Catholic priest Dominic Clayson thought he had it all: elite ministry, world travel, trusted friends, plenty to drink—and a restless drive to satisfy his sexual desires. His was a double life: prominent professor by day and boozy gay adventurer by night. Did a reckoning await?

This sophisticated novel pulls back the lavender curtain to reveal the hidden lives of closeted seminarians and priests; the compromises of bishops; and the guts of the Catholic Church, from doctrine to gay reality—all through an unflinching look at one man’s journey into priesthood.

And out.

Father Dom’s duplicity grows ever deeper during a pivotal era, as the mid-1990s give way to the mid-2000s. He’s there as the internet emerges, AIDS rages, 9/11 terrorizes, and the Church is gripped by a sexual-abuse crisis of its own making.

Out: A Gay Priest Reckoning is the portrait of an outwardly successful yet deeply conflicted man—and of a Church, and culture, in turmoil.

Stephen Vincent DeLeers is an educator, author and editor. He remembers well his years as a Catholic priest.