LGBTQ+ Publications Honored by Catholic Media Association

Several LGBTQ-related books and articles won awards at the annual Catholic Media Association (CMA) meeting earlier this month. Today’s post features information about those awardees, as well as LGBTQ+ awards received by one Catholic publisher.

CMA’s Book Awards included two LGBTQ+ publications. In the “Church Professional” category, Sam Albano’s God’s Works Revealed: Spirituality, Theology, and Social Justice for Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Catholics won second place. Albano’s book, written by a leader in DignityUSA and which was previously covered by Bondings 2.0, is described by the publisher Paulist Press as a “compelling, challenge, and joyful vision for living” as an LGB Catholic. The book includes a foreword from Bishop John Stowe, OFM Conv. of Lexington who explains that it “presents not so much a dismissal of what the Church teaches as a critical engagement with that teaching that will point out its insufficiencies and calls for further refinement and reflection.” For more information about the book, click here.

In the “Biography” category, Mychal Judge: Take Me Where You Want Me to Go by New Ways Ministry’s executive director, Francis DeBernardo, received an honorable mention. Published by Liturgical Press, Mychal Judge explores the life of the  gay Franciscan priest known not only as the first victim of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, but for his compassion and faith. It details the personal history and experiences—including his Irish-American upbringing, his struggles with alcoholism, his care for the marginalized, and his ministry to firefighters—that formed Judge, as well as extensively addressing the topic of his gay identity. For more information about the book, click here.

Elsewhere, in the category of “Best Electronic Newsletter,” a commentary by Fr. James Martin, SJ, titled “Zacchaeus, the Grumblers and LGBTQ People” won an honorable mention. The piece was published on Outreach, a project of America Media. Picking up the Gospel story of Jesus’ encounter with the tax collector, Martin writes, that in ministry to LGBTQ+ people, “you can stand with the crowd who ‘grumbles.’ Or you can stand with Jesus.”

The full list of Catholic Media Association awards can be found here.

In related news, books from the Catholic publisher Fordham Press have won several LGBTQ+ literature awards. Boy with the Bullhorn by Ron Goldberg is “a coming-of-age memoir of life on the front lines of the AIDS crisis with ACT UP New York.” It won the “Gold” Independent Publishing Award for LGBTQ+ Nonfiction (known as an IPPY), the Randy Shilts Award for Gay Nonfiction at the 34th Annual Triangle Awards, and was a finalist in Gay Memoir/Biography for the Lambda Literary Awards (known as the Lammies).

Hijras, Lovers, Brothers by Vaibhav Saria is an ethnography that “recounts two years living with a group of hijras in rural India,” who are a long-recognized, but marginalized third gender or trans community. The book, per the publisher, “reveals not just a group of stigmatized or marginalized others but a way of life composed of laughter, struggles, and desires that trouble how we read queerness, kinship, and the psyche.” It won the 2023 Bernard S. Cohn Prize from the Association of Asian Studies, as well as awards in previous years from, among others, the Association for Queer Anthropology.

Finally, Homo Psyche by Gila Ashtor is a critique of queer theory for being erotophobic, or conforming to “a model of erotic life that is psychologically conservative and narrow.” Ashtor engages queer theorists and psychologists in this highly-theoretical work. The book won the American Studies Association’s Alan Bray Memorial Book Award for LGBTQ+ research, and was a finalist for Lambda Literary Awards’ LGBTQ Studies division.

The awards listed above reveal the growing trend that Catholic publishers are more and more inclined to cover LGBTQ+ topics, both for pastoral contexts and for academic research. And further, mainstream Catholic groups are recognizing these publications as valuable contributions to discourse in the church and in society. Hopefully, these awardees and the many other Catholic LGBTQ+ books recently released will only multiply in the years to come.

—Robert Shine (he/him), New Ways Ministry, July 1, 2023