From Darkness to Light: Jesus Moves to the Margins
Fr. Gregory Greiten
Today’s reflection post is from Fr. Gregory Greiten, Pastor of Queen of Apostles Parish in Pewaukee, Wisconsin. He came out publicly as a gay Catholic priest in December 2017. You can read accounts of that experience here and here.
Today’s liturgical readings for the Third Sunday of Ordinary Time can be found here.
This Sunday’s Gospel passage presents us with a Jesus who makes a deliberate, provocative choice. After hearing that John the Baptist has been arrested, after witnessing what happens to prophets who speak truth to power, Jesus doesn’t retreat to safety. He doesn’t return to Nazareth, his hometown, where he might lay low and avoid attention.
Instead, he moves directly toward danger. He goes to Galilee and settles in Capernaum, what Matthew pointedly calls “Galilee of the Gentiles.” This is the despised region, the marginalized territory, as far from the religious establishment in Jerusalem as one could get while still being in Israel.
Why Galilee? Matthew tells us this fulfills Isaiah’s ancient prophecy: “Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, the way to the sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—the people who sit in darkness have seen a great light.”
Jesus doesn’t go to the center of religious power. He goes to the margins. He goes to where the people who walk in darkness are. He goes to those the establishment has rejected, dismissed, forgotten. This isn’t incidental to Jesus’s mission—this IS his mission. The light breaks through not at the center, but at the margins.
For LGBTQ Catholics, this pattern should sound painfully familiar. We know what it means to be pushed to the margins, to walk in darkness wondering if there’s any place for us in the church we love. We know what it means to hear that we are “intrinsically disordered,” to watch our families leave in heartbreak, to contemplate suicide because the institution tells us we cannot be both authentically Catholic and authentically ourselves.
The institutional church has systematically pushed LGBTQ Catholics to the margins and then acted surprised when we suffer there or leave entirely. In today’s second liturgical reading, Paul asks the fractured community at Corinth a piercing question: “Is Christ divided?” The answer, of course, is no. But the church HAS divided Christ’s body by this ongoing rejection.
Yet if we take today’s Gospel seriously, we discover something that much of the institutional church seems to have forgotten: Jesus is already at the margins. He chose to be there. The question isn’t whether Jesus accepts LGBTQ Catholics—the question is whether the institutional church will follow Jesus to where he actually is.
“The people of Capernaum bringing Jesus many to heal” by William Brassey Hole
Jesus knew what moving to Galilee meant. John the Baptist’s arrest proved the danger of prophetic witness. But Jesus moved toward the margins anyway. And when he arrived at the Sea of Galilee, he called disciples to “Follow me.”
What happens when someone actually follows Jesus to the margins? What happens when someone refuses to stay at the center of institutional power and instead moves toward those who walk in darkness?
In November 1989, I sat straddling a fifth-floor window for three hours, unable to reconcile being gay with being Catholic, unable to imagine a future where both could coexist. A friend, a professor of biblical theology and a deeply faithful, gay Catholic, looked at me with compassion and said something I couldn’t begin to believe: “Greg, you will come to a day when you will be happy and proud to be gay.”
That seed grew in darkness for twenty-eight years through seminary formation, ordination, and priestly ministry. Through dissociation and compartmentalization, through burnout and healing, through slow integration of the fragmented pieces of my life.
On December 16, 2017, I broke the silence and walked out of the closet. I refused to walk any longer in darkness and silence. I chose instead to live my life in the light. The institutional response: silence from church leadership, forced resignation of someone who supported me, whispered accusations of “gay agenda.”
But something else happened too—something that revealed where Jesus actually is.
A few days later, my phone rang. An unfamiliar number from another diocese. A voice, shaky and fragile: “Father Greiten? This is Father [M]. I’m ninety years old. I’ve been a priest for sixty-five years. I just read your coming out article in the National Catholic Reporter. I wanted to thank you.”
“Thank me for what, Father?”
“For saying what I never could.” His voice broke. “I’ve lived my entire life in the closet. Sixty-five years as a priest, and I never told anyone. I couldn’t. Back then, it would have meant the end of everything. People have had to live in darkness and secrecy for far too long. I’m so happy to see somebody willing to bring this into the light.”
We talked together. He spoke of the reality he’d witnessed over six decades: good priests, holy priests, who had to live and die in hiding. The fear they carried. The loneliness they endured. Never able to be fully honest, never able to live in their truth. Before he hung up, he said, “I don’t have many years left. But you’ve given me a gift. Your being truthful has let me know I wasn’t alone all those years. Perhaps a new day is dawning. Perhaps others can come forth and live in their truth and be set free.”
Sixty-five years in darkness.
This is what happens when someone moves to the margins where Jesus is: Isaiah’s prophecy gets fulfilled. The people who walked in darkness see a great light (Isaiah 9:2). Not just one person, but hundreds who reached out from around the world. Parents who’d left the church but felt hope stirring again. Young people reconsidering suicide. All those who’d been told there was no place for them, who suddenly glimpsed light breaking through at the margins.
The light didn’t break through at the center of institutional power. It broke through at the margins, exactly where Jesus said it would.
Where is Jesus today? He’s at the margins. With the ninety-year-old priest who lived sixty-five years in hiding. With the teenager contemplating suicide. With every LGBTQ Catholic who’s been told they’re not welcome, not acceptable as God created them.
The seed planted in darkness in 1989 is still spreading. The light is still breaking through at the margins, not at the center of institutional power. And Jesus is still calling: “Follow me.”
Will we follow him to where he actually is? Will we move toward the margins, toward those who walk in darkness, toward the people the establishment has rejected? Or will we stay at the center and miss where Jesus is doing his most important work?
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. And that light is still breaking through—one life, one phone call, one act of courage at a time.
–Fr. Gregory Greiten, January 25, 2026
Fr. Gregory Greiten is
Thank you, Fr Greg! I find I have a much better perspective from the margins- especially today!
A beautiful reflection! May we be willing to follow Jesus to the margins, without fear.
Thank you, Fr Greg, for bringing us all closer to the light. When I started to share my life with a loving monk at an Iowa monastery back in 1974, we began a series of discussions in private at the monastery which gave me my life back. I would not have survived otherwise. The Brother there wisely advised me how he wished that these late-night discussions could have been recorded for future generations. He often mentioned to me that the material which we were freely sharing was at least 50 years ahead of our time. Unfortunately, those discussions could never be recorded as we both could have lost everything if discussions like this had come out publicly. Fear ruled. He died with other Brothers in the same house, but quite alone never able to share further what we discussed with anyone else at the time. Life has miraculously taken me into the 21st century where now I can work with willing men openly in California and make some difference. The same fear that we experienced still affects many now who have not had the invitation to step forth from darkness. These interactions still remain quite private one on one. Depending on Location and depending on the time period in History largely determines whether it is possible to accompany Jesus safely into the light. Oh, the horror of remaining in the center. I love what Fr. Greg concluded in his sharing: “And that light is still breaking through—one life, one phone call, one act of courage at a time”. Thank you, Fr. Greg for your supreme act of courage in 2017.
Thank you for your courageous and prophetic voice. What a moving and inspirational testimony. My wife and I hold you up in our prayers.
Thank you Fr. Greg for your courage and prophetic stance! I saved your reflection and read it several times. My husband Jerry and I are grateful for you as priest and as a brother in our LGBTQ+ community. I shared our story with you when you first came out to your parish. I was a priest and have always been grateful for those in my family, many of our friends, and yes, even some of the priests who embraced me and my husband. The Catholic Church still cannot acknowledge who we are, accept our faithful relationship, or that we adopted four at risk children. Thank you again for your witness and support! You know you are created in the image of God and reflect God’s love! Frank and Jerry