ROME — A group of LGBTQ+ Catholics met with Pope Francis in the Vatican this weekend, during which they urged him to give his approval for “gender-affirming care,” which includes sex change surgery.
The nearly 90-minute meeting was brokered by Sister Jeannine Gramick, a U.S. nun who was disciplined by the Vatican in 1999 for problematic “errors and ambiguities” in her pastoral approach to homosexuality.
That year, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) permanently barred Sr. Gramick from any pastoral work involving homosexual persons, together with Father Robert Nugent, with whom she had co-founded New Ways Ministry, a supposedly “Catholic” apostolate to LGBTQ+ persons.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith “is obliged to declare for the good of the Catholic faithful that the positions advanced by Sister Jeannine Gramick and Father Robert Nugent regarding the intrinsic evil of homosexual acts and the objective disorder of the homosexual inclination are doctrinally unacceptable because they do not faithfully convey the clear and constant teaching of the Catholic Church in this area,” the text declared.
In touting this weekend’s meeting with the pope, New Ways Ministry said Francis had met “with a diverse group of transgender, intersex, and ally Catholics, including a medical doctor who provides gender transition care.”
“The group urged Pope Francis to move past the Church’s negative approach to gender-diverse people, and to encourage Church leaders to listen more attentively to the lives and faith of LGBTQ+ people,” the group’s Oct. 12 press release stated.
According to the text, Sister Gramick arranged the meeting after reading that the Vatican still condemns “medical care for transgender people who transition,” such as the administration of puberty blockers and sex change operations.
“She wanted Pope Francis to hear directly from transgender and intersex Catholics and those who support them, so she contacted the pontiff, and he eagerly accepted the opportunity,” the text said.
“I am grateful to Pope Francis that he was willing to listen to the experiences of intersex and transgender people,” Gramick said. “It is only by listening to stories of these individuals, as well as the individuals who care for and about them, that the Church will be able to fully hear the voice of the Holy Spirit calling the Catholic community to break out of old, ill-informed teachings and practices.”
In its 1999 text reproving Father Nugent and Sister Gramick for their LGBTQ+ ministry, the Vatican noted that “the promotion of errors and ambiguities is not consistent with a Christian attitude of true respect and compassion.”
Persons who are struggling with homosexuality “no less than any others have the right to receive the authentic teaching of the Church from those who minister to them,” it said.
The U.S. bishops have refused to allow New Ways Ministry to call itself a “Catholic” organization.
In 2010, Cardinal Francis George, then-president of the U.S. Bishops’ Conference (USCCB), issued a statement underscoring serious questions about New Ways Ministry’s “adherence to Church teaching on homosexuality.”
“No one should be misled by the claim that New Ways Ministry provides an authentic interpretation of Catholic teaching and an authentic Catholic pastoral practice,” Cardinal George wrote. “Their claim to be Catholic only confuses the faithful regarding the authentic teaching and ministry of the Church with respect to persons with a homosexual inclination.”
“Like other groups that claim to be Catholic but deny central aspects of Church teaching,” the cardinal declared, “I wish to make it clear that New Ways Ministry has no approval or recognition from the Catholic Church and that they cannot speak on behalf of the Catholic faithful in the United States.”