Out Spotlight

Today's Out Spotlight is an author, advocate, psychotherapist, academic theologian, and formerly ordained Jesuit priest. Today's Out Spotlight is John McNeill.

John McNeill was born September 2, 1925 and end up enlisting in WWII at age 17. German forces captured him while he was serving under General Patton in 1944. He spent six months as a POW before the war's end.

After graduating from Canisius College in 1948, McNeill entered the Society of Jesus. In 1959, he was ordained a Jesuit priest. Five years later, he earned a Ph.D. in 1965 in philosophy with honors and distinction from Louvain University in Belgium. He went on to teach at LeMoyne College in Syracuse, NY and Fordham University in NYC.

McNeill began teaching in the combined Woodstock Jesuit Seminary and Union Theological Seminary in 1972 as professor of Christian Ethics, specializing in Sexual Ethics. He co-founded the New York City chapter of Dignity, an organization of Catholic gays and lesbians. In addition to his teaching duties, he served as Director of the Pastoral Studies program for inner-city clergy at the Institutes of Religion and Health.

One year after he published "The Church and the Homosexual" (1976), a book offering a new theological look at homosexuality, he received a letter from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in the Vatican. Religious authorities ordered McNeill, an ordained Jesuit priest, to halt public discussion on the topic.

McNeill's book reveals original text from the New Testament detailing Jesus's ministry to homosexuals. He argues that the original Greek text of Matthew 8: 5-13 narrates Jesus's healing of a man's sick gay lover. The Latin translation of this passage describes Jesus's healing of a master's servant.

In compliance with the order from the Vatican, he kept a public silence while he ministered privately to gays and lesbians. The Catholic Church, in 1988, submitted a further order to McNeill to relinquish his ministry to homosexuals. When he refused, the Church expelled him from the Jesuit order.

An accomplished author, McNeill's works include "Taking a Chance on God: Liberating Theology for Gays and Lesbians, Their Lovers, Friends and Families" (1988) and "Freedom, Glorious Freedom: The Spiritual Journey to the Fullness of Life for Gays, Lesbians and Everybody Else" (1995). He has also published influential articles in The New Dictionary of Spirituality and The Journal of Pastoral Care.

McNeill was also the former spiritual director of Father Mychal Judge, who lost his life on 9/11. McNeill said Fr. Judge "achieved an extraordinary degree of union with the divine. We knew we were dealing with someone directly in line with God."

"Jesus opens the possibility of bringing gay relationships within the compass of healthy and holy human love."