By Br. Jay Woods, OFM
I was honored to represent the Province of Our Lady of Guadalupe in August at the 2024 Outreach Conference. According to their website: “Outreach is an LGBTQ resource, offering news, essays, resources and community for LGBTQ Catholics and those who minister with them in the Catholic Church worldwide.
Photo courtesy of Br. Jay Woods, OFM.
Building community
The theme for the third annual Outreach conference was “Building Community.” Founder Fr. James Martin, SJ, Executive Director Michael J. O’Loughlin and Managing Editor Ryan Di Corpo created a weekend with opportunities for participants to meet other LGBTQA (allies) Catholics and build community.
Participants included LGBTQA lay people, clergy and ministers from Canada, Belgium, Lithuania, Italy, the United Kingdom, South Korea, France, Argentina and the United States. Panel discussions included “LGBTQ Ministry in Parishes,” “The Bible and Homosexuality,” and “Transgender Catholics and the Church.”
This year’s most notable keynote speaker was renowned iconographer and activist Fr. William Hart McNichols. He took us on a personal journey through his art and iconography, including an image he created for this year’s conference. He told us that he first imagined Jesus washing the feet of the LGBTQ community, and then he imagined Pope Francis washing the feet of Jesus and his LGBTQ followers, and so we have the icon: “The Foot Washing."
Fr. William Hart Nichols created this icon, "The Foot Washing." (Photo courtesy of Br. Jay Woods, OFM)
Cardinal Wilton D. Gregory, presider at the opening Mass, stressed the need for unity amid a time in our country and Church’s history when “violence, the forfeiture of civility in public discourse and the disavowal of once well-known hallowed values can be found in both institutions.”
Fr. Mark Bosco, SJ, the vice president of Georgetown University, spoke of “the LGBTQ community having to live in this paradox—of being born into the Body of Christ in baptism, experiencing God’s grace, yet all the while being told that you don’t quite fit, feeling that you are not quite valued. This paradox, I suggest, is a form of spiritual suffering. But as followers of Jesus, we all know that suffering is part of the spiritual path to love, the spiritual path to God’s fullness and redemption.”
Liberation theology reminds us that it is from the paradox of suffering, the suffering of the minores, the suffering of being told you don’t belong, that the chains of suffering and oppression are broken by the kiss of justice and peace. I believe that it is from this paradox, from oppression to justice, that members of the LGBTQ community can be instruments of dialogue, justice and peace by their witness.
Photo courtesy of Br. Jay Woods, OFM.
Ministering with the LGBTQ community
As the director of the LGBTQ Ministry at St. Anthony Shrine and the convenor of the new Greater Boston LGBTQIA Catholic Collective, I am often asked for advice on ministering with the LGBTQ community. Key approaches for creating safe and welcoming spaces include:
— Love. Above all, love. Love as God loves, knowing that the person in front of you is a beloved child of God. A child of God who might come to you worried, concerned, scared. Be the God of love and compassion for them.
— Listen. Be blessed to listen to the stories of LGBTQ persons. Listen to how God has been working in their lives. Practice synodal listening by opening your heart to the needs of the LGBTQ person in front of you.
— Cultural Humility. You will not have all the answers. No one is expecting you to. Engage in cultural humility by listening and learning from the experiences of the LGBTQ community. Speak to clergy, ministers and lay folks engaged in LGBTQ ministry. We are eager to help.
Over the years, I have asked hundreds of LGBTQ Catholics why they stay in the Church. I have been told: “Because I am a baptized Catholic, and this is my Church.” “Because it is my home.” “Because I find comfort and grace in the sacraments and liturgy of the Church and because I believe Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist.”
May we all see Christ truly present in each member of the LGBTQ community.
Resources
Outreach’s website offers a series of articles by scholars – such as Dr. Amy-Jill Levine, Rabbi Stanley M. Kessler Distinguished Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies at Hartford International University for Religion and Peace; and Dr. Walter Brueggemann, Old Testament scholar and theologian – that address the Scripture passages used by some to exclude the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) community.
Click here for a complete list of Outreach Conference keynote speeches and presentations.