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All Saints Parish Catholic Church, tucked between Syracuse University’s north and south campuses, has a sign reading “All Are Welcome” on the front face of the building.

The signs don’t stop there. “Black Lives Matter,” “If Not Now, When?” and “Immigrants and Refugees are Welcome Here” banners all hang in front of the pews. The regular mass churchgoers sing together about diversity, compassion and LGBTQ acceptance. The pastor’s stole – a traditional part of a pastor’s uniform that wraps around the neck – is colored rainbow.

During the church’s 9/11 special mass on Sunday, All Saints honored the national Catholic outreach program New Ways Ministry with the All Saints Parish F. Mychal Judge Memorial Award. The Virginia-based ministry, which started in 1977, advocates for justice and reconciliation for the LGBTQ community by organizing retreats and developing diversity policies and programs for Catholic schools and hosting workshops about diversity in the Catholic Church.

The award is given annually to a group or individual in the United States who advocates for the LGBTQ community within the Catholic church. It was named after Mychal Judge, a gay minister who preached for the All Saints Parish Church and was the first of the first responders killed in the 9/11 attacks. Judge worked as a minister within the New York City Fire Department.

“Once we learned about New Ways Ministry, they were obviously going to be our choice for this year,” said Jennifer Catney, co-chair of All Saints’s LGBTQ task force.

Francis DeBernardo, New Ways Ministry’s executive director, said the discriminatory roots of the faith community offer a platform to start accepting LGBTQ people.

“Religious institutions are among those who are most responsible for anti-LGBTQ sentiment in history,” he said. “That’s contrary to the gospel and to the Catholic Church’s teaching that everyone has human dignity.”

At the mass, speakers DeBernardo and NYC Fire Department Lieutenant David Fuller discussed how Judge grew up in the Catholic church. He was known for his service to the homeless, those living with HIV/AIDS, people with addictions and the overall LGBTQ community. The speakers said Judge himself recovered from alcoholism and grappled with self-acceptance as a member of the LGBTQ community.

“He managed to come out on the right side of struggles with his sexuality and alcohol abuse, and do that in a church that doesn’t have the highest regard for LGBTQ people,” said Jeff Wright, a member of All Saints Parish’s LGBTQ task force. “And he did it with a smile on his face.”

At the mass, the church projected an image of Judge laughing in his NYC Fire Department gear. Fuller spoke about his close friendship with Judge, and the guidance Judge gave to other responders, during the ceremony.

“He just had, the only way to describe it, was love,” Fuller said.

DeBernardo said he began working for New Ways Ministry because of the intersection of his Catholic religion and passion for social justice. DeBernardo realized LGBTQ issues were within social justice in the 1990s, when friends of his within the LGBTQ community were ostracized by their families, faced job discrimination and were excluded by the Catholic Church because of their sexual identity.

The HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1990s also opened DeBernardo’s eyes to LGBTQ inequality, he said. Throughout the 1980s, over 100,000 people in the United States died of AIDS. The disease has disproportionately impacted queer men, making up 59% of the deaths in the 1980s, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

DeBernardo has devoted the past 30 years to welcoming the LGBTQ community into the Catholic Church through making connections with individual parishes and schools.

Bill Tenity, the longest-standing member of All Saints Parish’s task force, said this strategy is impactful because many individual parishes want to increase inclusiveness and diversity in their practices.

“More parishes are becoming more accepting. The official churches aren’t, but the parishes are,” Tenity said. “I know that a lot of young, gay Catholic people are turned off by the church because of the stance on LGBTQ issues.”

Catney, who has also worked for inclusiveness in the Catholic Church for years, said she hopes that younger people in the LGBTQ community will become more aware of Catholic churches that are welcoming. She said New Ways Ministry is a great example of a group coming together to achieve that goal.

“Yes, you can be be gay and Catholic,” Catney said. “I believe a lot of us growing up in the Catholic church felt like not everyone was welcome here, and we’re working really hard to change that from the inside.”

Published on September 14, 2022 at 12:32 am