Deciding he had
to practice the honesty he preached, a popular priest in
Thibodaux, La., had told his family, his bishop, and
the people in his parish that he is gay.
The Reverend Jim Morrison said he had been
working since October on the letter that he sent early
this month to 300 members of the congregation at St.
Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church and 200 members of the
student ministry. He mailed the letter and handed his
bishop a copy on January 2, about a month after the
Vatican released a policy statement saying people with
"deep-seated homosexual tendencies" should be kept out of
the priesthood.
Saturday evening, the pews at St. Thomas Aquinas
were full. As pastor, Morrison told the congregation,
"I ask you constantly to trust me. I ask you, come to
me with your life, all the blessings, all the struggles.
But it's not a one-way street."
Morrison said he told his parents, four sisters,
and two brothers before he mailed the letter. "I
wrestled with talking to my parents," he said. But, he
said, the family talks were "very positive."
In the letter he said that for years he had
counseled people struggling with their sexual
orientation to be honest about it with people they
love. "I have come to realize that while I was encouraging
others to be honest, I was not putting these words
into practice in my own life," Morrison wrote. He said
he wasn't looking for attention or approval but trying
to be truer to himself, God, and those he serves.
"I thought it took a lot of courage," Winnie Faucheux of
Thibodaux said after the Saturday evening Mass. "I love him.
I think he's a wonderful person. I think the
community's going to grow from him being honest."
Morrison said he has kept his vows of celibacy
and is not in any romantic or sexual relationship.
Being celibate and gay is not against Catholic
doctrine, so he does not plan to resign, he said. Nor is he
being asked to, said Louis Aguirre, spokesman for the
diocese of Houma-Thibodaux. "He's not being asked to
do anything but to continue his ministry," Aguirre said.
In a written statement Saturday, Bishop Sam G.
Jacobs said the Roman Catholic Church makes a clear
distinction between homosexual actions and
orientation. The Vatican's statement says homosexual acts
are intrinsically immoral, but people don't choose
their sexual orientation and should not be
discriminated against because of it, the bishop wrote.
And, he wrote, people should be judged by their acts.
Morrison, a priest for more than 18 years, has
been pastor of St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church at
Nicholls State University for more than three.
Students often drop by to chat, drawn by his warmth and wit.
He has led three other churches in Houma and Chauvin
and has been director of vocations and seminarians for
the diocese of Houma-Thibodaux. He also helped found a
school for at-risk Terrebonne youths and created a benefit
event to support that school. He has traveled to Nicaragua
to minister, mentored youths hoping to become priests,
and won awards for his service.
After Hurricane Katrina, Morrison welcomed storm
evacuees with pets to the St. Thomas Aquinas Center
when some other shelters wouldn't allow animals. "As
Jesus says, one judges a tree by the fruit it bears. A
good tree does not bear bad fruit, and a bad tree does not
bear good fruit," Jacobs wrote. "In my short tenure as
bishop of Houma-Thibodaux, I have known Father Jim
Morrison to be a compassionate and energetic priest
who has provided good pastoral ministry to the people
he has served. Unless I discover otherwise, as with all of
our priests, I support him in the good that he does
for our people." (AP)
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