Building Bridges to the LGBTQ2S+ Community

                                                Pope Francis performs a baptism January 2023

What does it mean to say that we want transgender persons to be safe, welcome and full participants in the Christian church and in the rituals and sacraments which are our touchstones for faith? 

Yesterday the Vatican responded to six questions for clarification posed by a bishop in Brazil regarding LGBTQ2S+ people, including participation in the sacraments of baptism and marriage. 

Here is a portion of a Global News report on the responses to these questions: 

Transgender people can be godparents at Roman Catholic baptisms, witnesses at religious weddings and receive baptism themselves, the Vatican's doctrinal office said on Wednesday, responding to questions from a bishop...

It said transgender people could be godparents at a baptism at the discretion of the local priest as well as a witness at a Church wedding, but the local priest should exercise “pastoral prudence” in his decision.

“This is an important step forward in the Church seeing transgender people not only as people (in a Church where some say they don’t really exist) but as Catholics,” Father James Martin, a prominent Jesuit priest and supporter of LGBT rights in the Church, said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Father Martin has met with Pope Francis on several occasions for meaningful conversations about transgender persons and the pontiff has been receptive and expressed compassion. The responses from the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith (what a title!) are vague about what terms such as "pastoral prudence" actually mean, but this is a huge step for the Roman Catholic Church and bound to meet with resistance from conservatives. 

While the United Church has officially been a place of welcome for LGBTQ2S+ people for decades, the specificity of the Roman Catholic response is thought-provoking. The sacraments are of great importance in RC doctrine and practice and honestly I was surprised, although pleasantly, by what I read. I wonder if the United Church and other denominations will affirm these decisions? And should we be more specific ourselves? Perhaps we have and I just don't know about it!