In Memory of Rick Garcia: Former New Ways Staff Member Who Became Illinois’ Leading LGBTQ+ Equality Leader

With great sadness, New Ways Ministry reports the passing of one of its earliest staff members, Rick Garcia.  At the same time, we are also filled with deep gratitude for the gift that he was to the LGBTQ+ community, the Catholic Church, and to our bridge-building work for justice.

New Ways Ministry, 1980. Top row: Board members Jack and Janet O’Connor (seated), Staff member Sister Charlotte Doclar, SSND; Middle row: Board member Ann Butchard, Co-Founder Father Robert Nugent, SDS; Bottom row: Staff member Rick Garcia, Co-Founder Sister Jeannine Gramick, (then) SSND.

Rick came to New Ways Ministry soon after the organization was founded in 1977.  He was an idealistic young gay Catholic who was imbued with the spirit of justice and compassion, faithful to the church and committed to those who were oppressed. Sister Jeannine Gramick, New Ways Ministry’s Co-Founder shared this remembrance of him with The Windy City Times, Chicago’s LGBTQ+ newspaper:

“Rick was lively, fun to be with, had good political and PR instincts, and most importantly for our ministry, had a deep love for the Catholic Church. He wanted to help make the Catholic Church a spiritual home for LGBTQ people.”

After leaving New Ways Ministry, Garcia moved to Chicago, where he immediately became involved in LGBTQ+ civil rights issues.  His Catholic background and knowledge was key to his pivotal role in helping to pass the Chicago City Council’s civil rights legislation in 1988. The Windy City Times reported:

“By the time he arrived in Chicago, Garcia had already spent years working at the intersection of faith and LGBTQ+ advocacy through New Ways Ministry, a national organization based near Washington, D.C., focused on LGBTQ+ inclusion within the Catholic Church.

“Rick understood that the ordinance wasn’t stalled because of a lack of votes—it was stalled because of cover,” Williams said. “A lot of aldermen were hiding behind religion, and Rick knew how to take that excuse away.”

“Working through the Gay and Lesbian Town Meeting—a community organization formed specifically to secure passage of the ordinance—Garcia helped organize a coalition that included clergy and Catholic religious leaders, including nuns who were willing to speak publicly in support of the ordinance.

“Garcia would arrange for nuns to meet directly with aldermen who said they couldn’t support the ordinance because of their faith, confronting them with a different religious perspective.”

The New Ways Ministry experience shaped Garcia’s approach in the Chicago campaign. The Chicago Sun-Times’ obituary of him (which was their main front page story) emphasized the role his Catholicism played in his activism:

“Before legislation that included gay rights passed in Chicago in 1988, it faced headwinds from City Council members who were Catholic.

” ‘The response we got almost all the time was, “I can’t vote for this because I’m Catholic,”‘recalled Art [Johnston, a fellow activist], noting the Catholic church’s stance against homosexuality. ‘And Rick was a devout Catholic who’d done a lot of work with Catholic organizations, and his idea was to reach out to the nuns who’d taught the aldermen when they were in school, and the nuns would counter their arguments and say, ‘I’m Catholic, too, and you can vote for it.”

“ ‘Sister Donna Quinn was the main nun who helped on this, she ran Chicago Catholic Women, and they were, in their own way, radical do-gooders,’ Johnston said.

‘Mr. Garcia teamed up with Johnston and activists Laurie Dittman and Jon-Henri Damski to form the so-called Gang of Four that helped push the Chicago ordinance, which had been stalled for years, over the finish line during the administration of the late Mayor Eugene Sawyer.

The Chicago success was just the beginning of his activism career.  Garcia was one of the founders of  the Illinois Federation for Human Rights, which in 2000 was renamed Equality Illinois in 2000, and became the state’s leading LGBTQ+ rights organization. While his Catholicism was the foundation of his activism for justice, Rick’s political skills were instrumental in many of the legislative battles around LGBTQ+ issues in Illinois.  He was a leader in getting a statewide civil rights law passed in 2005. In 1999, he was inducted into Chicago’s LGBT Hall of Fame.  (Click on the links in this post, including “Further reading” below, for more photos and testimonials for Garcia.)

In 2004, Garcia sat in the middle of Washington Strreet, Chicago, to protest Cook County’s policy of not issuing marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples.

GoPride of Chicago also took note of Garcia’s Catholic background as the foundation of his advocacy:

“For Garcia, the struggle for equality was deeply intertwined with his identity as a devout Catholic. He believed in the power of speaking out for reforms within the Church, especially regarding the role of women in ministry and the full acceptance, inclusion, and participation of LGBTQ people. As part of his commitment to these reforms, he worked with Dignity and New Ways Ministry, two national Catholic ministries that advocate for equity and inclusion. He frequently engaged in dialogue about the intersection of faith and God, challenging the Church to reflect a message of radical inclusion and dignity for all.

“This conviction often placed him in direct opposition to the Church hierarchy. Garcia was a frequent and vocal critic and protestor of the conservative archbishop of Chicago, the late Cardinal Francis George. He saw no contradiction between his faith and his advocacy; rather, he saw his activism as a religious imperative, even when it meant publicly challenging the leadership of the institution he loved.”

CBS News gave background of how Rick’s Catholicism and social justice passion developed:

“A native of St. Louis, Garcia told the Chicago Reader in 1996 that he got involved in organizing for the United Farm Workers in Missouri as a young man, but kept his sexual orientation a secret throughout high school and into college.

“But when Garcia attended a speech at City Hall in St. Louis by theology professor Fr. Louis Hanlon in 1976, and Hanlon said something about the ‘sin’ of homosexuality, the devout Catholic Garcia ‘lost it,’ the Reader reported.

“Quoted by the Reader, Garcia said he told the priest: ‘Father Hanlon, you have misrepresented our church today. You need a refresher course in theology. Gay people are entitled to friendship, love, and justice, according to the American Catholic bishops. What you said was neither friendly, loving, or just.’   Television cameras were rolling, the Reader reported.

New Ways Ministry mourns Rick Garcia’s passing, but we continue to be inspired by his passion, his commitment to hard work, and his deep faith.  He is a shining example of how a Catholic sense of justice can help to move mountains of oppression–even during times when the institutional Catholic Church was a big part of the oppression.  He was a true prophet, and we are blessed to have had him be a part of our ministry.

—Francis DeBernardo, New Ways Ministry, June 16, 2026

Further reading:

Chicago Tribune: Rick Garcia, leading Chicago gay rights activist, dies at 69: ‘He was relentless’

Queer Serial: LGBTQ+ American History