Gay monks

In the story of Saint Eugenia, who briefly lived her life as the male monk Eugenios, the saint is sexually harassed by a woman by the name of Melania. The text is quite clear that Melania is. Within the earliest monastic texts such as the Vinaya (c. 4th century BCE), male monks are explicitly forbidden from having sexual relations with any of the four genders: male, female, ubhatovyañjanaka and paṇḍaka; various meanings of these words are given below.

Despite headlines about a powerful “gay lobby” within the Vatican, and a new Pope promising reform, the Catholic Church’s gay cardinals, monks, and other clergy inhabit a hidden netherworld.

gay catholic monks

Almost every one of all the monasteries of all the four traditions, Gelug, Kagyu, Sakya, and Nyingma are totally gay, in heart, if not sexually active. “It is condoned,” said H.H. Druk Chen, smiling pointedly. Rediscovering Buddhism’s LGBT history of gay monks, homoerotic samurai, and gender-nonconforming practitioners and gods.

At 14, I spent a week in a Norbertine Abbey in Paoli, Pennsylvania, with some grammar school classmates. I knew I was gay but I was still interested in the Catholic monastic life. Part of my attraction to the Norbertines was the snow white habit. The Norbertines were not a strict religious order; in many ways they were a level or two down from real monastics like the Benedictines and the Trappists. If they get up at4 AM, you get up at4 AM, and so forth.

Since my visit was in the summer, life at the Abbey was somewhat relaxed. In fact, it was so relaxed that we spent one afternoon lounging by the monastery pool. We wore our bathing suits, as did the five or six young monks who acted as our guides. Seeing monks in bathing suits was a little shocking. My first thought was how worldly these guys seemed, especially one handsome blond brother in eye-catching sunglasses and bikini briefs.

Since the brothers regarded the Abbey as their home, they had no use for pretense and so they behaved like any 18 or 19 year old around a swimming pool, which is to say, un-monk-like. I wondered then, as good looking as he was, if he was having sex with any of the brothers. I was in my mid-twenties and living at home with my parents for a year after a grueling Vietnam War-era three years in Boston and Colorado.

I was out; I had been a member of the Boston Gay Liberation Front and had already published openly queer writings in the underground press. I arrived at Mt. Savior Monastery on a feast day night when the monks were finishing dinner and enjoying beer from a generous cooler. I was invited to grab a brew and join several monks sitting around a table. What do a bunch of men who have taken vows of poverty, chastity and obedience and who pray half the day, talk about over beer?

You can imagine my surprise then when the monk in charge of the farm animals took a swig of his Heineken and explained how he had milked a cow earlier in the day, and that he had gotten… horny. Had I heard him right? I knew that Vatican II had opened windows, but barn doors?

At St. There were no beer coolers, although I was told by the Abbot that the monks do drink wine on Sundays and feast days. Unlike western Catholic monks with their shaved faces and nearly-bald haircuts, Orthodox monks let their hair and beards grow in an almost unkempt way. Long hair and beards have a way of covering or camouflaging youth and beauty, but for a visitor with a penchant for beauty this can be a good thing.

A small library there included books by Fr. Rose was also gay and had a partner before converting to Orthodoxy and becoming a monk. Meals at St. The silent portion of the meal concludes when the Abbott rings a hand bell. Afterwards everyone rises for a short prayer and then, if the Abbott allows it and he almost always does everyone resumes eating with some conversation.

At Mount Savior, the monks ate in silence as a reader read aloud from the Lives of the Saints. While the Benedictine meals tended to have a more leisurely feel than the ones at St. It might also be worth noting that when I visited Mt.