The WORST Catholic LGBTQ+ News Events of 2025

Readers of Bondings 2.0 have voted, and the result is in for the ten BEST and ten WORST Catholic news events of 2025, listed below in descending order.  Today, we provide the results for the WORST events, meaning those that with the most negative impact on Catholic LGBTQ+ equality.  At the end of the list are a few bits of analysis into the results.

Tomorrow, we will post the results for the BEST events.

Thanks to all our readers who made their selections.

The WORST Catholic LGBTQ+ News Events of 2025

1. The U.S. Bishops’ Conference publicly supports the Trump administration’s anti-transgender executive orders.
2. In a Supreme Court case, the U.S. Bishops’ Conference supports constitutional right to practice conversion therapy issues a strongly-restrictive doctrinal note about gender-affirming healthcare.
3. The U.S. Bishops’ Conference adopt a new set of Ethical and Religious Directives which include forbidding any healthcare intervention to aid gender transition (including referring a patient to other medical resources) at Catholic hospitals.
4. A conservative Catholic group invested $4 million dollars to potentially out gay priests based on their private digital data.
5. The Trump administration chooses Brian Burch, the president and co-founder of an ultra-conservative and anti-LGBTQ Catholic website as U.S. ambassador to the Holy See.
6. Pope Francis, whose papacy saw incredible progress on the discussion of LGBTQ+ issues in the Church, dies after a prolonged illness.
7. In an interview, Pope Leo expresses skepticism that church teaching on LGBTQ+ issues will change any time soon.
8. Two African cardinals continue their criticism of Pope Francis’ permission to bless people in same-gender relationships, hoping that Pope Leo may revoke the document, “Fiducia Supplicans,” which established this accommodation.
9. Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith, the archbishop of Colombo, Sri Lanka, criticized the nation’s tourism agency for seeking to promote the nation’s tourist opportunities to LGBTQ+ markets, stating as one of his reasons: “We cannot allow our healthy children to become victims of those with homosexual needs.”
10. Despite the public nature the 25-year civilly-recognized relationship between two high-profile Italian designers who died tragically in a car accident, the priest presiding at their joint funeral avoided referring to the gay men as a couple, instead calling them “friends.”

Two readers suggested other items for this list that were not included in the list of nominees:

1. J.D. Vance’s remarks about transgender people remain unrebuked by his bishop.
2. The negative impact on gay and lesbian teachers that an Australian fake child abuse scan could have.

Perhaps the most glaring trend in these results is the fact that the top three items all involve the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. In fact, 74% of the respondents voted for the number 1 item.  That percentage is one of the highest in our 13 year of conducting this survey, perhaps reflecting not only frustration with the bishops’ conference but also with the Trump administration.

Despite the fact of the growing number of individual LGBTQ-friendly bishops in the U.S., the bishops’ conference as a whole still is dominated by bishops with strong negative views of LGBTQ+ issues.  We hope that in 2026 and beyond, Pope Leo XIV continues to follow Pope Francis’ preference for more pastoral bishops, instead of culture warriors.

Another insight shows s that three of the top five items involve the Trump administration’s anti-LGBTQ+ agenda.  While democratic strategies such as voting are not possible in the church,  in the U.S. political sphere, they can have a great effect.  In 2026, which is a congressional election year, let’s hope that pro-LGBTQ+ Catholics will elect pro-LGBTQ+ governmental representatives, sending the message of Catholic LGBTQ+ support not only to our nation’s political leaders, but also to our Catholic leaders, as well.

What trends and insights do you see in these results?  What items do you think should have been included on this list?Share your ideas in the “Comments” section of this post!

And stay tuned for tomorrow’s post when we will close out 2025 with the BEST Catholic LGBTQ+ news events of the year!

—Francis DeBernardo, New Ways Ministry, December 20, 2025