Positive and Negative Effects of a Pastoral Approach to LGBTQ+ People

Jade Willaert

Today’s guest post is by Jade Willaert, a doctoral researcher of the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO Vlaanderen) and a member of the Research Unit Pastoral and Empirical Theology at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven, Belgium.  This contribution is based on the results of Jade’s master’s thesis on the experiences of LGBTQ+ people in the Catholic Church of the Flanders region of Belgium, well as their attitudes towards the institution. It is also based on the preliminary results of her ongoing doctoral research on the views of Catholics in Flanders and the Netherlands regarding the Church and LGBTQ+ matters.  More information about her research and links to relevant work can be found at the end of this post. 

In a September interview with Crux, Pope Leo XIV made an explicit statement on LGBTQ+ inclusion for the first time. The Pope affirmed that he considers it “highly unlikely, certainly in the near future, that the church’s doctrine of what the church teaches about sexuality, what the church teaches about marriage [will change].” According to Pope Leo, the Church’s ‘solution’ to the so-called ‘LGBT-issue’ will not come about through changes in doctrine, but through pastoral practice: “Everyone’s invited in, but I don’t invite a person in because they are or are not of any specific identity. I invite a person in because they are a son or daughter of God. You’re all welcome, and let’s get to know one another.”

The Pope’s words reminded me of a conversation I once had with a Belgian bishop about my current research project, in which I explore the views of Catholics in Flanders (Belgium) and the Netherlands regarding LGBTQ+ matters through interviews. He observed, “It is more a question of ecclesiology than of moral theology.” Like Pope Leo, the bishop suggested that the heart of the matter lies not in what the Church thinks or teaches in theory but rather in what she does in practice. 

His comment captures what many LGBTQ+ Catholics and their allies have already been doing intuitively: negotiating the tension between lived experience and Church teaching by strategically bracketing the ethical discourse and focusing instead on the local, pastoral practice. One gay man who participated in my research expressed this clearly:

“What really matters to me is how the local community relates to us. We are part of this community, and I believe that if they ever said we were no longer allowed in the Church because we are gay, a lot of people would rise up to protest. What’s said at the top doesn’t matter to me that much. What matters is the community, how one is received, that is what I find most important.”

The Flemish Pastoral Approach

In Flanders (Belgium), the commitment to a pastoral approach has been taken seriously by the region’s bishops, most notably through the publication of Being Pastorally Close to Gay People. For a Welcoming Church that Excludes No One in 2022. In this document, two concrete initiatives were launched:  1) (inter)diocesan contact points for issues concerning faith and homosexuality and 2) an official liturgy for the ‘celebration’ (or blessing) of same-sex partnerships. 

While this pastoral plan was received by both Flemish and international media as groundbreaking, the Bishops only refer once to the experience of exclusion felt by some same-sex couples. Similarly the Church’s teaching underlying at least partly those exclusionary experiences is also rarely made explicit. That homosexual relationships are not seen as equivalent to a sacramental marriage is mentioned twice, although the acknowledgement that such relationships can be “a source of peace and shared happiness for those involved” is included. The clearest reference to the traditional Catholic standpoint is found in the section Pastoral Care of Encounter:

“Pope Francis calls for people’s conscientious judgment to be valued and supported, even in life situations that do not fully live up to the objective ideal of marriage: ‘Conscience can earnestly and honestly recognise this which is now the generous response one can give to God, and it can see with some certainty that this response is the self-giving that God asks for amid the complexity of concrete constraints, even when the full objective ideal is not achieved’ (AL 303). The encounter with a pastoral leader or counselor is an important link to integration into the community of faith for gay persons or couples.”

While the Bishops reaffirm that an objective ideal exists and that same-sex couples do not qualify for that standard, they do not delve into this tension, but shift the focus to a pastoral question: How can believers in what are called “irregular situations” nevertheless be included in the community? In other words, the ideal remains intact, but the ethical issue is rendered less urgent as it is reframed as a pastoral concern.

Opportunities and challenges

The question that remains is whether a pastoral approach can truly ‘solve’ the so-called ‘LGBT-issue’ if doctrine itself remains untouched. 

On the one hand, the pastoral approach clearly ‘works’. By embracing an inclusive practical ecclesiology, the Flemish bishops have managed to structurally anchor pastoral care for gay and lesbian believers and same-sex couples. This achievement is indeed groundbreaking, and the LGBTQ+-believers and allies I encounter in the context of my research confirm it as  indeed an important step. In this sense, the pastoral approach can be interpreted as a conscious, pragmatic effort, both by the Flemish bishops and individual believers, to ‘do what they can’ or to make the Church, with the means available to them, a more inclusive and welcoming space.

On the other hand, I believe there are some limitations to a strictly pastoral approach to LGBTQ+ inclusion. Doctrine and pastoral practice cannot be this easily separated when it comes to the experience of exclusion. While ‘not feeling at home’ unfolds in the pastoral reality, this experience is most likely influenced by normative claims about identity, sexuality and relationships that determine who fits in. Abstract teachings may have a concrete impact on how believers perceive themselves and others, and on how communities are formed or fractured. Because of this, I wish to draw attention to three challenges related to a strictly pastoral approach.

First, pastoral efforts can come across as contradictory or lacking credibility when the underlying claims remain unchanged. Flemish Catholics reported to me that they struggle with the tension between theory and practice: LGBTQ+ persons are welcomed most of the time in practice, while doctrine continues to label their relationships as “objectively disordered”. A pastoral approach risks reinforcing rather than resolving this contradiction. By formalizing blessings for same-sex couples, for instance, the Flemish bishops may have unintentionally intensified rather than solved the tension between theory and practice: what was condemned in theory is now blessed in practice.

Second, it remains unclear whether a cautious and vaguely formulated pastoral discourse represents a compromise acceptable to as many believers as possible or rather a symptom of the inability or unwillingness of (local) Church leadership to engage with normative theology. In other words, is the pastoral approach an attempt to accommodate to all parties involved or a way to sidestep the more difficult questions? Regardless, the resulting pastoral compromise risks ultimately satisfying no one. For some Flemish Catholics, the pastoral solutions are ‘too little, too late’, because, for instance, the initiatives primarily focus on gay, lesbian and bisexual believers in long-term, monogamous relationships. For others, the initiatives are ‘too far, too fast’, particularly in re-opening the discussion on celebrating or blessing same-sex partnerships.

Finally, a strictly pastoral approach can also affect the community’s capacity for self-critique. Because noticeable progress has already been made at the local, pastoral level, there is a risk that further questions or critical reflections are seen as unnecessary, impatient, or even unreasonable. As a result, a pastoral approach, regardless of its original intentions, may end up slowing rather than stimulating renewal, as the space for reflection and critique gradually and perhaps unintentionally becomes restricted.

Moving forward

The pastoral response proves both workable and incomplete. It should not be rejected, as it offers real possibilities for inclusion and belonging. Without attention to underlying assumptions, however, it cannot fully resolve existing tensions. Acknowledging both its potential and its limitations allows theologians, pastors and believers to remain concerned about what is not yet right, while keeping open the space to imagine what might still be possible.

–Jade Willaert, November 11, 2025

More on Jade’s research:

• My current research project (2024-2028): Research Portal – (De)constructing the ‘Other’. A Qualitative Empirical Study on Views of Catholic Communities and their Members, Migrant Priests and Lay Persons, and LGBTQ+ Individuals Regarding Faith and LGBTQ+ Issues.
• Paper summarizing previous research project (2022-2024): A Variety of Critical Connections: Qualitative Empirical Research in Flanders, Belgium on the Experiences of lgbtq+ Persons in the Roman Catholic Church.