NORTHAMPTON — The leader of a national organization that for five decades has advocated for LGBTQ inclusion in the Catholic Church told a Northampton audience Monday that meaningful change is coming from everyday believers in the pews of local churches, not the marble-gilded halls of the Vatican.
It’s fairly well known that one of the world’s oldest continuously operating institutions has held an enduring view toward LGBTQ issues. Official church teaching views gay relationships as “intrinsically disordered” and considers gender reassignment surgeries a rejection of God’s design and the natural order.
If anyone would see signs of hope for a more welcoming posture toward LGBTQ Catholics, it would be Frank DeBernardo, the 30-year executive director of Washington, D.C.-based New Ways Ministry, who spoke to a few dozen people gathered in the Helen Hills Hills Chapel at Smith College.
He said people often picture his job as flinging a sword and warding off homophobes. But in reality, his days are spent replying to emails and talking over Zoom, hearing the stories of LGBTQ Catholics across the world.
He has brought these voices into the Vatican, even for private meetings with the late Pope Francis, who made strides for the LGBTQ cause before his death last year without dismantling the church’s consistent teachings on gender and sexuality.
“Change never happens top down, it happens from the grassroots up, and that’s the only kind of change that is lasting change,” said DeBernardo, noting that surveys have shown that 80% of American Catholics believe in full equality for LGBTQ persons.
“So I think that eventually the church leadership is going to start becoming aware that the faith that is being lived by the Catholics in the pews — the faith that tells them to welcome and accept LGBTQ people, is the authenticity of faith,” he said.
In 2023, DeBernardo had an hourlong private meeting with Pope Francis where he brought along LGBTQ Catholics, including a deacon who has a trans daughter and an intersex woman. He was then invited back the next year for a 90-minute meeting — a substantial amount of one-on-one time with the leader of more than a billion Catholics worldwide.
DeBernardo described the meetings and shared that the people were affirming. At one point, when one of the LGBTQ Catholics discussed their struggles with self-harm, DeBernardo said the former pope was moved, expressing a look of pain while clutching the cross he was wearing.
“Either he was the greatest actor in the world, which I don’t think he was, or he was genuinely interested and genuinely moved by what these people were saying,” said DeBernardo.
He also said that the pope suggested appointing 14 new bishops based on the criterion that they affirm LGBTQ Catholics, although DeBernardo said it is unclear if the pope followed through.
He explained that in addition to a grassroots push for change, science will also be crucial in swinging the pendulum, drawing parallels between the LGBTQ question and the persecution of Galileo, a 17th-century Italian scientist who supported the idea that the Earth revolves around the sun.
“In the area of gender, what the scientific community is telling us now is that your gender is not only determined by outward physical characteristics,” he said. “What science is discovering now is that there are a lot of gender differences in the brain, in the presence of hormones, in the presence of different chromosomes, or that all of these have different effects about how a person will understand what their gender is.”
In terms of theology, he pointed to the church’s teaching on natural law, which affirms that the individual can discern right from wrong through reason. He also pointed to the church’s teaching on the “supremacy of conscience,” which allows the individual to make moral decisions based on their personal discernment of right and wrong.
Advocacy for LGBTQ Catholics is also a matter of human dignity and justice, both Catholic values.
DeBernardo said that going forward, small things believers do make big impacts. It may be as simple as having a small rainbow sticker, or some show of support. In church communities, he said that preaching affirmative words and having inclusive mission statements are “very, very powerful.”
Other voices
Among the attendees was Lynn Discenza, a practicing Catholic and transgender woman who traveled from Hartford to Northampton to hear DeBernardo speak.
She was also able to shake Pope Francis’s hand in the Vatican during a public audience — something that gave her clout with the bishop of Hartford.
When she tried to share her story with the bishop, he initially declined to meet until she sent his office a picture of her shaking the pope’s hand.
In the meeting with the bishop, she talked about the inclusive ministry in her church and how she serves as a Eucharistic minister, or someone who assists the priest in distributing communion. She also requested that the diocese peel back anti-trans policies in Catholic schools.
“I actually transitioned in that church. One Sunday, I’m up on the altar giving communion as a male, next Sunday I’m up there as a female, and people were so accepting — and I’ve never been misgendered,” Discenza said.
She said the bishop expressed private support, and allowed her church to continue outreach unlike the previous bishop, but has not done anything in the schools.
Discenza will continue advocating with the new Pope Leo, whom she attended school with and recently sent a letter to. Discenza spent time studying for the priesthood and graduated alongside Leo at Villanova, and they both know people in the same circles.
Others in the room shared their takeaways, including local members of the clergy and a director from the Diocese of Springfield, which spans all of western Massachusetts.
Fr. John Gawienowski, pastor of Our Lady of the Hills church in Haydenville, said “we don’t want anybody to stay away because they think we don’t want them.” The church offers LGBTQ outreach and has a pride flag on their side outside.
For the past decade, Gawienowski has been part of initiating Catholics For Inclusion (CFI). The group welcomes people to come and read together “Building a Bridge,” a book by Fr. James Martin on LGBTQ inclusion. Groups meet in both his church and at Elizabeth Ann Seton in Northampton.
Bishop William Byrne of the Diocese of Springfield has given the green light for their meetings to continue.
“In my own small way, I hope to live the gospel message as I understand it, and how I think Jesus would want me to live that message,” said Deacon David Bergeron, who serves at St. Patrick’s Church in South Hadley. “I think there’s a great need for understanding.”
Shaina Rodriguez, executive director of Catholic Charities for the Diocese of Springfield, said “We love everybody, we help everybody and we’re here to walk alongside folks.”
Participants also shared what keeps them Catholic despite not necessarily agreeing with Catholic doctrines. Often, it’s the traditions, rituals, art and beauty of Catholicism that keep people in the pews.
Lorraine Mangione, a Northampton resident who attends St. Elizabeth Ann Seton and has been active with CFI, said that even growing up in an Italian Catholic household the emphasis was never on doctrine per se.
But when she tried going to a Protestant services, she said that it felt like “45-minute lectures.”
“Where’s the communion, symbolism, mystery?” she asked herself.
Anthony Giardina, a parishioner of Our Lady of the Hills who moderated the event, said, “If you’ve grown up Catholic, everything else feels like, I hate to say it, watered down Christianity.”
