A Path Forward for Helping LGBTQ+ Students in Catholic Schools

David Palmieri is a Catholic educator and founder of Without Exception, an international network supporting the accompaniment of LGBTQ+ students in Catholic schools. He holds a Doctor of Ministry degree from The Catholic University of America, and received the National Catholic Educational Association’s Lead. Learn. Proclaim. Award in 2022 for distinguished service in Catholic education. 

In the spring of 2021, I sat with Matt, a gay high school student who asked to meet with me. Leading up to this conversation, Matt gave me a document titled “Struggles,” in which he listed a number of internal and external challenges he was experiencing related to his sexuality. During our conversation, Matt lamented that he was struggling to find self-worth and self-respect.

When I asked him why, he spoke the unthinkable: “Because I tried to kill myself.”

His words shook me like the sound of shattering glass. They changed my life.

That moment intersected with the beginning of my doctoral studies at The Catholic University of America, and it gave rise to my central research question: What are Catholic schools doing to support LGBTQ+ students? After my first semester of research and writing, I concluded that it’s a desert landscape out there—like Ezekiel’s Valley of Dry Bones (Ez 37:1–14), barren but not hopeless. 

What I continue to discover is that Catholic schools approach LGBTQ+ matters with concerns over doctrinal purity, financial security, and public perception—all of which add stress to the fragile infrastructure of these institutions. These factors make school and church leaders wary of showing any support for the LGBTQ+ community, and this silence leaves a gap between student vulnerability and the capacity of Catholic educators to respond with competence and care.

Searching for a way to close this gap led me to establish Without Exception*—a network of professionals discerning how to accompany LGBTQ+ students in Catholic schools. I also found mentorship from Dr. Caitlin Ryan of the Family Acceptance Project. The convergence of our work became the fertile ground from which my dissertation emerged. I successfully presented and published my project, “A Pastoral Framework to Decrease Risk and Increase Support for Sexual and Gender Minority Students in Catholic High Schools,” this spring (an executive summary is available here).

It is impossible in this space to capture five years of networking, researching, and writing, but I would like to share the goals of my work, the pastoral outcomes that emerged, and what I believe is needed for our church to move forward.

The goals of my project were threefold: to address attitudes by using social science evidence to deepen an understanding of the experiences and needs of LGBTQ+ young persons, to address beliefs by demonstrating that the foundations of Catholic teaching can be meaningfully integrated with evidence-based support for our most at-risk students, and to address behaviors by building pastoral competence so that adults can respond in ways that are both protective and promote hopeful futures. 

With these goals in place, the overall vision of my project was supported by the synodal principle expressed in the Instrumentum Laboris (working document) for the 2023 Assembly of the Synod on Synodality: we can “manage tensions without being crushed by them.” 

From this scaffold, three key insights emerged. First, we must learn how to center relationships and build connectedness as the foundation for decreasing risk and increasing support for LGBTQ+ young persons. Simply put, “support” means staying close to someone, closing the gap between need and response. Research consistently shows that a sense of belonging substantially reduces risks such as depression, substance abuse, absenteeism, homelessness, and suicide. 

Second, this work will not gain broader support within the Catholic community unless it is grounded in the fundamental principles of our faith. Achieving this rootedness requires more than wrestling with the moral teachings of the Church. It calls us to draw from the central mysteries of our Creed (the Trinity, Incarnation, Passion, and Resurrection) and hold them in dialogue with the pillars of Catholic social teaching, including human dignity, stewardship, solidarity, and the option for the poor and vulnerable. This integrated tradition—intellectual and social—must be brought into dialogue with the wider ecosystem of care that includes families, schools, and parishes.

Third, if we are to inspire hopeful futures for LGBTQ+ young persons, then we cannot treat families, schools, and parishes as isolated systems of care. They are deeply interdependent and require partnerships that nurture co-responsibility for education and formation. When parents don’t trust schools, or schools don’t trust parishes, then these primary institutions of human development fail to collaborate in ways that promote the physical, psychological, and spiritual well-being of children.

Where we go from here is simple but not easy. I suggest adopting a mindset of gradualism, an approach to human development that emphasizes process over perfection. We need to promote patience and concrete steps that lead us forward rather than rushing ahead without careful discernment. Disagreements will persist, even at the highest levels of church leadership, about how best to minister to LGBTQ+ persons. There is no one-size-fits-all approach, and we must respect the thresholds present in each community. But “slow is sustainable,” as a friend reminds me. 

To move forward, I propose four strategies for the continued development of LGBTQ+ ministry. These strategies will require shared effort across the entire church.

First, we must advance the research and data on LGBTQ+ students in Catholic schools. Significant obstacles to this work remain, but without this data there is no empirical foundation, and responses are shaped more by opinions and competing narratives than by the evidence.

Second, we must re-envision systems of care as shared responsibilities among Catholic families, schools, and parishes. Families must be centered as the primary educators of their children, but “it takes a village,” and no one is fully equipped for this vocation without the support of others.

Third, in addition to encouraging schools and parishes to be openly supportive of LGBTQ+ persons, we must continue to sustain this work in the private forum. “Private” does not mean “secret”; it means this ministry is more effective when the pressures of negative publicity and social media are absent. This work has more room to grow when everybody, especially bishops and administrators, can trust the goodwill and discretion of those involved.

Fourth, in the spirit of Pope Francis’ teaching that “realities are greater than ideas,” we must elevate the art of storytelling. We can no longer make policy decisions without listening to the voices of those who are most affected—namely, LGBTQ+ persons and their families. Allowing someone to share their own story is a simple act of human decency. It also promotes growth in synodality, which is a pastoral priority of Pope Leo XIV.

There is no doubt that a new era of church history is emerging. The Second Vatican Council, the New Evangelization, and the ongoing call for synodality point toward a new age of pastoral imagination. As the 2023 Synod Synthesis Report shared, “Church teaching already provides a sense of direction on many of these matters, but this teaching evidently still requires translation into pastoral practice.” 

With that guidance in mind, I believe the most important question we can ask in pastoral ministry is one based on the model of Jesus himself. It is a question that springs forth from the heart of the Good Samaritan. Not “What should I do?” or “What should I say,” but rather:

“How is God calling me to be present to another person’s life?”

—David Palmieri, D. Min., June 1, 2026

*If you would like to join the Without Exception mailing list or to be in touch with author David Palmieri, please email him at: [email protected]

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