Diocese of Davenport’s New LGBTQ+ Guidelines Model Synodality in Action

The Diocese of Davenport’s new guidelines on LGBTQ+ pastoral care, issued by Bishop Thomas Zinkula, are “strikingly positive,” and could possibly “shift the trend of transgender-negative diocesan policies in the U.S.,” contends Robert Shine, associate director of New Ways Ministry.

In a column for the National Catholic Reporter, Shine highlighted three of the guidelines “most notable aspects”: a “primary purpose of acceptance and welcome,” a “primary lens of social justice,” and a “primary method of consultation and collaboration.” These aspects are different than previous diocesan gender policies.

To the first aspect, the focus on acceptance, Shine writes:

“Most often, diocesan gender policies have been framed as a necessary defense of Catholic teaching and identity, set against society’s evolving understandings of gender and widening acceptance of transgender and nonbinary people. The Davenport guidelines, however, explicitly name a ‘pastorally sensitive, practical, and faithful’ response to LGBTQ+ people as their purpose.

“These guidelines rightly name that loving a person is far more important than defending church teaching. The document states, ‘We are not dealing simply with ideologies or issues but with people who are created in the image and likeness of the Creator.'”

About the second aspect, a focus on social justice, Shine notes human dignity is the starting point for the guidelines and LGBTQ+ pastoral care generally, a contrast to diocesan policies that focused on sexual and gender ethics. He writes:

“The Davenport guidelines are honest that failing to put social justice principles, like human dignity, first, the Christian mandate to love is lost. The guidelines’ own call to love ‘may seem overly simple,’ yet ‘in practice this is often neglected.’

“Leading with social justice values allows the church to love LGBTQ+ people in meaningful ways, like protecting them from discrimination and ensuring good pastoral care is provided. And this must happen even when ‘we may not always perfectly understand the people to whom we minister, or even agree with all of their viewpoints.'”

The third aspect, which Shine describes as “most significant,” is about the communal process by which the guidelines were developed and which they propose as the framework for LGBTQ+ pastoral care. The guidelines emphasize listening and giving LGBTQ+ people “the benefit of the doubt,” rather than treating them as a threat. Shine adds:

“This insistence on consultation also challenges church leaders and pastoral ministers to examine their biases, which might ‘put conditions on our love.’ Two of the document’s concluding questions are: ‘What are your biases or blind spots?’ and ‘Who else should be consulted to help build understanding?’ Wide consultation and collaboration are fundamental.

“Such a process led the Davenport committee to release guidelines, not answers. They outline principles, not policies, repeatedly emphasizing that LGBTQ+ pastoral care, particularly around gender identity, must be focused on individuals with a case-by-case approach. It is that point that gives me hope for a broader impact.”

Shine concludes with his hopes for the Davenport guidelines to have a broader impact in the U.S., where diocesan gender policies have failed to listen and consult “leading to untold amounts of frustration, suffering and harm.” He ties together the Iowa diocese’s work with events in Rome, where he is covering the Synod on Synodality for Bondings 2.0:

“What would it mean for more U.S. dioceses to respond similarly? . . .What if dioceses trusted pastoral ministers, educators, and parents and allowed them latitude to figure out what is best in and possible for a transgender child or lesbian parishioner? . . .

“[In Rome,] much of the discussions thus far are abstract — synodality is something to which the church aspires, toward which we are still working to understand. Yet, synodality has been realized in Davenport—and on a most controversial matter.

“The new guidelines are proof that a synodal church of encounter and dialogue can yield tremendous gains for LGBTQ+ people and their families.”

—Francis DeBernardo, New Ways Ministry, October 16, 2023