Daniel A. Helminiak

Daniel A. Helminiak (born November 20, 1942 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is an American Catholic priest, theologian and author. He is a professor in the Department of Humanistic and Transpersonal Psychology at the University of West Georgia, near Atlanta. There from 1995 to 1997 and 2000 to the present, he has regularly taught Human Sexuality, Statistics for the Social Sciences, Foundations of Neuroscience, and Animal Mind. On the graduate level he has taught courses related to the psychology of spirituality, which is his specialization and the focus of his research, lecturing, and writing. He is most widely known for his international best-seller What the Bible Really Says about Homosexuality.

Helminiak was born (1942) and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in a Polish Catholic community on the South Side. He frequently refers to this experience in his popular writings on spirituality and community. He attended parochial grade and high schools and at age seventeen entered seminary to study for the priesthood at Our Lady of the Lake Seminary, Syracuse, IN, and St. Vincent Seminary, Latrobe, PA, where he was awarded a BA in philosophy (1964). He completed graduate studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, earning an STB (1966) and an STL (1968), Bachelor and License in Sacred Theology, and was ordained there at the pope's parish church, St. John Lateran Basilica (1967). He served as Associate Pastor of SS. Simon and Jude Church in Scott Township (Pittsburgh) for four years and subsequently pursued an educational ministry, serving as junior faculty-member at St. Mary Seminary, Baltimore, MD (1972-1973), completing a PhD in systematic theology in the Joint Doctoral Program of Boston College and Andover Newton Theological School (1979), serving as Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology and Spirituality at Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio (1981-1985), completing an MA in personality theory at Boston University (1983) with a thesis that became Part I of his book Spiritual Development, and earning a second PhD in Human Development at The University of Texas at Austin (1994). On weekends throughout these years, Helminiak ministered in local parishes in Baltimore, Boston, San Antonio, and Austin and, having come out as gay in 1976, also served in those areas and nationally as chaplain to DignityUSA, the LGBT Catholic support network.

In 1995, Helminiak accepted a teaching position at the University of West Georgia (then, West Georgia College), where he has remained except for advanced training in counseling at Pittsburgh Pastoral Institute. Helminiak was elected a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, was certified as a Fellow of the American Association of Pastoral Counselors, and is licensed as a Professional Counselor (LPC) in the state of Georgia. Also in 1995, Helminiak submitted to the Vatican a formal resignation from active ministry although he remains a priest according to Catholic teaching: "Once a priest, always a priest." As is not uncommon, the Vatican never responded to his resignation, which fact he takes jokingly to mean that the Vatican is allowing him to continue to speak for the Catholic Church.

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