For Father’s Day: In Memoriam, Deacon Ray Dever

Tomorrow is Father’s Day, and this year, in addition to thinking about my own father, I am also thinking about a father I met through LGBTQ+ ministry who was truly one of the most remarkable people I know. 

Deacon Ray Dever

Deacon Ray Dever, who passed away at the beginning of this year, was a father who contacted New Ways Ministry at the end of 2014. He wanted to know if we were interested in posting an essay he wrote about his family.  He and his wife, Laurie, had three grown children, and one of them was a transgender daughter.  

My mouth was wide open as I read his essay about his family’s journey of understanding the needs and gifts of their trans daughter. My lips then trembled with emotion when I realized the uniqueness of the Dever family’s situation.  

While I have heard the family stories of many, many inspiring Catholic parents of LGBTQ+ people over the years, each one a testimony to the power of love and grace, Deacon Ray’s story, however, was different because he was not only a parent but also an ordained clergy member of the church. While all Catholic parents of LGBTQ+ people are natural bridges between the church and LGBTQ+ people, this deacon’s connection to the institutional structure of the church made him a bridge made with reinforced steel. 

We posted Ray’s story on the Feast of the Holy Family that year with the headline:  “LGBTQ Children in Catholic Families: A Deacon’s View of Holy Family Sunday.” He ended his essay with the following paragraph:

“While I am certainly not qualified or authorized to speak for the Church on LGBTQ issues, I have been commissioned by the Church through ordination to proclaim and to preach the Gospel.  And if one thing is crystal clear in the public ministry and teachings of our Lord, it is that everyone is included in His love and mercy and forgiveness, and that we are all called to do the same.  For those Catholic families with LGBTQ children that are struggling with what they should do, I would suggest that they look to the Holy Family.  Look to the love embodied in the Incarnation, a love like no other, and embrace your children.  As the Church calls us to do first and foremost, follow your conscience, love one another, and especially love your children.”

That post went viral (perhaps more than any other in our 14 years of online publication), and drew the attention of the media, including The Huffington Post, and U.S. Catholic.  The publicity opened up a new ministry beyond parish work for Deacon Ray, as Catholic schools, parishes, and organizations began to invite him to speak with them about welcoming LGBTQ+ people.  Four occasions bear mentioning here. 

Deacon Ray proclaiming the Gospel at the World Meeting of Families, 2018.

Deacon Ray Dever and the Vaticcan’s Cardinal Kevin Farrell

1. When the Vatican’s World Meeting of Families was held in Dublin in 2018, families with LGBTQ+ people were not included as part of the agenda. Deacon Ray had been invited to Ireland by a European LGBTQ+ group to participate in an event designed to highlight the experience of Catholic families like his. Through good fortune, or, rather the Holy Spirit, while in Dublin, he was able to connect with some clergy members attending the World Meeting, and he ended up being invited to serve as the deacon at the event’s closing Mass presided over by Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the Prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Laity and Family Life.  As deacon, Ray proclaimed the Gospel to the thousands of conference attendees from all over the globe. 

2. Deacon Ray was invited to speak about his family’s experiences with theological consultors for the Catholic Health Association.  His comments were included in a booklet the Association produced entitled Transgender Persons, Their Families, and the Church.

3. Similarly when Bishop Thomas Zinkula of the Diocese of Davenport, Iowa, established a committee to prepare guidelines for ministry with transgender people, Deacon Ray was sought out as a consultant because of his unique perspective on the topic.  The Davenport guidelines are noteworthy for being the one positive approach amid a sea of other diocese’s guidelines which have been universally negative. 

4. Deacon Ray’s crowning achievement came in October 2024, just a few months before he passed away, when he and Laurie were part of New Ways Ministry’s delegation of people from the trans and intersex community meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican for a 90-minute discussion with him about their lives, experiences, and faith.  Deacon Ray spoke humbly to the pontiff, but he did not hold back, saying, at one point:

Pope Francis meeting the the New Ways Ministry delegation. From left, Dr. Cynthia Herrick, Laurie Dever, Deacon Ray Dever, Michael Sennett, and Nicole Santamaria

“If I may speak honestly and frankly, I’d like to share two thoughts, based on our years of experience at the intersection of family and church. First, I recognize the concerns of the church with gender theory, but we have learned that there simply is no connection between gender theory and transgender individuals, people who struggle with gender dysphoria as defined by the medical profession, something that clearly is not a personal choice or the result of some ideology. Because of this confusion, transgender people are being excluded from the life of the church in too many dioceses and parishes – they are denied the sacraments, they are not allowed to attend Catholic schools.  I think that is tragic and clearly wrong.  There is a desperate need for the church to talk about, to learn, and to discern the truth about these issues.

“Second, what really has hit me the hardest personally is the stunning lack of compassion within so much of the church for transgender people – people like our daughter, people who are surely created in the image and likeness of God, people all over the world who are dealing with gender identity issues through no fault of their own and who just want to live their lives with the same dignity and respect as anyone else. And I do want to personally thank you for the compassion that you have shown towards transgender individuals.

“It pains me to say this, but right now I think that we as a church are doing more harm than good in our approach to gender theory and transgender individuals. We are doing real damage to these individuals and to the families that love and support them.”

To put it quite simply: Deacon Ray Dever was a prophet.

These major events, however, are not the fullness of who Ray was as a person.  He was an extremely effective advocate for LGBTQ+ people because he was a loving husband, father, friend, and humble clergy person. While his speaking manner was always gentle and respectful, he did not hold back in his content, which was fueled by the double love of both his family and his church. He saw his advocacy as an effort to support both groups.  His life exemplified what is perhaps the greatest fact of Catholic life, and the greatest tool for change in the church on LGBTQ+ issues and many other topics:  relationship is more important than abstract thought.

Deacon Ray is an example for other church leaders about how to negotiate the complexity of church teaching concerning LGBTQ+ people.  His method was simple: Remember that God’s greatest commandment is to love, and love means loving the particular real people you are connected to, not creating abstract formulas which set impossible expectations. 

I was privileged to participate in the Mass of the Resurrection for Deacon Ray, a few months ago, at Sacred Heart Church in Tampa, Florida.  Bishop John Stowe, OFM, Conv., who just last year became Ray’s bishop, presided at the liturgy in a packed church.  A number of the members of the congregation were part of the Open Doors LGBTQ+ ministry at the parish, which Ray participated in regularly.

Whenever someone I know and love passes away, I am filled with so many complex emotions.  As I sort them out, I recognize that the great sadness I feel is not only sadness for the deceased, but sadness for me, because I feel I will not get to enjoy their presence in my life anymore.  I felt that way when I learned that Deacon Ray had died, but then I was soon comforted by being overwhelmed with an immense feeling of gratitude for his life and example.  And I continue to be comforted whenever I ask him in prayer to intercede in heaven for helping to build our Catholic church into a more loving place for LGBTQ+ people.

With such a powerful advocate interceding for us, I know the Catholic LGBTQ+ movement will succeed.

—Francis DeBernardo, New Ways Ministry, June 14, 2025

For all the Bondings 2.0 posts by or about Deacon Ray Dever, click here.