Since My Last Confession: A Gay Catholic Memoir by Scott Pomfret Read Free Book Online Page A

pastries and enough Equal to choke a horse.
    The virtuous had arrived early. A polished, unapproachable Cape Verdean woman was cataloging her gold jewelry; a frumpy Chinese woman sat by herself and looked eager on cue; two soft-shouldered Irishmen with pale blue eyes wore nylon jackets celebrating Teamsters Local 259. It looked like an assembly of actual holy people who tithed, said grace, and never once countercheated against Gram in a high-stakes cribbage match. They no doubt led tidy lives, spent their vacations building homes for the Appalachian poor and making pilgrimages to Lourdes, and were in bed by 9:00 P.M. People, in other words, who had nothing in common with me.
    Lo! There’s the homosexual! I expected the Cape Verdean to cry out. Let's burn him!
    I decided to pretend that I had wandered off course while looking for Filene’s Basement. I was here not for spiritual substance but for knockoff Prada shoes. Francis the Franciscan Friar whisked me to a seat and buried me in registration forms.
    “All are welcome,” he reminded me.
    If only you knew, Father , …
    Father Francis divided us into two groups. Eucharistic ministers remained with him. Lectors fell to the purview of a take-charge, no-nonsense priest whose brown robes whisked around him while he walked and whose rope sash cracked like a whip. He had an angular face, an Abe Lincoln beard, and limbs like ax handles. Well call him Father Abraham.
    Using a whiteboard and lots of nervous energy, Father Abraham gave a short history of lay ministry. He explained that lay ministry actually pre-dated the clergy. No distinction existed between clergy and worshippers in the early Church. All ministers were necessarily lay ministers, and no special status attended their ministry. The earliest Christian missionaries were laymen. Many of the religious orders began as lay movements that the Church later clericalized. Saint Francis, the founder of Franciscans and friend to all animals, was a layman.
    The origins of the early Church notwithstanding, later Church leaders discovered that God had never actually intended for uppity lay-people to carry out works in His name. Laypeople were to attend liturgy, not to participate in it. For several centuries, the Church limited the consumption, let alone the distribution, of Holy Communion to the clergy. Because the altar was holy, no layperson could enter it.
    Vatican II reinvented laypeople. No longer would they sit passively and be the “catchers” of religious activity. Now, the laity would serve as religious “pitchers” as well. (I’ll spare you a Handy Gay Vocabulary Alert on this one.) After Vatican II, anyone could read the word of God.
    “Anyone?” I asked.
    “Anyone,” he said. “Of course, you are the public face of the Church. So an added burden rests on your shoulders. You need to look and act the part, so that you don’t detract from the message you are delivering.”
    Looking and acting the part wasn’t the problem. Truth was, only one thing really worried me about this whole lector business. It wasn’t that I suck cock. Or that I write dirty stories. Or that I covet throat lozenges, own a Protestant pew, or look like a serial killer.
    No, it was a much more serious matter: no one has ever mistaken me for James Earl Jones. In His infinite wisdom, God gave me a gay voice. It’s not precisely lilting or fey, but it has a light, weightless quality — a feathery tone like an insouciant diva offering her jewelry for a kiss in lieu of a handshake. And it doesn’t help that I can’t enunciate my S’s and F’s clearly enough for others to distinguish them. My junk mail regularly comes addressed to Mr. Pomsret.
    My outgoing voice-mail message plagues me. A hundred times, I’ve recorded over the old greeting, listened to the new one, rerecorded it, and listened some more. I never quite get the stern, majestic tone that might convey the august power of the law enforcement branch of the United States