The Rev. Fred Daley, a gay, Roman Catholic priest, had grown increasingly disturbed by Vatican pronouncements over the years that homosexuals were unfit for the clergy.

Then the situation escalated – some church leaders suggested that gays were responsible for the clergy sex abuse crisis. Daley was so angry, he did something last year that almost no other gay Catholic cleric in the country has done: He came out to his bishop, parishioners and his entire community to show that homosexuals were faithfully working in the church.

“I’m as much a member of the church as anybody else,” said Daley, of St. Francis de Sales Church in Utica, N.Y., who was ordained in 1974 and said he has never considered leaving the priesthood. “I love being a priest.”

Researchers have estimated that thousands of homosexual clergy across the United States have dedicated their lives to a church that considers them “intrinsically disordered” and prone to “evil tendencies.” Soon, the Vatican will back up that teaching with a document that could set new restrictions on candidates for the priesthood – a pronouncement U.S. bishops may discuss in private during their national meeting starting Monday in Washington.

The Rev. Fred Daley, a gay Roman Catholic clergyman, shown Tuesday at St. Francis de Sales Church in Utica, N.Y., had grown increasingly disturbed by Vatican pronouncements over the years that homosexuals were unfit to be priests. It escalated when some church leaders suggested that gays were responsible for the clergy sex abuse crisis. Daley was so angry, he came out to his bishop, parishioners and community to show that homosexuals were faithfully working in the church.

Yet, through decades of consistent signals from the Vatican that they are unwelcome, homosexuals have continued to join the priesthood, raising questions about how they can devote themselves to an institution that so questions their ability to serve.

“As I have, through the years, become more comfortable with who I am, it seemed the institutional church and its decrees and its pastoral letters from the Vatican seemed more harsh and almost mean-spirited,” said Daley, who didn’t realize he was gay until after he was ordained and has remained celibate. “But what I find on the grass-roots level is vibrant, alive communities of faith in my everyday ministry.”

Several other gay clergy, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared retribution from their superiors, said in recent interviews that they were only vaguely aware of Vatican pronouncements on homosexual priests when they applied.

“I was pretty naive,” said a West Coast priest, who began studying for ordination in the 1980s. “I knew the church had ill feelings about it, but I didn’t know a whole lot else.”

Historically, many gays and lesbians chose religious life partly because it was a socially acceptable alternative to marriage and protected them from questions about why they were single, Cozzens said. But the gay priests interviewed for this story insisted they were not hiding out. They said they found religious communities where they could be relatively open with fellow clergy.

“My superiors encouraged me to keep talking about it as a way to help me understand how to better live a celibate life in a real healthy way,” said a gay priest, who attended seminary in the 1980s and refused further identification.

Such support may be more difficult to find after the new Vatican guidelines are released.

The Italian newspaper Il Giornale reported Friday that the document from the Congregation for Catholic Education will bar seminary men who “support” gay culture or have “deeply rooted” gay tendencies. The newspaper said the instruction will be made public Nov. 29.