At Outreach gathering, celebrating LGBTQ Catholic joy was “life changing”

It was hot. I was tired. And another full day lay ahead at Outreach 2024. 

I had just finished the post-Mass announcements—”Please exit the chapel and walk straight through the courtyard into Healy Hall for breakfast”—and returned to my seat in Dahlgren Chapel. 

During the past few days, we had welcomed nearly 350 people to Georgetown University for an opportunity to celebrate, elevate and build up the LGBTQ Catholic community. As with any event of this scale, the days were long and our team did our best to make it look like everything was running smoothly—even if behind the scenes, most of us were stressed, hungry and tired.

Giving into the temptation of approaching each event as another item to cross off our to-do list until we reached the final send off on Sunday afternoon was something we were all trying to avoid. 

My chair, situated in the chapel’s transept, offered me a view of nearly the entire congregation. As the recessional hymn began, I took a deep breath, looked out into the crowd and soaked it all in. 

Even at an 8:00 a.m. Mass, the fourth liturgy of the weekend, the chapel was nearly filled. The final hymn, “I am the Bread of Life,” felt somehow both familiar and fresh. It looked and sounded like everyone inside the historic chapel was singing loudly and proudly. I glanced around and observed something that still feels relatively rare in Catholic spaces: LGBTQ people, along with their family and friends, experiencing joy. 

Those few seconds of consolation sustained me for the remainder of the conference, as well as during the days that followed, as we processed payments, unpacked boxes and finalized our survey. Creating a space where LGBTQ people lived out their faith without worrying about their true identity being used as a cudgel is Gospel work. 

Throughout our three days together, I made a special effort to ask people why they chose to spend part of their summer with us in muggy Washington, D.C. Each answer varied, of course, but two types of responses stick with me. 

One same-sex couple, a few decades older than me, told me that never in their lives had they imagined that such a welcoming and an affirming space for LGBTQ people could exist in the Catholic Church.

Like many Catholics, it sounded like they each have a complex relationship with the church, but they were committed to their faith and they were each so happy to be invited to our gathering. Seeing the smiles on their faces as we wrapped up on Sunday showed me the power of these types of gatherings.

Several people used the words “life changing” to describe their time at Outreach, a phrase I initially found a bit jarring. To know that our team helped create an experience that meant so much to others, that edified their faith and perhaps even encouraged them to stick with our church, created in me an overwhelming sensation of gratitude to be able to undertake this kind of work. 

On the other end of the spectrum, I discovered an entirely different sentiment that was nonetheless equally moving.

We made a special effort this year to invite young people to join us, college-age students and those in their 20s and 30s, both to cultivate fresh energy and to ensure that we are always open to new ideas and keeping an eye toward the future.

Happily, we were successful in upping the number of young adults who joined us, thanks in part to the generosity of donors who helped fund scholarships and a decision to empower young voices by including them in every aspect of the conference, including as panelists, liturgical ministers and volunteers.

In talking to many of these folks, the words “life changing” never came up. Not even once. 

Joy was evident, as was gratitude for the opportunity to be with other people who understood parts of their faith journeys. But what was remarkable to me was the expectation from many of these young adults that these kinds of spaces not only already exist, but that they should be normal.

In their worldview, we are not doing anything extraordinary by inviting LGBTQ people to gather for prayer, Mass and fellowship. That was the way the church should look, and for many of them, it is the way the church looks already. That is no small miracle, especially contrasted with the experiences of older participants who endured decades of hostility for trying to reconcile their faith and their sexuality. 

A reporter asked me during the conference what critics get wrong about Outreach. We have been subject to protesters and to a regular and generous helping of online abuse. I’ve been called a sodomite destined for hell by more online trolls than I care to remember. We knew that a group of picketers planned to demonstrate near campus during the conference. And they did, loudly praying the same Our Father that we prayed at our Masses.

I told the reporter that our critics simply do not understand what we do at Outreach. Are some in our crowd angry? Yes. Do some wish the church would change its teachings on gender and sexuality? Probably. But that was not the focus of our gathering.

Late Friday evening, following a long day of travel and worship and dining and socializing, hundreds of LGBTQ Catholics, and their friends and family, gathered inside Holy Trinity Church, a Jesuit parish situated near Georgetown.

We gathered to pray, to contemplate and to listen to the faith journeys of a transgender Catholic woman, a gay Catholic man and the Catholic mother of an LGBTQ child. It was late, people were tired and we had an early start the next morning. Despite all that, in a dimly lit church, we together sang the ancient Latin hymn, “Ubi caritas est vera, Deus ibi est.” 

Where there is love, where there is charity, God is there.

That text perfectly summarized what we sought to do that weekend in Washington. We elevated the love and charity that is too often overlooked in the LGBTQ Catholic community. We prayed that our lives would be filled with God’s presence. And we gave thanks for the gift of being able to celebrate both.