Catholic Mother of Queer Child Finds Hope in Maryknoll Priest’s Inclusive Work

The Catholic mother of an LGBTQ+ child has written about a missionary priest who has given her hope for a truly inclusive church.

In U.S. Catholic, Jane McCafferty recounts  her complicated experience in the church, identifying herself as “a cradle Catholic who tries to hold on to her religion despite its rigidity.” She explains:

“Despite its bigoted stance regarding the LGBTQ community and their human rights. Despite being a mother of queer kids. Somehow I hang on. The religion is in my bones, is my home, is my ancestry. Even as I often feel kicked out, I can’t kick it out of my blood. My father’s cousin was a priest who marched with Martin Luther King Jr. My parents both taught in Catholic schools, and I attended them for 12 years. None of my friends from those years are practicing Catholics, and while my practice is erratic, they don’t understand why I hang on as I do.”

Though these difficulties persist, McCafferty finds hope in her experience with Maryknoll priest Padre Juancho and his dedication to ministry in Latin America with those on the margins, including LGBTQ+ people.

Padre Juancho, born Kenny Moody and from New Jersey, was raised in a Irish Catholic family and culture that warned physical affection could make a son gay. In the years since, he has served in Bolivia, Venezuela, and the Mexico/U.S. borderlands. According to McCaffert, at the heart of Juancho’ ministry is dedication to “working with and for poor people” and those on the margins of society—and living on solidarity with them in poor conditions and at personal risk. 

The priest’s commitment extends to his outreach to the LGBTQ+ community. His witness had a profound impact on the author when she visited him in Bolivia. She writes, in part:

“I am exuberant and shocked when he tells me he wants to start a 12-step program for homophobia. He talks about how necessary it is, how we have to start somewhere. I can’t wait to tell my kids—one has worked tirelessly on behalf of prisoners, the other created an excellent antiracism program in Minnesota. Neither of them identify as Catholic. Catholicism, in their generation, has become synonymous with homophobia and misogyny. They’ve heard my speeches about Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton. They’ve heard me speak of the soulful vulnerability and love of Henri Nouwen. But I’ve rarely been able to tell them about knowing a priest whose values might align with theirs, a priest who imagines Jesus as someone who would object to the exclusion of anyone.”

For Padre Juancho, it all comes down to “radical dependency on God.” He is not alone in his life, he says, though he lives with no human partner. “God said I do have a partner, and the partner is God. God makes me weep with joy almost every morning.”

In her essay, McCafferty calls to mind familiar figures deemed prophets: Day, Merton, and Nouwen. But we cannot and should not ignore those less-prominent, still-prophetic voices which envision a different way of being church, a way following Christ’s example of radical welcome, mercy, and inclusion. Countless individuals, both those who are household names and our neighbors beside us in the pew on Sunday, live out this inclusive way of church. Telling the stories of these people is vital to remembering the reality of the church to which we belong. For McCafferty, the witness of Padre Juancho is one such story that helps sustain her as a Catholic and mother of a queer child. 

Hopefully, we can all call to mind an individual we know—our parish priest, campus minister, spiritual director, teacher, or neighbor—who is like Padre Juancho: dedicated to service, prayer, and a church that is home for all. Catholicism is more than the popular image, good or bad. In figures like Padre Juancho we see, as McCafferty says, “this too is Catholicism.”

—Phoebe Carstens (they/them) and Robert Shine (he/him), New Ways Ministry, February 23, 2024