CathNews New Zealand

Why should Catholics reach out to L.G.B.T.Q. Catholics or, more broadly, to LGBTQ people?

We should reach out not simply because they are Catholics—meaning LGBTQ Catholics, who are part of the Body of Christ—but because we are Catholic.

Part of being Catholic, part of being Christian, is standing on the side of those who are rejected, excluded or marginalized, as Jesus chose to do. As we Jesuits say, it also means “walking with the excluded.” And LGBTQ people are among the most excluded in our church.

I cannot tell you how many LGBTQ Catholics have reported to me the hateful and homophobic comments they have heard from their priests, deacons, brothers, sisters, lay pastoral associates, bishops, directors of religious education and schoolteachers, all supposedly speaking for the church.

Almost every day I receive messages through social media, from people asking, “Where am I supposed to go now that my pastor treats me like this?” or, “How can I respond to my daughter’s principal who says these things?” or, “How can I stay in the church when I hear homilies like this?”

One woman told me that after she told a priest that she was gay, he said that he had prayed since his ordination that he would never meet a gay person. In some parishes, homilies saying that the LGBTQ “agenda” is satanic, identifying LGBTQ people with the devil and equating same-sex marriage with abortion are not only common, but expected.

In fact, one P.R.R.I. survey from 2016 has shown that negative messages about LGBTQ issues are one of the most significant reasons that Catholics leave the church, and they do so in greater proportions than in any other religion. Comparing former Catholics to the overall population of Americans who have left their childhood religions, the report stated:

Those who were raised Catholic are more likely than those raised in any other religion to cite negative religious treatment of gay and lesbian people (39 percent vs. 29 percent, respectively) and the clergy sexual-abuse scandal (32 percent vs. 19 percent, respectively) as primary reasons they left the Church.

Some statistics from DignityUSA, an advocacy group for Catholic LGBTQ people, may put this in further perspective.

DignityUSA informally surveyed people who have left the church, not just LGBTQ people, and asked: “Did teachings on LGBTQ+ issues have anything to do with your leaving?” Fifty-five percent said yes.

LGBTQ people who no longer identify as Catholic were asked, “Was being LGBTQ+ the major reason for leaving the church?” Sixty-four percent said yes.

When LGBTQ people were asked, “Have you ever felt uncomfortable or directly discriminated against in a Catholic church or event?” Seventy-two percent said yes.

Those statistics alone should be enough to make us want to undergo a metanoia, a change of mind and heart, and make us ask why our church is not only not a welcoming place to LGBTQ people, but actively unwelcoming.

But issues of prejudice against LGBTQ people, especially young people, are not just matters that affect church attendance; they are truly life-and-death issues.

Often well-meaning Catholics do not know the facts, so it is helpful to review them.

They come from a 2020 survey from the Trevor Project, an organization that works to prevent suicide among LGBTQ youth. The survey states that suicide is consistently the second leading cause of death among young people and disproportionately impacts LGBTQ youth.

And according to a survey of students in grades nine through 12, completed in 2015 and published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 29 percent of gay, lesbian and bisexual individuals reported having attempted suicide during the previous year, compared with 9 percent of all students. (Because data on the incidence of suicide among LGBTQ individuals is still scarce, the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention has called for “more timely and accurate suicide-related data,” in part by “including valid and reliable questions on sexual orientation/gender identity on national surveillance systems.”) Continue reading

• James Martin S.J., is a Jesuit priest, author and editor at large at America.

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News category: Analysis and Comment.