Forgive Me Father

The purpose of this qualitative study is to examine how the Dutch gay Catholic man negotiates his seemingly contradictory sexual and religious identities. Three life stories of gay, Dutch Catholic priests were engaged to comment on the issue of religious and sexual identity negotiation. Celibacy was not a solution for the cognitive dissonance experienced by the gay priests, as sexual identity was found to be a core identity not simply defined by physical coitus. The complete acceptance or rejection of Catholicism and/or homosexuality was found to be an inappropriate and un-realistic solution to identity conciliation. Integrating homosexual and Catholic identities was found to be a fluid, individualistic, and unending process spanning the gay man's life. This process relies heavily on the environmental variables of religious upbringing, urban/rural geographic area, conservatism of parish and peer group, and countless other scenarios. Future research in this area should examine differing sexual orientations, gender, and religious and ethnic expressions to broaden the understanding of the process of identity negotiation.