July 7, 2002

John McGivern is blunt about the scandal of sexual abuse by Catholic priests. "I celebrate the fact that it's wide open," McGivern said. "I can't help but believe that this is a catalyst for change in an institution that has been hiding for way too long." McGivern has an unusual perspective on the subject. He is a gay Catholic who spent almost a decade in a Franciscan seminary, even taking the priestly vows, before leaving the brotherhood to become an actor, comedian and performance artist He specializes in gay themes, most notably in a series of autobiographical shows on growing up gay and Irish-Catholic in Milwaukee.

This summer, McGivern is playing gay hairdresser Tony Whitcomb in Shear Madness, an audience-participation comedy at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. The role has become a staple for the actor, who has been in more than 3,000 performances of the popular whodunit in Chicago; San Francisco; St Paul, Minn.; Washington, D.C., and Milwaukee. He was in the first TBPAC production in 1995. He makes no apologies for playing such a stereotypical gay character. "It certainly is a stereotype that I play, and he is flamboyant; but I don't think he's too far off the mark," McGivern said during an interview in the lobby of the Jaeb Theater atTBPAC.

Though Tony Whitcomb pays the bills for McGivern, who is associate producer of Shear Madness, his one man performances are what give him artistic cachet, perhaps even more now that the subject of homosexuality and the clergy has become the stuff of headlines. In Midwest Side Story, his first autobiographical show, which he performed in Tampa seven years ago, McGivern cracked plenty of jokes and one-liners, but his intentions were essentially serious in evoking a parochial school and seminary upbringing. Through his teens and early 20s, he took it for granted he was bound for the priesthood.

His story ranged from absurdities such as being taught the differences among original, venial and mortal sins by nuns to what sounded like childhood hell for a boy who preferred Barbie dolls to baseball and football. "I couldn't throw a ball," McGivern said. "In an Irish-Catholic family, the boy who can't throw a ball is the boy who's going to be a priest." McGivern, 47, recounted sexual abuse by priests as part of his show, citing criminal charges brought against faculty members of his old school, St Lawrence Seminary in Mount Calvary, Wis. At the time, such reports had just started to appear in the news, early signs of the tidal wave that enveloped the church this year.

"Naming it disturbed a lot of Catholics," he said. "Now they realize this is much more rampant than just in this isolated seminary in Wisconsin.” McGivern left the Franciscans when he was 24, but he keeps in touch with friends from the seminary who went on to become ordained clergy. "I have a lot of friends who are gay priests," he said. "The percentage of gay priests is larger than most people would believe." In McGivern's view, the Catholic hierarchy is a haven for closeted gays. "It's the tightest closet door in the world," he said. "It's the best place to be a respected, hidden gay man. No matter what you are, people hold you in high esteem. You can hide. There's never any outing." Homosexuality is not really the issue in the Catholic Church scandal; the issue is pedophilia by priests. Gay priests are as outraged as anyone.

"They're shamed and devastated by the news, except they celebrate the news as well, if this isn't their crime," McGivern said. "They want the perpetrators out, too." However, as the number of episodes that came to light around the country mushroomed, the scandal widened to include sexual misconduct by priests, and some of that has focused on homosexuality.

It hit home for McGivern this spring when the former archbishop of Milwaukee, Rembert Weakland, confessed that he had paid $450,000 in church funds to a former theology student not to disclose their sexual relationship. "The Catholic community in Milwaukee is devastated by this news," said McGivern, who admired Weakland, the highest-ranking U.S. church figure to be named in the scandal. He was a leading liberal in the church for his views on ordaining married men.

In October, McGivern moved back to Milwaukee after five years in Los Angeles, where he pursued his dream of playing a gay character on a sitcom. "I went out there and auditioned more than life should have allowed me to audition," he said. "I developed some wonderful relationships with people that are still really important to me, but as far as business for me, it was hard."

When McGivern arrived in Hollywood, openly gay characters were few and far between on television. Since then, Ellen and Will & Grace have blazed some sexual trails, but he is not especially impressed. "Will & Grace has certainly done a lot more than Ellen ever tried, but Will & Grace is like Shear Madness, way over the top, high-camp gay characters, which is what the general public seems to embrace," he said. “Look for something subtle in a comic drama with a gay character, and you won't find it. People don't want it to be real."

Back home in Milwaukee, McGivern is something of a local hero, with a gig as part of the morning crew on a popular radio show. He recently performed his latest one-man show, John McGivern at 8 p. m., at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater, where he will star in Fully Committed next year. He enjoys being near his mother and other family members who live in Wisconsin. (One of his brothers, Tim McGivern, is a therapist in Dunedin.) After not attending church for a long time, he is a practicing Catholic again. All his brothers and sisters have left the church. "My mother says to me, 'I have six kids, and only one is still Catholic - and it's the gay one! What is that all about?” McGivern said.

"I tried the Episcopals, but it just didn't seem right, and then I tried to chant as a Buddhist, but I'm much too nervous for that. Finally, all of that dogma has been pounded into my head and made its way into my heart, and that's what I know." McGivern occupies an interesting place in the church. As an openly gay man who relates his experience onstage, he is clearly in violation of Catholic law, but he feels welcomed in his new parish. He said members of the Catholic hierarchy in Milwaukee – including interim successor, Archbishop Richard Sklba - have been to his shows. He has even been asked to perform at a 2003 reunion of St. Lawrence alumni.

"I think it's sort of like when we couldn't eat meat on Friday," McGivern said. "Can we have pluralistic interpretation of these laws of the church? Can I have different beliefs than your law? I have to, or else I can't go in and celebrate. I can't go in and worship in community unless I believe I'm not going to hell." McGivern knows the church too well to expect much change in his lifetime, but he is still somewhat optimistic that the scandal may force it.

"Doesn't this have to cause change? Doesn't the generation of churchgoers now, who aren't the old world, who aren't the pre-Vatican II people, can't they demand of their church something different? "That's what I have to believe. I have to believe that's going to happen, because we can't maintain the church that was six months ago; we can't because now we know."