Pope Francis Thanks Sister Jeannine Gramick For 50 Years of LGBTQ+ Ministry
January 11, 2022In a recent handwritten letter, Pope Francis thanked American nun Sister Jeannine Gramick for her 50 years of advocacy and ministry to LGBTQ+ Catholics.
“Thank you, Sister Jeannine, for all your closeness, compassion and tenderness,” he wrote in the letter, published by America’s Catholic publication America, on Friday January 7. It’s not the first time that Pope Francis has written to the Gramick, praising her ministry. In those letters, Pope Francis, acknowledged that he knew how much Sister Gramick has “suffered,” describing her as “a valiant woman who makes her decisions in prayer.”
“I felt wonderful, of course,” Sister Gramick told America, highlighting that many Catholics will read the arrival of these letters as an institutional affirmation of her ministry. She also noted that it is going to be more difficult for bishops and other Catholics “who do not appreciate the work of New Ways Ministry to make derogatory remarks.”
Sister Gramick said her “primary feeling is gratitude and joy” for the “long way” that the movement for LGBTQ equality has come in five decades. In another statement, to The Washington Post, Gramick said the letter “felt like a turning point in the church, because for so long, this ministry has been maligned and in the shadows.”
Sister Gramick is celebrating 50 years of working with and advocating for LGBTQ people. Gramick, along with the late Rev. Robert Nugent, is the co-founder of New Ways Ministry, which champions greater acceptance of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Catholics. But both “have long been considered controversial figures by some church leaders for their teachings related to LGBTQ+ topics and were under scrutiny from the Vatican for decades before a declaration was issued barring them from ministry,” said Gramick.
However, the Catholic Church has come a long way since then, particularly under the leadership of Pope Francis, who has also received criticism from some Catholics for his comments supporting LGBTQ+ people. Just last month, the Vatican apologized for "causing pain to the entire LGBTQ community" by removing a link to a New Ways Ministry webinar encouraging LGBTQ+ Catholics to take part in a two-year consultation process to make the Catholic Church more welcoming. The link was restored shortly after, along with an oficial apology.
New Ways Ministry Executive Director Francis De Bernardo at the time described the apology as a “historic” move by the church to recognize “the harm that such a slight would have caused LGBTQ people and the entire church."
Sister Gramick wasn’t the only one who has received letters from Pope Francis on LGTBQ+ matters. Pope Francis also wrote to America magazine national correspondent and gay Catholic, Michael O’Loughlin, commending him for reporting on Catholic responses to the HIV/AIDS crisis. From the earliest days of his papacy, "the pope has reached out to individuals in a personal way by calling people on the phone and writing the string of LGBTQ-related letters,” O’Loughlin told The Washington Post. “There’s a lot of hurt and pain in the LGBT community and a single letter or group of letters is not going to fix that.”
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