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Courage to Love: A Gay Priest Stands Up for His Beliefs
No one should have to endure what Rev. Barry Stopfel and his gay companion Will Leckie have. As a Christian, Stopfel loves God; so much so that he committed his life to serving the church as an Episcopal priest. He has also committed himself to a relationship with the person he loves, Will Leckie. In his eyes, loving God and loving Will need not be mutually exclusive. And Barry and Will have paid a high price for their love of God and each other.
Until 1995, the personal cost was a private matter, which took its toll on each individually and on their relationship. But then the Episcopal Church decided to put retired Bishop Walter Righter on trial for heresy, because he had ordained Barry as an openly gay priest. All Barry wanted to do was serve the Lord he loved through full-time ministry in the church, yet his openly homosexual lifestyle forced him into the spotlight of theological and public debate.
Stopfel and Leckie's life together is a microcosm of our turbulent times. Homosexuality is a hot-button issue for us, and raises questions about legal recognition of same-sex marriages, health care and benefits for same-sex partners, job discrimination, homophobia, AIDS. This book boldly tells of the personal struggles of the authors and draws in readers with its wide-ranging implications.
Until 1995, the personal cost was a private matter, which took its toll on each individually and on their relationship. But then the Episcopal Church decided to put retired Bishop Walter Righter on trial for heresy, because he had ordained Barry as an openly gay priest. All Barry wanted to do was serve the Lord he loved through full-time ministry in the church, yet his openly homosexual lifestyle forced him into the spotlight of theological and public debate.
Stopfel and Leckie's life together is a microcosm of our turbulent times. Homosexuality is a hot-button issue for us, and raises questions about legal recognition of same-sex marriages, health care and benefits for same-sex partners, job discrimination, homophobia, AIDS. This book boldly tells of the personal struggles of the authors and draws in readers with its wide-ranging implications.
- GenresReligion
320 pages, Hardcover
First published May 19, 1997
7 people want to read
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July 3, 2024
THE STORY OF A GAY EPISCOPALIAN PRIEST TRIED FOR ‘HERESY’
Rev. Barry Stopfel (b. 1947) served as rector for several Episcopalian churches (most recently St. George's Episcopal Church in Maplewood, N.J.); he was the subject of a “heresy trial” in 1996 [only the second in the Episcopal Church’s 210-year history] as he was a gay cleric living with his longtime partner and graphic artist, Will Leckie (b. 1953). In 1999, he and Leckie moved to a farmhouse on 25 acres in the Amish countryside.
He wrote in the Preface to this 1997 book, “[This book] is a recollection of relationships. It is also a personal reflection on a dramatic moment in the debate on human sexuality and homosexuality in the Episcopal Church, and how the wedding of the divine will and human flesh was worked out in those relationships.”
Leckie recounts a conversation with Stopfel, who told him, “The Church has always been important to me… I loved the Church; it saved my life and made me feel like I could be somebody in the world. See, I spent so much time hiding who I was from myself and my friends, when I was at church I … REALLY believed, Jesus protected me from all those people who just wouldn’t let me be me. So I loved being there.” (Pg. 17)
Leckie observes, “As gay men, our liberation is directly linked with the necessity to be sexual beings. Instinctively we sought a kind of salvation from our loneliness and self-loathing that could come only with another man’s touch. We survived the exile and critical judgment of our culture with a sexual carnival, drawing no connection between our sexuality and our spirituality. How could we? … But this dis-integration of our sexuality and our spirituality exacts a toll.” (Pg. 36)
He notes that by 1984, “AIDS was decimating gay communities, and nearly every institution in this country sat back and watched. Instead of treating AIDS as a health crisis, AIDS was moralized: Gays are immoral, gays get AIDS, AIDS is the cost of immorality… It took gay men and lesbians, outcasts from the mainstream of society, and all of our straight friends, whose compassion drove away their fear, to turn this nation’s heart around. But it was too late for too many.” (Pg. 38)
He recalls, “All of Barry’s friends at seminary told him he was nuts if he thought he would get anywhere in the Church as an openly gay man. Advisors suggested he keep his cover until he got ordained, then little by little he could come out, if he felt it really NECESSARY… none of this advice rang true for him. ‘What kind or priests could these men be?... How can they preach the truth if they’re living a lie? That’s not the kind of priest I want to be.’” (Pg. 47)
When a church refused to ordain him, Stopfel protested, “‘The Church ordains alcoholics, adulterers, pederasts, wife beaters every day. Do you mean to tell me my whole character as a Christian man is nullified by being HONEST about my sexuality?’ ‘Yes… [the bishop answered’ because we don’t ordain CONFESSED adulterers.’ Barry’s mouth fell open. Swanson seemed to be equating queers with alcoholics, child molesters, spouse abusers, and adulterers… Hate the sin but love the sinner? How could anyone live with such an incongruity for their compassion?” (Pg. 54-55)
He notes, “Internalized homophobia isn’t a simple sort of self-loathing… It’s a terrible, schizophrenic way of surviving in a world that mostly wishes we would just vanish. We knew. We had accepted crazy-making conditions for Barry’s employment at The Church of the Atonement and fell into the same trap of playing a game whose rules are written by a heterosexual majority, and all because we wanted the prize of Barry’s ordination. We were naïve.” (Pg. 120)
He observes, “millions agreed… that the Church was becoming increasingly irrelevant to lives now deepened and enriched by the arts, the sciences, and a growing ability to communicate new ideas. By clinging to cloistered traditions and not embracing the totality of human experience as it unfolded before it, the Church left the people to figure out their own spirituality in more meaningful, relevant symbols and religious systems. The people didn’t leave the Church. The Church left the people.” (Pg. 121)
He states, “Deception, or the ability to manipulate the system to achieve one’s goals, is considered a hallmark of character in many corporate institutions, the mark of a survivor, a winner, a player. Religious institutions have embraced only the larger culture’s perverse form of social Darwinism by encouraging people to believe the race is to the swift. But the institutional myth, with its costly, nearly neurotic hold over the human mind, is that everybody is in the race. We are not.” (Pg. 174)
He says of Stopfel’s ultimate ordination, “The long waiting was over. Barry had kept his own counsel while, for months, the national Church debated his ordination. He believed God was calling him to be a minister to the people he was serving at Atonement… and to them he had to give his full mind, body, and spirit. However, there were some gay and lesbian colleagues who thought his decision to keep his own counsel lacked courage. One of the closeted lesbian priests in this diocese had ever referred to him as a ‘wimp.’ But there is tremendous power in silence… he believed that Jesus the Christ had … called him to share in a ministry… that transforms our weaknesses into a life and resource for others. Is that not the vocation of all baptized Christians... proclaiming … that evil and injustice will never have the last word? No, they never will as long as Christians dare to be courageous in their loving.” (Pg. 200-201)
This book will be of great interest to the LGBTQ community, progressive Christians, and anyone else interested in the issues relating to homosexuality and Christianity.
Rev. Barry Stopfel (b. 1947) served as rector for several Episcopalian churches (most recently St. George's Episcopal Church in Maplewood, N.J.); he was the subject of a “heresy trial” in 1996 [only the second in the Episcopal Church’s 210-year history] as he was a gay cleric living with his longtime partner and graphic artist, Will Leckie (b. 1953). In 1999, he and Leckie moved to a farmhouse on 25 acres in the Amish countryside.
He wrote in the Preface to this 1997 book, “[This book] is a recollection of relationships. It is also a personal reflection on a dramatic moment in the debate on human sexuality and homosexuality in the Episcopal Church, and how the wedding of the divine will and human flesh was worked out in those relationships.”
Leckie recounts a conversation with Stopfel, who told him, “The Church has always been important to me… I loved the Church; it saved my life and made me feel like I could be somebody in the world. See, I spent so much time hiding who I was from myself and my friends, when I was at church I … REALLY believed, Jesus protected me from all those people who just wouldn’t let me be me. So I loved being there.” (Pg. 17)
Leckie observes, “As gay men, our liberation is directly linked with the necessity to be sexual beings. Instinctively we sought a kind of salvation from our loneliness and self-loathing that could come only with another man’s touch. We survived the exile and critical judgment of our culture with a sexual carnival, drawing no connection between our sexuality and our spirituality. How could we? … But this dis-integration of our sexuality and our spirituality exacts a toll.” (Pg. 36)
He notes that by 1984, “AIDS was decimating gay communities, and nearly every institution in this country sat back and watched. Instead of treating AIDS as a health crisis, AIDS was moralized: Gays are immoral, gays get AIDS, AIDS is the cost of immorality… It took gay men and lesbians, outcasts from the mainstream of society, and all of our straight friends, whose compassion drove away their fear, to turn this nation’s heart around. But it was too late for too many.” (Pg. 38)
He recalls, “All of Barry’s friends at seminary told him he was nuts if he thought he would get anywhere in the Church as an openly gay man. Advisors suggested he keep his cover until he got ordained, then little by little he could come out, if he felt it really NECESSARY… none of this advice rang true for him. ‘What kind or priests could these men be?... How can they preach the truth if they’re living a lie? That’s not the kind of priest I want to be.’” (Pg. 47)
When a church refused to ordain him, Stopfel protested, “‘The Church ordains alcoholics, adulterers, pederasts, wife beaters every day. Do you mean to tell me my whole character as a Christian man is nullified by being HONEST about my sexuality?’ ‘Yes… [the bishop answered’ because we don’t ordain CONFESSED adulterers.’ Barry’s mouth fell open. Swanson seemed to be equating queers with alcoholics, child molesters, spouse abusers, and adulterers… Hate the sin but love the sinner? How could anyone live with such an incongruity for their compassion?” (Pg. 54-55)
He notes, “Internalized homophobia isn’t a simple sort of self-loathing… It’s a terrible, schizophrenic way of surviving in a world that mostly wishes we would just vanish. We knew. We had accepted crazy-making conditions for Barry’s employment at The Church of the Atonement and fell into the same trap of playing a game whose rules are written by a heterosexual majority, and all because we wanted the prize of Barry’s ordination. We were naïve.” (Pg. 120)
He observes, “millions agreed… that the Church was becoming increasingly irrelevant to lives now deepened and enriched by the arts, the sciences, and a growing ability to communicate new ideas. By clinging to cloistered traditions and not embracing the totality of human experience as it unfolded before it, the Church left the people to figure out their own spirituality in more meaningful, relevant symbols and religious systems. The people didn’t leave the Church. The Church left the people.” (Pg. 121)
He states, “Deception, or the ability to manipulate the system to achieve one’s goals, is considered a hallmark of character in many corporate institutions, the mark of a survivor, a winner, a player. Religious institutions have embraced only the larger culture’s perverse form of social Darwinism by encouraging people to believe the race is to the swift. But the institutional myth, with its costly, nearly neurotic hold over the human mind, is that everybody is in the race. We are not.” (Pg. 174)
He says of Stopfel’s ultimate ordination, “The long waiting was over. Barry had kept his own counsel while, for months, the national Church debated his ordination. He believed God was calling him to be a minister to the people he was serving at Atonement… and to them he had to give his full mind, body, and spirit. However, there were some gay and lesbian colleagues who thought his decision to keep his own counsel lacked courage. One of the closeted lesbian priests in this diocese had ever referred to him as a ‘wimp.’ But there is tremendous power in silence… he believed that Jesus the Christ had … called him to share in a ministry… that transforms our weaknesses into a life and resource for others. Is that not the vocation of all baptized Christians... proclaiming … that evil and injustice will never have the last word? No, they never will as long as Christians dare to be courageous in their loving.” (Pg. 200-201)
This book will be of great interest to the LGBTQ community, progressive Christians, and anyone else interested in the issues relating to homosexuality and Christianity.
May 11, 2021
Bad theology that justifies completely ignoring scripture or spiritual leaders simply because you "feel in love" with someone. This book is two supposedly religious men almost mocking traditional Christianity, and we're supposed to have our heart strings tugged because two guys ignore thousands of years of church, society, and science simply because they love each other.
It's a fairly well-written book, though confusing whose voice is writing a story that turns out to be mostly about Barry Stopfel. But it's infuriating that these two think that simply because they "feel" something or want to act on urges that it justifies tossing out their beliefs, trying to force the beliefs of others to change, and ultimately thinking they're doing good by making some bad choices.
They are welcome to love who they want--but this need for same-sex lovers to want to shout their bedroom choices from the mountain top is the opposite of what Jesus taught. Then they want everyone to accept their choices, although they don't accept the choices others make. It certainly is insightful as to how misguided believers think, but the authors are no different than the rest of us in justifying as acceptable whatever makes us feel good, ignoring foundational moral truths we say we believe in.
It's a fairly well-written book, though confusing whose voice is writing a story that turns out to be mostly about Barry Stopfel. But it's infuriating that these two think that simply because they "feel" something or want to act on urges that it justifies tossing out their beliefs, trying to force the beliefs of others to change, and ultimately thinking they're doing good by making some bad choices.
They are welcome to love who they want--but this need for same-sex lovers to want to shout their bedroom choices from the mountain top is the opposite of what Jesus taught. Then they want everyone to accept their choices, although they don't accept the choices others make. It certainly is insightful as to how misguided believers think, but the authors are no different than the rest of us in justifying as acceptable whatever makes us feel good, ignoring foundational moral truths we say we believe in.
November 29, 2025
This is a very uplifting look at how Church change can look when the laity have even a portion of a say in electing leaders, and how that affects community formation and politics. @catholicism
Also their dog was named Spirit. What a lovely name!
Also their dog was named Spirit. What a lovely name!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews