LGBT+ Group Celebrates 50 Years “From Banishment to a Blessing” By Pope Francis

A Catholic LGBTQ+ group in the United Kingdom, once sidelined by church officials, celebrated its fiftieth anniversary last month with a conference which included a message of congratulations from Pope Francis.

Quest, a pastoral support group for LGBT+ Catholics, marked the anniversary with a wekend conference at which Sr. Jeannine Gramick, co-founder of New Ways Ministry, was the keynote speaker. Gramick, who celebrated fifty years in LGBTQ+ ministry in 2021, included a greeting and blessing from the pope who sent his message through her. In recent years, Quest has been supported by a number of English bishops, too.

But Quest was not always welcome in the institutional church. Mark Dowd, a former Quest chair, wrote in The Tablet on how the group went “from banishment to a blessing” in its five decades.

Quest began simply when a young man, Ralph Long, put an ad in the newspaper, asking for gay Catholics to meet together. The first meeting was nine men, but soon more local groups flourished. The groups were often accompanied by supportive clergy, including a key prelate. Dowd explains:

“The group slowly gained the sympathetic ear of Cardinal Basil Hume. In 1992, Hume thought it would be fitting to have Quest formally listed in the Catholic Directory as an ‘approved’ body. Since the 1980s Aids had been ravaging the lives of many and Quest members were not spared. Quest leaders asked the Archbishop of Westminster why the Church’s leaders appeared to be so silent as women and men lay dying on hospital wards. Cardinal Hume later conceded that he and others should have taken a lead in combating the censorious and judgemental utterances that emanated from some Christians.”

However, in 1998, after several years of back and forth, Hume, perhaps with the Vatican’s urging, asked Quest to amend its constitution to affirm provisions about mandated chastity and the church teaching on “objectively disordered.” At Quest’s conference that year, the membership rejected the proposals. Dowd writes:

“Why were gay Catholics being singled out? A debate raged for more than six hours. The two proposed changes were rejected by 70 per cent of members. The Cardinal was not impressed. He was not used to being snubbed. He decreed that Quest be removed from the Catholic Directory. What followed was, in effect, a ‘cold war’. . . It was 2017 before Cardinal Vincent Nichols was to encourage priests to make use of the Quest network as a resource in their ministry.”

Throughout that time, Quest persevered faithfully by providing pastoral care in several forms across the United Kingdom.  Dowd notes that there are parallels between Quest’s struggles with the institutional church and Gramick’s own story. He captured the moment at this year’s conference when Gramick relayed the pope’s message:

“‘Pope Francis and I have exchanged a number of messages in recent years,’ she said. ‘The latest to me said: “I wish you a good trip to England. I beg you to extend my greetings and my blessing to the Quest group. Tell them that I pray for them and ask them to pray for me also.”‘”

Dowd concludes of the history he recounts with a number of current positive events:

“From banishment to a papal blessing. Quest’s founders could never have foreseen the scourge of HIV/Aids, and now the ­challenges surrounding gender identity, trans issues and the desperate plight of LGBT+ ­asylum seekers to these shores. The Church may never win back those who feel rejected by the language of ‘disorder’. Such language continues to alienate young Catholics who see it as a slight on their friends and family ­members. But Quest’s persistence and fidelity is a triumph of the witness of grass-roots storytelling over top-down ‘unchanging truths’ foisted on unwilling subjects. . .

“With its 200 or so members, Quest is hardly a massive numerical force. But it has made a huge difference to thousands of people. And in what its founders would have considered an ‘impossible dream’, it can even say its work is blessed by the occupier of the throne of St Peter.”

To the members of Quest, congratulations! May the next fifty years of ministry be marked by such courage, resilience, and loving care!

—Robert Shine (he/him), New Ways Ministry, August 9, 2023