Thousands upon thousands of priests are closeted, and the Vatican’s failure to reckon honestly with their sexuality has created a crisis for all of Catholicism. Writer-at-large Andrew Sullivan examines this paradox in the latest issue of New York Magazine, writing, “In the United States…where there are 37,000 priests, no independent study has found fewer than 15 percent to be gay, and some have found as many as 60 percent. The consensus in my own research over the past few months converged on around 30 to 40 percent among parish priests and considerably more than that—as many as 60 percent or higher—among religious orders like the Franciscans or the Jesuits.”
The cover image, with a young priest in Rome in 1954, was chosen for its “timeless and holy aura,” according to New York photography director Jody Quon.