For Catholics, it can be easy to assume because of increased dialogue on LGBTQ+ identities in the 21st century that interactions between the Queer community and the Catholic Church are relatively new. In LGBTQ+ Catholic Ministry, Jason Steidl-Jack shows readers that this is not case: LGBTQ+ advocacy, theology, and ministry have existed for decades.
LGBTQ+ Catholic Ministry is a history book, but one with ample examples of the various names, faces, places, and ideas that make up Catholic ministry to the LGBTQ+ community both yesterday and into the future, to inspire those actively engaged in church ministry or who have a general interest in Church history, particularly in the United States.
The book does not spend a significant amount of time discussing the Church’s teaching about sexuality and gender; rather, Steidl-Jack focuses on harms done, messages sent and received, and belonging fostered when those emboldened to embrace the full spectrum of human experience are empowered to create communities both formal and informal, within and outside the walls of a church building.
As such, the book openly embraces and amplifies the stories of those LGBTQ+ Catholics, like Jason himself, who participate in loving relationships and build families within their Catholic identity and practice. It does not shy away from naming the secrecy and threats posed against LGBTQ+ allies and activists in the final decades of the 20th century, and in so doing, paves the way for the possibility of reconciliation. The more Catholics understand this history, the more we can work for change.
This book is designed with a general audience in mind and might even encourage comparative dialogue between the histories of other Christian denominations whose responses to LGBTQ+ identities vary significantly.