Father Garrick writes in
Rev. David A. Garrick
Sylmar, Calif.
Since my difficult resignation from Notre Dame in April 1998, I have been through a lot. My religious order sent me, at my request, to Los Angeles to work as a volunteer chaplain for AIDS Project LA and to look for a salaried position in academy. Although I applied to a number of universities, I received no offers, probably because I am over 50 years old and have not been able to find a publisher for my book on theater and rituals of grief.
In June 1999, I resigned from the Congregation of Holy Cross because the provincial felt that he could not offer me an assignment unless I could refrain from publicly identifying myself as a gay person and working as an activist for gay civil rights. He probably had little choice. This policy apparently originates with Cardinal Ratzinger in Rome.
However, I have remained an active Catholic priest, working with Dignity — a Catholic gay organization that was expelled from the official Church by Cardinal Ratzinger in 1987 for insisting that gay persons who fall in love with each other must be encouraged to form a life commitment. Very sadly, I can no longer work with Catholics in regular Catholic settings. In the Church, a priest has no official standing unless he is connected with a religious order or a diocesan bishop — a very good rule, unless it is abused to discriminate against marginalized people.
Since I had to have a job in order to get an apartment, I took a position with Pinkerton in September 1999 and worked as a security guard at The Tonight Show for four months. During an appearance of Robin Williams, my face was briefly visible on television in the distance over his right shoulder. I left that job (slightly above minimum wage) to do part-time teaching at a local community college near LA.
Some Notre Dame and St. Mary's juniors and seniors may have seen my first play, "The Escape of Kropotkin," which I staged at Notre Dame during my final semester. What I would like the readers of The Observer to know is that my new play, "A Difficult Patient" — written, produced and directed by me under my theater name of "David SteCroix" — opened in North Hollywood, CA on Wednesday, Oct. 25. Critics from seven weeklies and biweeklies were present, and their reviews will be appearing over the next week. In the opinion of the actors and myself, the performance was outstanding. We will be running the play three days a week until Nov. 22.
Before I could begin writing, I had to devote six solid months to research, some of it in the UCLA medical library. In the play, the year is 1973, and pressure is mounting to delete homosexuality from the official psychiatric illness list. Gay activists are confronting psychiatrists — and psychiatrists are angrily diagnosing each other in public. Meanwhile, Los Angeles psychologist Dr. Evelyn Hooker struggles to exorcise the angry ghost that stands between her patient and his gay lover.
Rev. David A. Garrick
Sylmar, Calif.
Oct. 28, 2000
All Viewpoint Stories for Thursday, November 9, 2000
