Former gay US governor wants to become a priest

NEW YORK: The former US governor of New Jersey, who resigned in 2004 after admitting to an adulterous relationship with another man, now wants to become a priest, the seminary he is entering said on Thursday.   

Jim McGreevey, a lapsed Catholic who is currently locked in divorce proceedings with his wife, plans to enter the General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church in New York City later this year.   

The seminary's director of communications, Bruce Parker, said McGreevey would be starting a three-year master of divinity program in September. "We look forward to welcoming him," he added.   

An unnamed friend of McGreevey's was quoted by the New York Post as saying the former governor had been considering the move for some time.   

"He's been thinking about this heavily for the past two years. It's not something that he takes lightly. Despite what some people think, he's a very spiritual person," the newspaper reported.   

The details of McGreevey's failed marriage have proved frequent fodder for the US tabloid press. Last year the former governor wrote that he only married his wife to advance his political career and has said that she knew he was gay.   

But just recently, his wife, Dina Matos McGreevey, countered that she would never have married him if she knew he was homosexual, and that she still didn't believe that he was gay but bisexual.   

McGreevey, who after coming out while still in office became the United States' first openly gay governor, has been attending services at an Episcopal church in Manhattan for the last two years with his Australian boyfriend, Mark O'Donnell.