The man who would be priest

Conversations with... "the extraordinary, ordinary people that make Miami shine"

The man who would be Priest - A candid four-part conversation with author, speaker and spiritual leader, Christian De La Huerta as he shares his thoughts on religion, spirituality and the notion of what it means to be a man of God.

I caught up with Mr. De La Huerta in late August, just on the heels of his recent move from San Fransisco to Miami. After briefly touring his new home, a peaceful sanctuary like environment, we sat down and talked spirituality, God, homosexuality and a world he believes is ready to come out spiritually.

Christian De La Huerta

Part one:

AM: Christian, tell me how your spirituality came about.

CH: I think my spiritual leanings were always there. When I was growing up, I was very catholic... I thought I was going to be a priest and I think the priest thing was two things going on, one was a legitimate what they call a vocation and a desire to serve God and humanity and the other thing I think was going on was a way in my young mind where I naively thought if I became a priest  that I would sublimate my sexuality so I didn't have to deal with it. But we know  (laughs) it doesn't really work that way. But you know I believed that priests were celibate.

AM: So becoming a priest for you was a real serious option at what age, like when you started thinking about a vocation?

CH: Pretty much through high school. I went to an all boys Jesuit school

AM: And so at that point you were already aware of your sexuality, so the fact that you wanted to serve (God & humanity), this kind of served two purposes for you?

CH: Yea. I was already having sex... at a young age. I probably had more sexual partners before I was eighteen than i've had since I was eighteen.

AM: Wow, really. But the reason you didn't become a priest  wasn't because of the sexual identity part of it, or was it?

CH: Well you know what happened was, when I was a senior in high school I had a meeting with the head of the novitiate, a very wise man who said "why don't you do at least a couple of years in college & then we'll talk" (about becoming a priest) and during those years several things happened... I took a class in existentialism in college, which began a process of really questioning reality. You know, the world view... the catholic world view, which was the only reality I knew. I fell in love for the first time and I had a phase of experimentation with mind expanding substances.

AM: (laughingly) IE. drugs

CH: Yea, well drugs are medicines

AM: (laughing) Yea, I understand, I just like the way you so politically phrased it.

CH: Yea, but it's not spinning it. I really believe that a substance can be a drug or can be a medicine... depending on how you use it.

AM: Okay.

CH: I mean if you use it for numbing out and not thinking and avoiding pain or whatever, then it's a drug and if you are using to understand or to expand your thinking and your awareness of reality then it's a medicine, helping you get better.

CH: So anyway from love and the power, the combination... and because I'd had a lot of sex, but never fell in love that combination was incredibly powerful and transformative. Three things unto which the Jesuits never stood a chance... I'll never forget the first kiss... he almost came tonight, my first lover (to participate in a "Breath Work" class scheduled for later that day)

AM: Wow, it would have been great to meet him.

CH: Yea, we are still good friends. But I will never forget that first kiss up in Ft Lauderdale beach. At that moment I knew that being gay just wasn't wrong, it wasn't sinful and it wasn't an illness.

AM: Prior to that point were you struggling with that (homosexuality) a bit?

CH: A bit! (laughs)... a lot, my whole adolescence was probably one long depression because I was having this double life. 4.0 GPA, son of a prominent psychiatrist, teachers pet and editor of the high school newspaper, and I had this whole deep dark secret that nobody knew about.

AM: Did anybody suspect? I mean you know how kids tend to know or whatever. You never went thru any kind of teasing because you weren't dating girls or you were effeminate or whatever it may be?

CH: Earlier in my life, like a younger stage in Cuba, I used to hang out with the girls at break and there was some teasing there, but in high school, I don't remember being taunted or teased.

AM: Wow, you are lucky, you really caught a break!

CH: No, I was really introverted and really smart so I guess they respected that, but I was kind of a loner in many ways. But once I fell in love, from that moment on there wasn't a priest or minister, rabbi, pope or psychiatrist that could tell me otherwise, I knew. It was so beautiful that it couldn't be wrong. So I began... I got really angry with religion for sure and my extension with God, I didn't know there was a difference between religion and spirituality and you know, God as I understood it then would have nothing to do with much of what is done in it's name... a lot of it.

AM: So did you move away from religion and God at that point, because you assoicated...

CH: Absolutely, I threw out the baby with the bath water, wanted nothing to do with any of it. I was really angry, I was angry with... it's just I thought if there was a God that intervened and participated in human affairs in a personal way, how could it possibly allow such needless pain and suffering, not only in my case, but in the case of the uncounted male names... of people gay or straight.

AM: Do you still believe that?

CH: I still do. I still do.

AM: And so how do you justify that for yourself now?

CH: Because I think those teachings are complete abominations, they're completely misinterpreted culturally and historically.

AM: But are you no longer angry at God because you've made a separation between God and religion now?

CH: Right, and I have a completely different understanding of God. Completely different.

AM: Radically different?

CH: Radically different.

Stay tuned for part two of my conversation with Christian De La Huerta, "The man who would be priest"

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