There are many ways in which the Catholic Church of 2023, now more than 10 years into Pope Francis' papacy, looks very different from the Catholic Church of 2013. But this year we have seen extraordinary, if tentative, movement in one area in particular: how the Catholic Church includes and ministers to its LGBTQ+ members. Things have happened in the past 12 months that would have once seemed the work of a novelist untethered from reality. In February, days before a trip to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan, Pope Francis condemned the continuing criminalization of homosexuality in some African countries. However, over the past five decades of American Catholic experience, perhaps no single person has had the kind of impact on our LGBTQ+ community members as Loretto Sr. Jeannine Gramick. She has borne the scars of abuse by church authorities with uncommon dignity. When the Vatican in 2000 pressured Gramick's first religious congregation, the School Sisters of Notre Dame, to order her to cease speaking publicly about her LGBTQ+ ministry, she simply moved to another congregation, and, again, kept going. This October, Francis and Gramick met in person at the Vatican. Gramick made sure to alter the arrangement of the room to slide her chair a little closer to the pope's. We cannot say exactly what has made Francis more open and aware this year of the needs of LGBTQ+ Catholics. But certainly, that sister scooching her chair forward has had an outsized impact.
National Catholic Magazine ‘Newsmaker of 2023’ Is Jeannine Gramick, The LGBTQ+ Catholic Advocate
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