The Best Catholic LGBTQ+ News Stories of 2024

Yesterday, we posted the “worst” results from our poll about the “Best and Worst Catholic LGBTQ+ News Stories of 2024.  Today, we close out the year with the results from the poll for the “best” stories.

The list below contains the top ten vote-getters from a list of 15 “nominees” in each category. Readers were asked to vote for five from each list.  Each item is followed by the percentage of votes each item received.

We also offered readers the option to suggest their own nominees, and they follow the list.

To see the list of nominees for each list, click here.

Thanks to all of who participated in the poll.  At the end of this post is some opinionated anaylsis of the list, and we invite readers to offer their own insights about the list in the “Comments” section of this post.

THE BEST CATHOLIC LGBTQ+ NEWS STORIES OF 2024

1. The Vatican remains firm on blessing same-gender couples despite criticisms and bans from some quarters of the church. 68%
2. Pope Francis meets for almost 90 minutes with Catholic intersex, transgender, and ally people at the Vatican, arranged by New Ways Ministry. The pope also greets a group of trans women and a group of trans men in St. Peter’s Square on two separate occasions. 51%
3. L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s newspaper, publishes a pro-LGBTQ+ article by Father Timothy Radcliffe, OP, who is named a cardinal later in the year. 44%
4. The Catholic Church in Germany continues to lead the way in developing equality for LGBTQ+ people in the faith community, including establishing a national commission for LGBTQ+ pastoral care and welcoming a nonbinary Catholic co-preach at a national church meeting. 38%
5. More Catholic bishops, including in the Dioceses of San Diego and Trier, apologize to LGBTQ+ people for the church’s mistreatment of them. 37%
6. A vowed hermit ministering in the Diocese of Lexington, Kentucky, reveals that he is transgender and has the approval of his bishop. 36%
7. Pope Francis meets with Clare Byarugaba,an LGBTQ+ activist from Uganda, and during their conversation he once again condemns legalizing discrimination against LGBTQ+ people. 32%
8. A federal judge in Colorado rules that the Catholic diocese cannot discriminate on the basis of sexual/gender identity in a case regarding schools. 29%
9. The Vatican reverses its initial ban against appointing a pro-LGBTQ+ priest-theologian as dean at a theological school in northern Italy. 22% (TIE with #10)
10. The Archdiocese of Atlanta institutes an LGBTQ+ commission “dedicated to better understanding the realities and pastoral needs of LGBTQ+ Catholics.” 22% (TIE with #9)

OTHER ITEMS SUGGESTED BY READERS

1. Outreach 2024 Conference in Washington, DC
2. The official mascot of Jubilee 2025, Luce, has blue hair and pronouns and their friends Xin, Fe and Sky are all queer, feminist, and abolitionist.

SOME ANALYSIS

The more-than-super-majority of votes for the top vote-getter is a sign that mid-December 2023’s Vatican document, Fiducia Supplicans, continued to have a strong influence in 2024. The Vatican’s strong support for the document in face of opposition from bishops in several corners of the globe indicates that blessings continue to become embedded in Catholic life.

Four of the ten items are about initiatives by individual bishops, showing that LGBTQ+ ministry continues to grow locally. Five of the items are actions taken by Pope Francis or the Vatican, a sign that LGBTQ+ issues remain high on the agenda at the church’s global headquarters.

Advances in LGBTQ+ equality in Germany’s Catholic Church continue to grow.  News from Germany made the “Best” list in 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, and 2017, making good Catholic LGBTQ+ news stories from Germany second only to Pope Francis in terms of appearances on the “Best” list.

What are your insights into this list?  Please mention them in the “Comments” section of this post.

Onward to 2025!

—Francis DeBernardo, New Ways Ministry, December 31, 2024