'Confession' of a gay Catholic

Scott Pomfret's memoir, ''Since My Last Confession,'' about his lifestyle choices, has angered some at St. Anthony Shrine, where he was once a lector. (SUSANNE KREITER/GLOBE STAFF)

Blocks from his former church in Downtown Crossing, Scott Pomfret takes a deep breath and confesses his literary sins.

"My real sin was not having the proper amount of discretion," says Pomfret, a Boston attorney who recently wrote a gay Catholic memoir called "Since My Last Confession," which has ruffled some frocks at St. Anthony Shrine. Pomfret served as a lector at the church for eight years before officials there let him go in September because of his other role as an erotica fiction writer.

"I do feel like I've lost my spiritual home," says Pomfret, 40, an enforcement attorney who fights fraud cases with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Referring to his spiritual work, he adds, "I know the good work that I've done."

The church's executive director, the Rev. David Convertino, told the Globe and other local media that some people had concerns about Pomfret's role at the church.

Weeks later, Pomfret still reels from the ouster. He's searching for a new church but doesn't regret writing his book, which took him three years to finish. After Massachusetts legalized gay marriage in 2004, Pomfret decided to chronicle how he balances his spiritual life with his gay one.

"It was therapy," Pomfret says. "There were a series of events that made the incense smell sour and made the readings lose their melody. . . . It robbed a lot of the spiritual experience for me and replaced it with anger."

Much of the book centers on St. Anthony's Shrine, where Pomfret read Scriptures for Friday night Mass and led a gay and lesbian spiritual support group. In the book, Pomfret also pokes fun at local clergy - suggesting that some were sexually active - and criticizes Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley, the archbishop of Boston.

The book humorously recounts how he met his partner, Scott Whittier, at a gay bar near Fenway, and discusses their opposing views on religion. Whittier, an advertising copy editor, is an atheist. Despite their spiritual differences, they collaborate creatively. They are authors and publishers of a series of gay romance novels called Romentics.

Yet for his memoir, Pomfret wanted to go solo. He ended up selling his memoir to Arcade Publishing in New York.

"I want people to understand that at the grassroots church level, there is room at the table for gay people," he says. "I don't want people to throw spirituality away with bath water. I'd like to see them feel that faith can be part of their lives." JOHNNY DIAZ