LGBTQ+ Advocates Gather at Worcester Diocese’s Chancery to Protest Gender Policy

More than 100 people in Massachusetts gathered to oppose one diocese’s new LGBTQ-negative policy for Catholic schools, adding to sustained criticism of the policy, which has even seen Catholic educators rejecting it.

LGBTQ+ advocates rallied outside the Diocese of Worcester’s chancery in late August to decry Bishop Robert McManus’ new guidelines for Catholic schools that, among other restrictions, would force educators to misgender students and lead to potential expulsions for LGBTQ+ students who come out. The Telegram and Gazette reported:

“The Worcester-based Love Your Labels group partnered with the YWCA of Central Massachusetts and MassEquality to organize the rally. . .

“Patricia Kirkpatrick attended the rally with her children who attend Mass and Catholic classes as part of their parish. Kirkpatrick said the new policy, among other decisions made by the church, have pushed her further away from the institution and made her rethink sending her children to classes based around the faith.

“‘To hear someone in a position of power using the Bible, which to me is something rooted in love and mutual respect, as a weapon is intolerable,’ Kirkpatrick said. ‘It’s an ongoing, complicated relationship and job we have as parents, taking our kids to Catholic Mass. I feel very protective of their experience there.’

“Maxfield Nadeau-DaCruz, 20, who uses they/them pronouns, held a sign reading, ‘I am a trans survivor of the Worcester Diocese.'”

Previously, the protests’ organizers launched a petition against the diocesan policy, calling it “a regressive step that has far-reaching consequences” for the 9,000-plus students in local Catholic schools. At the demonstration, Craig Mortley, director of Diversity and Inclusion for the YWCA, added:

“‘Anti-LGBTQ policies can only hurt our community and cause division. . .As an institution, the Catholic Church is telling young queer people who they are is not important. It is bringing us, for lack of a better word, back into the Dark Ages where queer people were not seen and could not live out who they are.'”

In addition to Catholic leaders who have already, rejected the policy, Vincent Rougeau, president of the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, has added his comments, saying that the diocesan policy does not apply to the Jesuit institution. Previously, leaders of Saint John’s High School and Notre Dame Academy, as well was the religious congregations that sponsor them, respectively the Xaverian Brothers and Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, said that those schools would not be adopting the policy.

Yvonne Abraham, a columnist for The Boston Globe, once again criticized Bishop McManus, having previously condemned his harsh treatment of the Nativity School of Worcester. Last year, McManus withdrew the school’s Catholic affiliation because administrators refused to stop flying Pride and Black Lives Matter flags. His record of LGBTQ-negative statements and actions, available more fully here, is extensive.

Most recently, Abraham chastises McManus for his “particular fixation” with gender, yet recognizes he is but one among many trans-negative bishops in the U.S. She cites the research of David Palmieri to show this interconnection, as he did in a post for Bondings 2.0 which links the Worcester policy with the diocese of Little Rock, Arkansas and others. Abraham opined:

“In 25 years at Xaverian, Palmieri said he had not knowingly encountered a student who did so, and in conducting research for his dissertation, he has struggled to find transgender students in Catholic schools. But, as the Republican crusade against trans rights has shown, actual facts aren’t as important as the political points gained by conjuring the specter of some terrifying trans invasion.

“Still, to impose such a hard line in Catholic schools, of all places, seems particularly unjust. For many decades, those schools have offered an education to all who need it, ‘especially the weakest,’’ according to official Vatican policy. That includes students of other faiths, and of no faith at all.”

Abraham also quoted DignityUSA’s executive director, Marianne Duddy-Burke, and asked both her and Palmieri why an LGBTQ+ student or their family would want to attend Catholic schools. They replied:

“‘The bishops in this country are 400 people, and Catholics are about 26 million people,’’ [Duddy-Burke] said. ‘The church lives in the people.’’

“People who continue to belong to a church whose officials exclude them ‘realize there is still something good and beautiful about the Catholic faith, and so they want to stay,’ Palmieri said. ‘But it makes it awfully hard.’

“Perhaps theirs is the strongest faith of all.”

—Robert Shine (he/him), New Ways Ministry, September 12, 2023