Bishop Budde’s Courage; U of Portland’s Queer Theology; and More News

Here are some items you might find of interest:

Bishop Mariann Budde

1.Katholisch.de reported that U.S. Episcopal Bishop Marianne Budde, who publicly and directly challenged President Donald Trump to be more compassionate in his policies concaerning immigrants and LGBTQ+ people has published a book Being Courageous.  Reflecting on her challenge to the president, which came during an inauguration prayer service at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC., Budde said: “My words were not welcome.” In her book, Budde warned that, given the political situation, courage is not enough. “It’s also about responsibility,” she said, citing Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Protestant theologian and Nazi resistance fighter who was murdered by the Nazis for his opposition to their regime.

2. The University of Portland (Oregon), a Catholic school run by the Congregation of the Holy Cross, recently revamped their two-course theology requirement for all students, reported the campus newspaper The Beacon.  Starting in the next academic year, students will no longer be required to take “Biblical Texts in Global Context.”  Instead, they will be allowed to choose an upper-level elective course, including one entitled “Queer Theologies.”

3. Bishop Shawn McKnight, currently the head of the Jefferson City, Missouri Diocese, has been named by Pope Francis as the new archbishop of the Kansas City in Kansas Archdiocese.  McKnight replaces Archbishop Joseph Naumann, who had a

Archbishop-elect Shawn McKnight

strong anti-LGBTQ+ record, which include supporting health directives by the first Trump administration which would negatively impact transgender people, appearing in promotional materials for a group which promotes “ex-gay conversion therapy,”  and denying Catholic elementary school admission to a young child whose parents are two women in a civil union.

Archbishop-elect McKnight has a curious record on one issue affecting LGBTQ+ people.  In November 2024, he placed a ban on hymns he considered to be “doctrinally incorrect,” including the popular anthem “All Are Welcome,” often sung at Catholic LGBTQ+ events.  However, due to a backlash by grassroots Catholics, McKnight reversed the ban and said decisions about hymns would be made  by a “synodal process of greater consultation.”

Kim Davis

4. Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk who in 2015 refused to issue marriage licenses to same-gender couples is back in court.  She is appealing a lawsuit which direccted her to pay a male couple suing her for such a refusal.  When Pope Francis visited the U.S., Davis was surreptitiously added to a papal reception line to greet the pope (and get a photo-op) by now excommunicated Archbishop Carlo Viganó.  The Advocate reported that Davis’ appeal was about more than just the financial penalty:  “Her lawyer and the group’s founder and chairman, Matthew Staver, said their strategy in the case is a U.S. Supreme Court showdown over Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 decision that legally recognized marriage equality. ‘I have no doubt that Obergefell will be overturned, and the issue will be returned back to the states as it was before 2015,’ Staver said.

After the papal reception line incident, the Vatican issued a statement that Pope Francis was unaware of Kim Davis, and that the meeting was not a personal one, as had initially been reported in the news.  The statement added that, in fact, the only personal meeting Pope Francis had during his U.S. visit was with a former student, Yayo Grassi, a gay man, who brought his partner and their children to the papal meeting.

—Francis DeBernardo, New Ways Ministry, April 1, 2025