BREAKING NEWS from WMF: Family With LGBT Members Brings Offertory Gifts to Pope Francis

At the closing Mass of the World Meeting of Families here in Dublin’s Phoenix Park, it has been announced that among the handful of families who will be in the offertory procession will be ” a family involved in the “All Are Welcome” Mass in Avila, in Donnybrook, Dublin.”

The “All Are Welcome” Mass is the Archdiocese of Dublin’s outreach to the LGBT community.  It meets monthly at the Avila Center, a Carmelite retreat house.

No word yet if the family in the procession will be one headed by LGBT people or one with LGBT children or other members.  We will provide an update when more information  is available.

When Sister Jeannine Gramick and New Ways Ministry lead a pilgrimage to Ireland in 2016, we celebrated Sunday Mass with the All Are Welcome community, and shared tea and fellowship with them afterwards.  You can read about that experience in our May 1, 2016 blog posting.

This is the second time that members of a family with LGBT persons have been an official part of the liturgies at WMF.  At the closing Mass of the WMF’s Pastoral Congress, Deacon Ray Dever of Tampa, Florida, who is the father of a transgender daughter and a bisexual daughter served as the preacher of the Gospel and the assistant to the presider, Cardinal Kevin Farrell, prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Laity, Family, and Life.

Though Deacon Dever was scheduled to participate in today’s closing Mass, his travel plans precluded his involvement.

When more information  is available about the family in  the offertory procession, Bondings 2.0 will provide more detailed coverage.

—Francis DeBernardo, New Ways Ministry, August 26, 2018