Yesterday’s article is from Catholics for Inclusion in Western Massachusetts. The party discussed how the Synod on Synodality prompted them to work harder for LGBTQ+ inclusion in light of what Catholics said during the process last year, together with Bishop William Byrne of Springfield, Massachusetts. The speech that began in 2018 was the source of the op-ed. Today’s publish details more about that synodal trip and the team’s attempts to provide a wider delightful to LGBTQ+ people.
It could be said that the Synod was the beginning. However, our search for a way to request the Bishop of Springfield, Massachusetts to welcome the LGBTQ+ group in a proper movement of pleasant actually began centuries before the Synod on Synodality was made public. In 2018, a little group of us in the combined Social Justice Commissions of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish, Northampton, and Our Lady of the Hills, Haydenville, had grown concerned after reading an in The New York Times reporting hostility toward LGBTQ+ church team members across the country. We wanted to accomplish something, but what?
We started by calling the Massachusetts churches that the Times ( and ) had listed as “LGBTQ-friendly.” Although the monks we spoke to were good and knowledgeable, we felt restricted in our own nearby communities about how to approach the issue. We are in one of the Northeast’s gay-friendly neighborhoods, but how did we persuade our Catholic churches to do some engagement?
Fr. is read aloud in a class debate. James Martin’s text, Building a Bridge, felt like a stop, but then Covid hit, and our ability to meet in person was curtailed. The news of the Synod on Synodality, a year or so after, came as a gift.
Many people in our party volunteered to help host archbishop meetings in our cathedral room, hearing, reliably, a number of voices wishing for more inclusion within the Church. However, we also made an effort to reach out to churchgoers outside of the normal hours. We published an par- ed in our local paper, The Daily Hampshire Gazette, inviting those who did n’t come to church to join with us and get heard.
The answer was n’t frustrating, but those who did answer turned out to be godsends. We had been a straight-identity group up until that point, so we were grateful when two vocal lesbian women came out and defended our position: what exactly may it take for our churches to become more loving?
There was one other, no- inconsequential respondent to that ops- ed. William Byrne had just been appointed Bishop of Springfield, Massachusetts. He contacted us by message, asking to meet.
We arranged an outdoor, back dinner, cooking up something very delightful, and had what seemed like an available back- and- back discussion. But at a certain place we noticed the priest looking somewhat mystified: where, at this supper, were the queer people? We all seemed really nice, but he had anticipated meeting with a gay party. Were we going to be able to get to the heart of the matter with him?
He called the next day, and asked for a second meeting, asking,” And this time, is you take some queer people”? So we asked our group’s two newest members to attend the next breakfast ( they had not yet joined us ). This period, the priest heard, from those most immediately affected, about the problems gay individuals had with the administrative Church. He listened, he asked issues. When one of us walked him to his car at the end of that dinner, he said words to the effect of,” People do n’t understand. There’s no magic solution for this issue. This is n’t going to be an easy one to solve”. He was referring, of course, to the “problem” of how the Church could approach a place of real encouraged and participation, but the fact that he seemed committed to grappling with the problem felt stimulating.
We then continued the email exchange with the priest following that following dinner. The next year, in the summer of 2023, we hosted a second breakfast, and during our talk that night, the priest told us,” I’d like to find this present on the road, but initially there’s got to be a show”. The idea was that we, as a group, needed to do something, make Northampton the place where the” show” could begin.
From that night’s conversation, we decided that the bishop and our group may carbon- author an op- ed to let the larger world know about our conversations, and about the bishop’s previously expressed openness to making a gesture of pleasant to the LGBTQ+ community.
It took a few months of back and forth to piece that piece of paper together. We wrote a version, the bishop offered some changes and amendments. Bishop Byrne had already traveled to Rome with a group of other bishops to attend a meeting with Pope Francis in the interim. ” Drawing from these conversations]with our group ]”, the bishop wrote in the op- ed, he asked the pontiff about” the challenge” of welcoming the LGBTQ+ community. ” Without missing a beat”, the bishop wrote,” Pope Francis said with deliberate repetition that’ everyone, everyone, everyone,’ should be included. Our shared goal is to seek the Lord, not just one of us.
Understandably, Bishop Byrne wanted those words included in the op- ed. He also told us privately that meeting with our group had “helped ]him ] on his journey”, that it had helped push his thinking forward.
The op- ed, entitled””, appeared in two of our local papers around Christmas of 2023, and it attracted attention, gaining us new members. Publishing the essay also forced us to give ourselves a name, Catholics for Inclusion, as well as to set up a website,, and an email account,.
Inevitably, we also attracted some negative attention, but that’s to be expected. Our group is unshaken because the bishop has urged us to continue.
What can be learned from this for other organizations in the nation who might be attempting to do the same thing?
Obviously, it helps, first of all, to have a responsive bishop, one willing to question, and to listen. In this way, we received blessings. It helps, too, to be good cooks: we feel certain that our meals together were, at least in part, what kept the bishop coming! Eating together builds relationships. And for our success, it was crucial to establish a trustworthy relationship with the bishop.
Finally, it makes sense to realize how painfully slow this process can be and will likely be. However, it seems like a step to have come this far. That’s all, just a step. But in the right direction, and maybe an important one.
Looking for an LGBTQ- friendly parish? New Ways Ministry provides a list of parishes and faith communities that have made a public welcome to LGBTQ people and their families. Know of a church or other religious organization that should be on the list? Click to let us know.
—Catholics for Inclusion, Western Massachusetts, March 21, 2024
