With a well-attended Mass that sent people forth with a rousing rendition of Richard Smallwood’s “I Love the Lord” — served up by the choir of New York’s St. Paul the Apostle Church and soloist Paulist Father Steven Bell — the third annual Outreach gathering of LGBTQ+ Catholics came to a close after a weekend of thoughtful discussion panels held at the Lincoln Center campus of Fordham University.
The conference, which launched in 2021, has each year been encouraged by the Holy Father who this year sent “best regards” to the meeting, promising his “prayers and good wishes.”
Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan of New York also extended his greeting to the gathering.
“It is the sacred duty of the church and her ministers to reach out to those on the periphery and draw them to a closer relationship with Jesus Christ and his church,” he wrote, calling the conference a “vital and important ministry,” both “valuable and necessary.”
In her opening keynote address, Tania Tetlow, president of Fordham University, welcomed Outreach attendees saying, “I am here to tell you that you are loved … you are loved by the church made up of the people of God.”
Tetlow recounted Jesus preached outside of the synagogues, “because that’s where men and women both could gather,” and proclaimed “the central message of the Gospels,” to be “love, courage, sacrifice and gratitude.”
Other keynotes were given by DignityUSA’s Marianne Duddy-Burke and Juan Carlos Cruz. Cruz, appointed to the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors by Pope Francis in 2021, is a survivor of clergy sexual abuse who said in his address that through such work and in sharing his story, “I have tried to turn my grief into glory, my pain into power.”
Over 250 church workers, academics, priests and laypeople attended the daily discussion panels covering such topics as “The Bible and Homosexuality,” “Living a Life of Chastity” and “LGBTQ Catholics and the Life of Prayer.”
Other breakout sessions explored the “Black, Catholic and LGBTQ experience,” “LGBTQ Clergy and Religious” and included trangender Catholics and Hispanic LGBTQ+ discussion groups, with one international panel, including presenters from Belgium, Italy, Germany, Mexico and Malta, sharing perspectives of the “LGBTQ Worldwide” community.
There also were practical exchanges on how to encourage representation in local parishes and ministering to LGBTQ+ Catholic youth.
Discussion panels showcased a diverse inclusion of numerous well-known writers and thinkers, among them authors Dawn Eden Goldstein, Jesuit Father James Martin, scholars Amy-Jill Levine and Natalia Imperatori-Lee of Vanderbilt Divinity School and Manhattan College, respectively, and artist Brother Mickey McGrath of the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales.
The conference livestreamed daily liturgies and keynote speeches over YouTube. The closing Mass June 18 was concelebrated by Archbishop John C. Wester of Sante Fe, New Mexico, and Father Martin.
Father Martin gave a brief homily on the Gospel (Mt 5: 38-42) which reads, in part: “Jesus’ heart was moved with pity for (the crowds) because they were troubled and abandoned.” Father Martin noted the Jesuit biblical scholar Father Daniel J. Harrington interpreted “troubled and abandoned” as “harassed and torn apart,” which he related to the harassment and bullying experienced by many in the LGBTQ+ community, worldwide.
He mentioned in particular laws passed recently in Uganda that carry death sentences for “aggravated homosexuality” — and spoke to the ways in which the “larger flock in the United States, the church in the United States, is torn.” Within that flock, the priest continued, individuals understand that God invites them into a relationship.
“But the relationship is not just for you and God; it’s for everyone. God calls each of us by name and sends us out … to do the same thing that Jesus asked his disciples to do: to heal every disease and every illness … the disease of violence, the disease of exclusion, the disease of ignorance, and the greatest disease — the disease of hatred,” he said. “So, go into the world, proclaim the compassionate love of God, knowing that the Good Shepherd is with his flock, and with each of you, always.”
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