Creating Space for LGBTQ+ Students in Catholic Classrooms

Professor Anna Lannstrom

This week is Catholic Schools Week in the U.S., a time to reflect on the values and achievements of Catholic educational institutions.  Bondings 2.0 invited guest contributor Anna Lannstrom to describe how she approaches LGBTQ+ issues in her Catholic college classroom. Dr. Lannstrom is a professor of philosophy and department chair at Stonehill College, Massachusetts, a Catholic institution guided by the Congregation of Holy Cross.

This essay is based on “Opening the door: Making it possible for students to remain Catholic while staying true to themselves,” co-written with Jessika Crockett-Murphy as a chapter in Beneath the Rage and Tumult: Promoting Radical Hospitality and Belonging in College Classrooms, edited by Karen Eifler and Rachel Wheeler. Liturgical Press, 2025.

When one of my students was an altar boy, his priest handed him a brochure about conversion therapy and told him to try it.  Another student was told that his gay uncle would go to hell.  The family of a third was asked to leave their church because it was led by two moms.

Most of my students’ stories about their experiences in church aren’t quite that bad.  Many are wonderful and heartwarming.  But over my 20 years at a small Catholic college in the northeast U.S,, I’ve heard too many painful stories about my students’ experiences with the Church.  Most center on LGBTQ issues.  Over and over again, students tell me about being insulted, rejected, and excluded by people who claim to be speaking for the Church and for God.  They tell me that the Church hates gay people and they tell me that they are done with the Church and religion.

I don’t blame them.

But at the same time, their views of the Church and of religion are often muddled and simplistic.  So how do we handle all that in courses like the required Catholic Intellectual Tradition course I teach regularly?  How do we provide a safe space for these students to discuss their anger at the Church while also correcting their misunderstandings about church teachings? How do we talk about the ways in which they are right, the ways in which the Church has failed to treat all of us as fully made in God’s image?  And what spiritual guidance (if any) do we give?

After struggling through a massive bout of impostor syndrome (since I’m neither a Catholic nor a theologian!), I realized that my outsider status is actually an advantage. It helps me create space for an honest dialogue about religion, the Church, and my students’ experiences, and to at least get a start on those hard questions.

I start by making space for their stories.  I begin the course by telling them that I’m not Catholic and that I have no interest in making them more or less Catholic.  I tell them that I disagree with Church’s positions on LGBTQ issues and that I have feminist objections to the Church on the usual issues.  I also talk about what I admire about Catholicism, the logic and intellectual rigor exhibited in the Catholic intellectual tradition, the 2000 years of applying reason to religion, and the brilliant theologians and philosophers wrestling with difficult questions, arguing with each other and with non-Catholics.  I explain that we are going to be part of that conversation and I give them permission to reject every single Catholic teaching, as long as they think them through carefully first.

And then I ask: What are your experiences with religion and Catholicism so far? What do you like, and what troubles you?  Then I step back and I listen carefully.

I listen, empathize, and ask follow-up questions, usually for a full class period and sometimes more.  I thank them for their stories, and I express compassion, sadness and outrage for what they have been through.  And I point out that the people who have been in a position of religious authority in their lives may not know as much theology as one might wish and that as a result, they may have misrepresented the diversity of views and complexity of theology available in the Church.

And slowly I began correcting some of the misunderstandings, explaining what the Church is and is not teaching.  Many of my students start the course believing that the Church hates gay people.  To correct that, we read the Catechism’s discussion on homosexuality as well as the infamous Old Testament passages.  We talk about how to read the Bible, about translation from ancient languages and about considering the historical context.  We note that there are deep disagreements within the Church on key issues. 

We read selections from James Martin, S.J., Building a Bridge.  We read Fr. Bryan Massingale, discussion of his experiences as a gay and black Catholic priest.  I explain that I know many thoughtful LGBTQ Catholics, some of them priests, who remain in the Church despite their strong objections to its teachings on homosexuality.  I note that I’m not quite sure how they do it but that they somehow make it work.  And I make the point explicit: “There is space for you in the Church too, if you want to be there. If one place or person isn’t welcoming, try another.  But don’t leave because you think there is no place for you because that is not true.”

Most of my students retain whatever position they had when they entered the class: atheist, Catholic, former Catholic ,or something else.  But I hope that by starting from the students’ experiences and taking them seriously in this way, I can clear up some of their misunderstandings and, more importantly, I can help inoculate them against those who consider them ‘lesser than’, showing them ways in which they can, if they desire, stay in or join the Church, flourish there, and perhaps help create a better environment for others.

—Anna Lannstrom, January 26, 2026

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