National Magazines Feature Work of New Ways Ministry, Part 1

New Ways Ministry was recently featured in two large media outlets, one secular and one Catholic: The Nation and St. Anthony Messenger. 

Today’s post will feature The Nation’s article and tomorrow will feature the one from St. Anthony Messenger.

On October 3, The Nation published a profile written by Amara McEvoy, entitled “The Queer Catholic Group Trying to Reclaim the Church.”

McEvoy noted that as politics become increasingly hostile to the LGBTQ+ community, organizations like New Ways Ministry “are offering something quietly radical: offering a vision of religion not as judgment but as sanctuary.” The article offers a wide-survey of New Ways Ministry’s work over the decades, and its increasing relevance given political and ecclesiastical developments. 

Francis DeBernardo

New Ways Ministry Executive Director Francis DeBernardo explained that despite what are sometimes grim happenings within the Church and civil society regarding LGBTQ+ civil rights and affirmation, “Religion helps people realize their responsibility to other human beings on this planet.” He added that working for equality for LGBTQ+ people is done “not in spite of being Catholic but because of being Catholic.”

He described a bit of how his own religious formation prepared him for the work of New Ways. McEvoy writes:

“Francis DeBernardo has been executive director at New Ways Ministry for over 30 years, starting as a volunteer in 1992. His work includes facilitating programs to educate communities on LGBTQ+ issues and Catholicism in both religions and nonreligious spaces. ‘I was always aware of Catholic social justice groups,’ said DeBernardo. I grew up in a very progressive Catholic environment, so I always knew about New Ways Ministry,’ he said. Catholicism has not always been dominated by a conservative political demographic. DeBernardo came of age at the Diocese of Brooklyn in the early 1970s where there were a great deal of progressive ideas in the Catholic Church generally.”

Bishop John Stowe speaking at New Ways Ministry’s 2017 Symposium

The article also offered some examples of New Ways Ministry’s work:

“Though based in Maryland, the state with the second-largest Catholic population per capita, New Ways Ministry sponsors regular meetings with priests and ministers who serve in parishes outside of the region, including Boston, Chicago, Denver, Tennessee, and Florida. This work consists of educational, spiritual, and pastoral programming, from bonding sessions to retreats. Through this mission, these regions have been able to see progress, with parishes, Catholic schools, and other institutions becoming more friendly to LGBTQ+ people. Conversation and expansion is success.

“In January 2024, New Ways Ministry gathered a group of more than a dozen US bishops for a private meeting at St. Louis University. Attendees listened to trans people and their families, theologians, medical professionals, and those in church ministry. ‘We’ve all encountered pastoral situations related to transgender persons and for the most part felt inadequately prepared to deal with them,’ one of the attendees, Bishop John Stowe of Lexington, Kentucky, told the National Catholic Reporter. ‘And if we would all stop and hear the struggles that individuals went through, we’d realize this is not just an issue of gender theory; it’s people’s lived experience.’”

DeBernardo summed up the organization’s mission in the secular world: 

“The leadership in the Catholic Church and the Catholic bishops in the United States, since at least the mid-’90s had a very conservative bent to them. So what we try to do in our work is to be a credible Catholic voice to support pro-LGBTQ initiatives.”

One way the organization does this is through providing workshops, publications, and other resources to Catholic leaders.  The article described one of the more recent publications in the ministry’s almost 50 years of programming:

“In 2021, the ministry released A Home for All: A Catholic Call for LGBTQ Non-Discrimination, a statement endorsed by over 250 prominent Catholic theologians, clergy, scholars, and writers. It argued that Catholic social teaching calls for support of civil nondiscrimination laws protecting LGBTQ people in areas like housing and employment, framing equality as a moral and faith-based necessity.”

Tomorrow’s post will feature St. Anthony Messenger’s report on New Ways Ministry.

—Jeromiah Taylor, New Ways Ministry, October 13, 2025