go Brian Fitzgerald's way, toward honesty and self-acceptance. But living an outwardly gay life in Carteret was not an option. I remained keenly aware that before Brian could do what he did, he was forced to leave home and settle elsewhere. Gay people are often forced to migrate to pursue their lives in freedom. I knew that, but I never wanted to leave behind my beloved family, my church, or the landscape of my childhood. It was easier to stay in a room falsely than to be sent out because of the truth.

Still, conservatism was a bad fit from the beginning. In my generation the Republican standard-bearers have been less than upstanding. Nixon's involvement with Watergate was disgraceful, and though I admired Gerald Ford for his role as a gentle conciliator, he left only a brief and shadowed mark on our history.

By senior year of high school, I was looking beyond the lure of Republican politics to another solution: the priesthood. Despite my struggles, I had always been extremely devout and prayerful. I felt I enjoyed a genuine
relationship with God. I also believed that a calling to the Church could solve the problem of my sexual orientation by imposing the requirement of celibacy, just as it did for straight priests; it would equalize us, while helping in my efforts to deny my heart and climb toward grace. Such a vocation might even be easier for gays than straights, I thought—after all, we were already practiced in denial. Looking around at the priests who had touched my life, I thought I recognized more than a few homosexuals—honorable men, good teachers, but there was something about their lives (a loneliness? a higher purpose?) that seemed familiar to me, seemed encouraging.

One priest in particular, a young guy from Ireland, seemed to empathize with my struggle personally. “You are called upon to dedicate your hands, your mouth, your heart, your feet—everything to Christ,” he counseled me. “Surrender everything to Christ. That is your amends.” I was proud when he suggested I had what it took to become a priest; for years that was something I'd prayed for. Between the lines, I also took him to mean that the pleasures of my body should be surrendered to the Church, and that he had done the same. All at once I looked at him differently. Was he what I was? It seemed as though he was telling me something about homosexuality as well—that in one stroke I could turn away from evil (my drives) and toward good (community service and God), could go from something reviled to something revered, from “less-than” to “better-than.” It was a perfect solution: my rewards would come in the afterlife, as they would for any priest.

Now I had a role model, and a plan. No longer suicide, but the priesthood.

My maternal grandmother, widowed for many years by then, was the first to hear my news. She nearly broke into tears of joy. “Grandpa would have been so proud,” she cried, “to serve the Church in Her holy mission in the service of Christ!” Grandma sent prayers of thanks to Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross, her favorite saints, for the good news. I loved making her happy this way. More than anyone else, Grandma had taught me about faith and God and love; she taught me the value of prayer, how the saints provided guidance through life, how an afternoon on your knees at church could make a day whole. The Lenten practices were particularly mysterious and enthralling for Grandma; she taught me how, through fasting, prayer,
and alms-giving—through suffering—we came to know the suffering of Christ. She and Grandpa had once made a pilgrimage to Quebec City to climb the ancient stone steps of Sainte Anne de Beaupré on their knees, reciting the mysteries of the rosary, as Catholics have done for hundreds of years. When they returned, bruised and scraped, they wore a look of utter transcendence. To Grandma, suffering was a devotion, a path to a deeper and more immediate knowledge of Christ—a lesson I have learned over and over in my life.

My parents were less thrilled. Mom believed in secular education; she wanted me to go to Princeton, to have the best education in the country. Dad was more sympathetic, but he preferred to see me follow his example and go into business.

I picked Saint Louis University, a Jesuit college in Missouri, because my local parish sent their seminarians there. I never visited the campus, but the encouragement of my local Servite priests was enough for me. I signed up after a weekend of prayer and reflection—then prayed again and changed my mind. The same thing happened, over and over, for weeks; I just couldn't decide. Finally I took that as a sign that I wasn't ready to make a lifelong commitment. Instead I headed for the Catholic University of America, an overtly academic institution chartered by the bishops of the United States.

My parents were relieved. Grandma was devastated.

“You'll come down to Washington,” I told her. “We'll go to Mass at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. There's a very ecclesiastical atmosphere there, Grandma, you'll see: the Dominicans walk around in their white cassocks, the Franciscans in coarse brown cassocks, and diocesan priests in black. There's a little cafeteria below the main altar—we'll go for brunch. You'll love it.”

And she did.

 

YEARS LATER, WHEN I ATTENDED GEORGETOWN LAW SCHOOL, THE
tug of the priesthood would return. I still saw Christ in every aspect of daily life; as strange as it sounds, my love for him was nearly passionate. In love songs, for instance, where the lyrics turned to aching hearts and undying
love, I sometimes found myself picturing Christ—perhaps because I couldn't allow myself a genuine romantic fantasy.

Georgetown is a Jesuit institution; attracted by the society's tradition of academics and independence, I joined a “candidates' program” with the Maryland Province of the Society of Jesus. My spiritual director was Bill Sneck, a Jesuit priest and a psychiatrist. He was brilliant, authentic, and spiritually demanding. Through the course of the program, Bill repeatedly asked if I could surrender my will, my purpose, my control to God. Ironically, decades later the principles of the Twelve Steps would require me to make the same decision. Yet with Bill, I was unable to answer in the affirmative.

I'd been struggling with my sexual drives long enough to know that this was no simple request. I had tried many times to surrender to Christ. I prayed for an answer to this question: was it possible to surrender
entirely?
To renounce my will for good? I had to be honest with myself: I still had never confessed my high school assignations with Brian Fitzgerald, and this weighed heavily on me. I tried to remedy this failure, sometimes confessing vaguely that I'd been “sexually inappropriate with a friend.” But I knew that wasn't enough. Unfortunately, the answer always came back the same way: no, my will is too strong to surrender.

“I still feel that desire to control the circumstances of my life,” I told Bill. “I am trying to hear and respond to God's direction for my life. But I still have an ego, a desire for self-mastery.”

Bill didn't seem surprised. “If that's the case, the priesthood would be the wrong vocation for you,” he said. “The consecrated priest must serve as a vessel of Christ, not be self-focused in any way.”

I was terribly disappointed. And totally relieved.

 

THAT FIRST YEAR AT CATHOLIC WENT BY WITHOUT INCIDENT,
good or bad. I never went out for elected office on campus. Unlike back home, I never worried about joining this club or that one at Catholic. I concentrated on being a student, of politics and theory, philosophy and theology. My interest in politics was still just an armchair hobby, like my dad's. But that changed in the fall of my sophomore year, as I looked forward to my first presidential campaign as an eligible voter. Naturally I backed Gerald Ford, who'd been
appointed vice president after Spiro Agnew pleaded guilty to tax fraud and resigned from office, then became president after Nixon resigned the following year. The nation was in a dire economic recession, with fuel shortages and spiraling inflation; Ford was serving diligently under trying circumstances.

His opponent was Jimmy Carter, a populist and liberal. In retrospect I've come to admire Carter as one of our great American political figures, a visionary advocate for peace, social reform, and economic justice for the world's poor. I've also been moved by his humility on a number of occasions when I've met him personally. Back then, however, he struck me as ill equipped in comparison to Ford, and too touchy-feely to lead the country. As commentator Eric Sevareid reportedly said, at a moment when the Oval Office needed a wheeler-dealer, Carter offered “wheeler-healer” instead.

Being in Washington, I decided to sneak into President Ford's election night rally, held at a Capitol Hill hotel. The ballroom was packed with supporters hoisting balloons and posters, throwing confetti—the kind of quintessentially American tableau I associated with my father's honest patriotism. Bands were playing, reporters crawling around and shouting into television cameras—it was as loud as any football championship game. On one wall hung a huge screen projecting a map of the country, with states coloring in red or blue as results were announced. Moving east to west with the time zones always seemed to give the Democrats an advantage, so I stood in the room amazed as the map turned redder and redder with each passing hour. For a kid who had never drunk or tried drugs, I had never known such excitement.

In the end, of course, Ford lost that November night in 1976. By the time he took the dais he had lost his voice, and his wife, Betty, was left to deliver a magnanimous concession speech on his behalf. “It's been the greatest honor of my husband's life to have served his fellow Americans during two of the most difficult years in our history,” she said. I was struck by the magnitude of the occasion, and their grace at its center.

We all went home disappointed. But the virus of politics was now in my bloodstream. It was the first time I recognized a power structure outside of church, and it appealed to me immensely. With sudden clarity, I thought
Politics will be my way to do
G
od's work. If I can't be a priest, I'll try
public
service.

In high school I'd always loved debate club (we called it “forensics”).
Thanks to a great coach, Bob Carney, I was pretty good at extemporaneous speech, at correcting the arguments of my opponents while laying out my own with precision. I loved the scuffle of a good political debate. It reminded me of my childhood, listening to Grandpa Mike's discourses with his friends on Irish politics.

Politics—the clarity of this calling was like nothing I had ever experienced. Politics didn't just bite me, it sunk its teeth deep into my flesh.

Remembering my dad's maxim—
Plan your work and work your plan
—I got serious in a hurry. Here was my plan: I would study law and perhaps public policy in graduate programs. First, though, I felt I had to get out of Catholic University. The school has produced many prominent voices in education (a dozen college presidents), corporate America (the founder of Costco), show business (from Ed McMahon to Susan Sarandon), and religion (including countless cardinals and archbishops). But there was a dearth of political leaders among Catholic alumni: the most prominent were a few ambassadors to the Vatican.

This may have been because the school doesn't brook dissent on matters of fundamental importance to the institutional Church. In my third semester there, I had the misfortune of being in a class called Contemporary Catholic Doctrine, where I tangled with Thomas Aquinas's
Summa Theologica.
The more I questioned and challenged the professor, a mannered priest whose name I luckily can't recall, the more harshly he rebuked me. In
Summa Theologica,
Aquinas—a medieval philosopher and Dominican brother—set out what he called the “proof” of the existence of God, which he found not in nature or science but in the Bible itself. His reasoning was elliptical, and to me it seemed just as cryptic as the Baltimore Catechism that had shaken my faith so many years earlier.

His argument went roughly as follows:

1. There is something moving.
   
2. Everything that moves is put into motion by something else.
   
3. But this series of antecedent movers cannot reach back infinitely.
   
4. Therefore, there must be a first mover (which is God).
   

The deeper this discussion took us, the more excited I got about the inquiry—especially once I'd encountered the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, who flatly contradicts Aquinas in
The Critique of Pure Reason.
Kant believed that all knowledge must withstand the tests of science and mathematics, and that therefore God's existence is not provable. Kant's thinking resonated with me—much to the irritation of the priest, who scolded me severely on several occasions. I took his responses at face value, as an effort to stop my intellectual exploration, and the resistance drove a serious wedge between me and my faith in the Church. Why
couldn't
I challenge these ideas and principles, I wondered? Why was independent thought held in such suspicion? For the first time in my life, I felt my education was being
limited
by the tenets of Catholicism.

Halfway through the class, I started thinking about the Ivy League. Columbia University was only a short bus ride from home, and I filed for a mid-year transfer. My acceptance came quickly, and I headed to New York over Christmas break of my sophomore year.