DignityUSA Played an Active Part at Vatican Event

Marianne Duddy-Burke

Today’s guest contributor is Marianne Duddy-Burke who serves as  Executive Director, DignityUSA, the world’s oldest organization of Catholics working for justice, equality, and full inclusion of LGBTQIA+ people in our church and society,              

 An earlier reflection on Bondings 2.0  questioned whether LGBTQ+ people and concerns had any visibility during the Vatican’s Jubilee of Synod Teams and Participating Groups held in late October 2025. The author’s information came from his conversations with LGBTQ+ people and others who had yellow badges, which indicated they were at the event representing “participating groups,” with access to a limited range of sessions. The green badges issued to members of diocesan, national, or continental Synod Teams granted admission to all of the Jubilee events. My colleague and I were not part of these conversations with the author, so our experience was not reflected in the earlier piece. In this blog post, I’d like give a fuller picture of LGBTQ+ presence at this Vatican event.

DignityUSA, has made participation in the Synod a priority since its initiation in 2021. Sam Albano, DignityUSA secretary and the author of God’s Works Revealed: Spirituality, Theology, and Social Justice for Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Catholics, has led these efforts, and I partnered with him in providing staff support. When the invitation for organizational representatives to apply to be part of the Jubilee gathering was issued during the summer of 2025, the DignityUSA Board supported Sam and me in applying. We each applied, clearly stating our roles in DignityUSA and using our DignityUSA emails as our contact information. We were stunned and delighted to receive emails from the Synod Secretary’s office in early September, inviting us to participate in the Jubilee. The invitation did note that Synod Team members were prioritized for some of the sessions, and we would need to inquire as to our status when we checked in.

Our organization has offered Listening Sessions for our members and others, submitted three reports to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and to the Synod Secretariat, been in dialogue with Synod Assembly delegates from around the U.S. and other countries, responded to every document issued by the Synod, and has had a presence in Rome during each of the Synod Assemblies. We have worked with other organizations to help educate people about the Synod’s work and to document the hopes, frustrations, dreams, and disappointments of hundreds, if not thousands, or people. 

Pope Leo and church leaders preside over session in Paul VI Audience Hall during the Jubilee of Synodal Teams.

After arriving  in Rome, we collected our badges and registered for workshop sessions. We were asked whether we would also like to participate in the Conversation in the Spirit meetings, and we did. Sam and I were registered for all of the sessions we had selected and assigned to Conversation groups. We had full access to every session of the Jubilee.

As Sam and I walked across Saint Peter’s Square, we happened to encounter Cardinal Mario Grech, General Secretary of the Synod. It seemed to us he knew who we were. We had a brief conversation with him, in which we expressed our commitment to the Synodal process, as well as our joy and gratitude for being able to be present for this gathering. The Cardinal’s gracious response was, “It is not I who welcome you, it is the church.”

What followed were two and a half days of profound interactions with people from around the world who are deeply committed to their faith, our church, and the goals of synodality. Whether in security lines, seats in the large audience hall, Conversation in the Spirit Sessions, or interactive workshops, Sam and I talked with other attendees about the experiences of DignityUSA members, our own stories, and our hopes, and learned about their experiences of church. 

Almost everyone was enthusiastically welcoming. Several people spoke about the LGBTQ+ people in their lives. A few politely smiled and said nothing more, but we never experienced hostility or argument. Some noted how miraculous it was that we could be in the Vatican speaking openly about being married to a partner of the same sex.

We learned about how some diocesan and national Synod Teams were intentional about reaching out to LGBTQ+ people and others at the margins, and what they learned about how the church could better serve these often-alienated communities. People took copies of the DignityUSA Synod reports we had brought with us, or asked for the links on our website. We had deep conversations about the cultural and religious values and customs that impacted the lives of Queer people in many nations. We exchanged many hugs and blessings.

One thing we heard often in the Jubilee gathering, including from Pope Leo and Cardinal Grech, was the mantra “Todos, todos, todos.” Pope Francis’ World Youth Day declaration that our church needs to be a place of welcome for everyone is clearly a driver of ongoing Synod efforts. 

Sam and I were privileged and honored to bear witness to that as representatives of DignityUSA and the broader LGBTQ+ community. We are also deeply aware of the need to engage more LGBTQ+ people in the church at all levels, but we recognize our participation in this event was one very positive step forward.  We feel hopeful that future Synodal work will have even more participation of openly Queer people, and that this process holds significant potential for progress.   

—Marianne Duddy-Burke, DignityUSA, November 15, 2025

Further reading:

On Monday, Bondings 2.0 will present a report about a nonbinary participant at the Vatican’s Jubilee  of Synodal Teams event.

Last week, we published a reflection about the event by Robert Shine, former Managing Editor of Bondings 2.0.