My boyfriend and I hide from the world. That’s because I am a priest

I am father Donovan and I am 38 years old. I would like to keep my anonymity because as you will see, my situation is far from common. I was born in a religious family and we have always cherished the Christian teachings and followed them by the letter. As I grew, I knew I was going to follow in my father’s footsteps and become a priest in our small community and this is exactly what I did. I never thought of myself as being part of any sexual identity. What really matters and what always did was that my soul was belonging to God and He was the one whose teachings could make a difference in the world.

But then I started facing some real problems in the sense that our church always considered gays as being evil beings and unworthy of God’s love. This is a point of view that seemed awkward to me, because in my opinion, God meant love and I could not understand how he could punish people for who they were. I have never shared my thoughts with my superiors, because I feared that they would consider my views as unfitting with the position that I was in. But I felt deep inside me that there was something wrong with hating some people for their sexual preferences or identities.

I have carried this struggle in my soul for my entire life and I have always wondered why would a good God punish His creation for such a petty thing.

Above all, it seemed unfair, along with the fact that the most taboos in Christianity are strongly related to the sexual aspect of one’s life. Maybe this is why I have never wondered about mine. But as I started aging, I began asking myself about what would make me happy. I felt that my relationship with the Lord was not enough and this is something that troubled me for the past few years. I soon realized that humans crave for happiness as much as they do for any other basic need, like food, air and social relationships. Love is an important aspect of a human life, because through love you reach the real understanding of the concept of happiness and it soon came to me that God made us so we can be happy. And if a gay is happy with who he is, why would God punish him?

I started questioning my own sexuality pretty soon and I was a bit confused in the beginning. It was only when I met Ryan that my life really caught meaning and I began having a grasp of what boiled inside me for so long. I have actually met Ryan through one of my friends and what served as an introduction was the problematic of faith. He is a nonbeliever which got us into long conversations on religion, war and sex and I must say that he impressed me with his open mind and his calculated way of analyzing and interpreting. He had a vast culture and I soon felt like I was falling for him. Only after around 4 months I dared telling him what I felt and he shared my thoughts instantly. We are together ever since and our relationship just reached the 5 years mark. I am happier than I have ever been with him and through Ryan I have discovered the real meaning of happiness.

I refuse to believe that I am doomed for doing what I love and being who I am. God made me this way, I know this and he cannot punish me for resorting to my most intimate self in order to find happiness.

I am a gay priest, I love God and I love the world and myself and I believe that true happiness does not lie in fear, but in acceptance and love. And I believe God should not be fear, because a God inspiring fear is not just. We are all children of God, gays or straight, and we should all love each other and respect every human being’s right to freedom and happiness.