The last book I read this summer was Since My Last Confession: A Gay Catholic Memoir by Scott Pomfret.  Pomfret is not just a gay Catholic; he is also a lawyer and a gay porn author.  How’s that for a mix of identities?  Scott addresses this collision and coalescing of communities and identities in his book.

In the book, Scott touches on everything from same-sex marriage rallies to pedophile priest scandals; he covers it all.  Promfret maintains, throughout the book, that the Catholic Church is truly important in his life and that he has a good relationship with the institution despite its ingrained hypocrisy, ironic, and sometimes insane stances. And his eyes are open to all of it.

Pomfret speaks of the various priests he has known through his involvement in the lay-ministry at his parish church in Boston, Saint Anthony Shrine.  He paints them all as humans with the same flaws and vices as the non-ordained.  At least one of them reads the gay erotica (porn) collections and novels (Romentics) that Pomfret co-authors with his boyfriend, also named Scott.

He is able to look at the religious institution (with the emphasis, sometimes, on institution) in which he was raised with the perspective of a faithful insider and an analytical outsider.  He is at times both frustrated and disillusioned with the church but remains determined to stick with it in hopes of creating some positive change even if only a small change.

Pomfret started to write a book that would reflect the reality that among Catholics there are “some of us gay folks.”  His original plan was to write it like a daily devotional that analyzed scripture in an affirming way for gays.  But after he wrote a few of them and then re-read what he had written he thought, “it was crap.”

Then “the scandal” broke, the pedophile priest scandal, that is. The scandal eventually brought Boston a new cardinal, Sean O’Malley, a Capuchin monk.  Later, when the issue of same-sex marriage, one of the book’s recurring threads, was being debated in Massachusetts, Sean Cardinal O’Malley spoke out against it and demanded that all the parish priests do the same.  It became an issue of smoke and mirrors for the Catholic Church to redirect attention from naughty priests and the church’s mishandling of them to a more divisive.

Pomfret said the Cardinal spoke about a block from where he worked so he went down there with the idea to “give that guy a piece of my mind.”  Then he got the idea he used as the premise for writing Since My Last Confession.

“This is going to be the narrative of me chasing this guy down…a light hearted approach is going to work…bring in the humor.  Humor is the only thing that’s going to make the story bearable in the end,” Pomfret explained.

Another recurring thread running through Since My Last Confession is Pomfret’s many attempts to communicate directly and indirectly with the cardinal.  He refers to it as stalking but he carried it out primarily in the form of a letter writing campaign.  To this date, he has not received a reply directly from the cardinal, only from members of the cardinal’s staff or the diocese.  And he alerted both the cardinal’s secretary and vicar general that the book was being published.

“They were appreciative of the heads up,” Scott told me.  He also said he mailed Cardinal Sean a copy of the book for his birthday, “so he will have his very own copy.”

The book tells the ironic tales of Promfret’s conflicting identities within and outside the church.  The humor is inescapable and comes naturally.  Remember, Pomfret is a gay man, a practicing catholic, a lawyer for the Securities Exchange Commission, and a porn author, with a non-practicing Protestant boyfriend.  His life could be a sit-com.

As we talked, Pomfret and I discussed some of the ironies and changes we have both seen over the past few decades.  My perspective was that of an outsider raised in a neighborhood that was 40 percent Catholic, his was that of a Catholic, born and bred.

I brought up the fact that the Catholic Church, at least in the United States, used to be well known for its progressive stance and practices in the area of social justice and welfare. Now, the Catholic Church, like the Baptist Church, is more associated with strong, limited positions and narrow doctrine, especially concerning the LGBTQ community, women, marriage, and reproductive rights.  I asked Pomfret when that change occurred and why.

“I interviewed 30 priests for the book,” Pomfret told me as he began to answer, “The universal consensus is that the Vatican II priests were the social justice guys doing prison ministries and such. [Now] it’s a much more ritual centered church and it’s what’s going to make the church irrelevant.”

I asked Pomfret what he thought of the church’s direction under the leadership of Pope Benedict XVI (sometimes referred to as The Rat in Since My Last Confession).

“There is a focus on doctrinal purity that he is trying to bring but that’s his background,” he started to explain.

Before becoming Pope, Benedict XVI was Cardinal Ratzinger and held the office of Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The function of this congregation is to promote and safeguard the doctrine on the faith and morals throughout the Catholic world.

Pomfret continued by saying that Benedict is, “not only moving away from social justice but has condemned liberation theology…he has beaten it down.  He just loves to slap it whenever he can…”

In light of the hard-line stance the Catholic Church has been taking on LGBTQ issues, same-sex marriage at the forefront, I asked Pomfret what his thoughts were on the longer tradition of Christian teachings in relation to the LGBTQ community.  Personally, I have always thought that the various branches of Christianity should be more welcoming and accepting rather than spouting hate-filled rhetoric at gays, bisexuals, lesbians, queers, and transgender people.

Pomfret has a similar opinion.  He said, “The founder, Christ, who was He with?  Was He with the guys who followed the rules?  No.  He was with the tax collectors.  He was with the lepers.  That is our social standing…less-wanted people [outsiders or unclean]…to shun us is to do precisely the opposite of what Christ would have wanted…”

But how can the attitude of the Church and the churchgoers be changed?  Pomfret had some interesting insight into this question.  Part of the problem of the attitude about and treatment of gays, lesbians and the rest of the non-straight folks is invisibility within the Church, any church.

“To me the absolute number one thing is to be out.  This is truly political.  In the Church, because of a don’t ask, don’t tell kind of situation things are okay but they are doing a disservice by not allowing others to get over there prejudices.  It’s not good for me to fly under the radar.  That is not a dignified way to live.  It’s not a way to reach out.  That’s not church…that’s not community.”

“If all the gay priests stood up on a Sunday and said ‘I’m a gay celibate man’…” Pomfret added wistfully.

So far, Pomfret says the reaction to Since My Last Confession has been quiet but positive. He told me he hasn’t received a single negative call or email.  His parents both like it a lot; it outed him at work as a porn writer; and he has gotten emails from two straight lectors at Saint Anthony Shrine that he described as “overwhelmingly supportive.”

Overall, the reaction at Saint Anthony has been very measured.  They are worried about possible fallout from the diocese even though Saint Anthony’s operates somewhat independently. 

“That’s not to say they’re angry at me…If there were any negative fallout, I would hope they would ask me step down [from the lay ministry] and the church would be left alone,” Pomfret said of any possible backlash.

What’s next for this Catholic, porn writing, Boston lawyer?

Pomfret is toying with a couple of ideas for his next non-porn endeavor.  One is a book about women priests.  In 2001, a German bishop secretly began ordaining women. Pomfret would like to tell their story to the world.

“I met a group of Roman Catholic women priests…there’s only one lesbian amongst them but their movement is very much with us.  I think their stories are terrific…I think they are heroic…”

The other idea he has is to document Father Paul Shanley’s story.  Shanley is the priest who became the focal point, or perhaps the fall guy, of the pedophile priest scandal.  Pomfret describes him as the “poster child for…bad priests.”  Pomfret is intrigued by his story, including the legal aspect of it, and would like to delve deeper into the story.

“He [Shanley] called himself a street priest…minister to the homeless, typically gay men who were homeless.  He’s in jail; he was convicted in a case that was not the cleanest case,” Pomfret explained of the scandal. 

“Two witnesses refused to testify and said they had lied.  A lot of people feel strongly that he [Shanley] did not do these things…at least not in a predatory way,” Pomfret told me and then added, “I’m interested…and he’s in jail relatively close to Boston.”

In the meantime, pick up a copy of Since My Last Confession and laugh and learn about the Catholic Church and why a gay man would work so hard at finding a place in it.  Or you try one of his and boyfriend Scott’s Romentic novels, or erotica collections, or even their new Q Guide to Wine and Cocktails.  You can find Scott Pomfret on the Web at www.scottpomfret.com.  Look for Scott and Scott’s books at your favorite independent bookstore or online at www.lambdarising.com.