My Journey to Self and God
by: Father James Kilgour
I have had somewhat a different life from most men who become priests I knew I was gay from a very early
age. It was something that I tried to hide, I remember in my early teenage years when my friends started
dating how much a dreaded the times that I was almost required to have a girl friend, or having to notice the
girls when I was with a group of guys. They would start talking about some girl that had just passed by, and I
realized that I had not even noticed her. I might have a strong remembrance of the guy she was with, but I
could not even recall the color of her hair. To overcome this problem I started a game with myself called the
“fox hunt” were, when I was with the guys, I would make a superhuman effort to notice every girl in the vicinity
so as to be prepared when the conversations started. It proved exhausting and made me feel unclean.
When I started high school, I meet a young man who liked to workout at the school gym after school. I was
very attracted to him, and he seemed eager to be in my company as well. After many weeks of hinting,
joking, and dodging we realized together that we were attracted to each other physically. It took a while but
we finally got over our fear and started some serious experimentation.
During one evening, when I was sure my parents were going to be away until the next day, I invited him
over. As it turned out my parent’s plans changed and they came home in the afternoon. My Dad caught us
in the act on the living room sofa.
After much screaming crying and blame casting over two miserable weeks, I found myself packed off to an
all male military academy in Virginia. I never really understood the logic of that, maybe I needed to be
somewhere were I would learn how to do it all that right!
When I graduated from military school in 1964, I drew a 1500 mile circle around my parent’s home and
only applied to colleges outside the circle. After the first semester, I got two jobs and a student loan and
never took another dime from home or went home again.
After two years of college and a lot of psychological pain, I came to New Orleans and joined a group of
brothers who cared for alcoholics on Camp Street. I worked as a member of this community for two years
and then decided I wanted to be a priest. The Archdiocese accepted me as a candidate, and I was sent to
St, Joseph Abbey to complete my undergraduate degree. I graduated from there in 1970 and started my
graduate degree at Notre Dame Seminary on Carrollton Ave here in New Orleans.
During this period I made extra money teaching scuba diving. This had been an early passion for me and I
worked for and received my open water instructor’s license in the 9th grade. After high school, it had served
me often as a means of making some money and having some fun at the same time.
Toward the middle of my second year at Notre Dame, I was teaching scuba at a local school on the side. It
was here that I met what would become my first true love. It wasn't long after that, that he was offered a
position as head instructor at a scuba school in Florida. It was a no-brainer for me; I left school and followed
him to Florida. Here we lived and prospered for the next three years. We had the opportunity to buy the
school and did. We then started expanding it to two schools and added three dive boats. We were having
fun, making money, and all seemed well, until my friend, Tom, met this girl. Yes, Tom was one of those that
could bat from both sides of the plate. It did not take me long to realize that I was going to lose him. There
was no screaming or crying, I actually was the best man at his wedding, but after that there was just nothing
left in it for me, so I sold out my share of the shop to Tom, and you guessed it, ran back to St. Joseph Abbey
and entered the monastery. How classic can you get!
I spent over ten years at the Abbey, and I regret none of them. I completed by classic education in
theology and was ordained a priest. I taught college there, and found how much I loved teaching, but after a
lot of self healing and introspection I finally came to realize that I needed to be who I was. Not only was it
what I needed to do for myself, but I finally realized that in making myself whole and living out the gifts God
had given me, yes even the gift of being gay, was the only way to my real salvation. I could no longer remain
in the Roman Catholic Church, especially as one of its official ministers, because of its position on
homosexuality, and other issues such as women’s rights etc.
I left the church, and went to work at whatever jobs I could get. During this period I meet one of my life
companions, Dudley. We have been together now almost twenty years. In addition I went back to school and,
through Charity School of Nursing, I obtained my RN. While working at the VA Hospital in many nursing
capacities, I continued my studies at night, first getting my BSN and later my MSN. I have since retired and
am now teaching nursing at my old school Charity.
During many of those years I felt emptiness in my soul, but I could not bring myself to attend Roman
Catholic services. The act of attending those services somehow made a statement to me that I was unclean
and unworthy to be there, and I knew that was a lie. Attending other protestant services either left me with
the same feeling, or just left me feeling incomplete.
One Sunday morning, someone asked me to come to the theatre at “Cow Pokes Bar”. They said that
there was a Mass said there by a openly gay Episcopal priest, and the congregation was openly gay, and I
would find the services very much what I had loved as a Roman Catholic. I went, I was impressed, and I
joined.
When Fr. Nicholas was given the opportunity to be the pastor as an openly gay man in Arizona, I was
thrilled for him and encouraged him to take the position. Fr. Michael stepped up to the challenge to take
over as Pastor, and kindly extended a hand to me to serve as assistant pastor or Curate. My health is
beginning to fail me, so I am unable to be as involved as I would like to be, but I can say Mass on the second
Sunday every month, giving Fr, Michael a little break..
It has been a long journey for me to being an openly gay man, and priest, but it has turned out to be a
joyful one. Over the past four years we have added one more man to our family, Mac. We never planned
this, it just happened. Oh yes, there were some struggles in the beginning, but they were worth it to have
what we have now. After all, our society says that we cannot join into the legal state of matrimony as they
have defined it. I accept that, but that just means that we are free to experiment, to find out what works for
us, and embrace the experiments of others.
God Bless – Fr. Jim Kilgour, Curate
