Candor on Celibacy Challenges His Church

I was back East, writing about the disaster, when I found out that Father John Lenihan was ousted as pastor of St. Edward Roman Catholic Church in Dana Point as a result of two columns I’d written about him.

Most of the messages I got were from angry parishioners who spoke fondly of Father John and ill of me.

“You are a disgrace!” was a fairly typical salutation.

But others who responded were more hurt than angry.

“Not only have we lost a very loving, charismatic priest, but we have lost a respected member of our ‘family,’ ” said one parishioner. “Father John has done many wonderful things for our parish and has helped many people with his spiritual guidance.”

More than a few wanted to know, simply, if I was happy to have caused Father John’s ouster.

To the extent that I did cause it, the answer is no. I wasn’t happy in the least. I had kind of a sinking feeling, in fact, because I did not want, or expect, Father John to lose his job for telling the truth, of all things.

Father John had confessed a decade ago to having had sexual contact in the late 1970s with a teenage girl, and the church paid the victim $25,000 to settle a lawsuit. Then this summer, Father John’s name, and the church’s history of protecting such priests, came up in connection with another, unrelated scandal involving an Orange County monsignor.

That was when Father John and I started talking by phone. When we met in person, he told me that celibacy was the hardest thing about being a priest. He also said that he’d had four serious relationships with adult women during his time in the priesthood.

I didn’t drag the information out of him. He offered it willingly. I had known of one relationship he had with a woman, because it had surfaced years ago. But the rest was news to me.

Father John, now in his mid-50s, said he was an ordained priest before he’d dealt with his own sexuality, and that it made him an emotional adolescent in his 30s. As he matured, he found that he was attracted to women, not girls, and he fell in love more than once.

Given the dwindling number of priests in the United States, the history of scandal, and the reality of a man’s natural desires, celibacy ought to be optional, Father John said. Why couldn’t he be a good husband as well as a good priest?

They were the healthiest, wisest, most honest comments on the subject that I’d ever heard from a priest. Which meant, of course, that Father John was completely out of step with his superiors, up to and including the pope.

And so I had to weigh the risk of further exposing Father John against the power of his challenge to church doctrine. The answer didn’t come easily.

I went back and forth with my editor and myself, conflicted by the fact that Father John’s worst sins--the sexual abuse of the teenager--were in the past. I had told him from the beginning that I wouldn’t use his name, or his parish, but he and I both knew that some of the details of his story would identify him with his superiors, if not some in his congregation.

In the end, I referred to him as Father X.

In the end, he lost his job.

Father John was removed as pastor of St. Edward and given an unspecified reassignment. A letter from Bishop Tod D. Brown was read from the pulpit of St. Edward on Sept. 23.

“This self-revelation is a cause of scandal to many in the church, and it is a cause of great concern to me,” wrote Brown. “Father John’s future in the priestly ministry is uncertain at this time.”

Neither the diocese nor Father John returned my call, so I’m not sure what “scandal” is being referred to--the relationships, or the telling of them to a columnist.

The church already knew of the teenager and the one adult woman, so are we to believe that two illicit relationships are an allowable limit for a priest, but more than that crosses a line?

Father John spoke the very words the church needs to hear. What his motive was, I don’t really know. But he had told me that despite his failings, he wants to do good by the church and by his God, and he said he was now devoted to celibacy. Maybe his motive was to save an institution he cares deeply about.

The greater church knows of many, many priests who have had many, many relationships. But they are kept quiet, says A.W. Richard Sipe, a former priest who researches and writes about the subject.

“The operative word is ‘scandal,’ ” or avoidance of it, says Sipe. “The problem is that they’re perpetuating the problem by curtailing honest dialogue.”

The lesson is obvious. Keep your mouth shut, and you’re fine. Speak the truth, and God help you.

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Steve Lopez can be reached at steve.lopez@latimes.com.