Dignity/Twin Cities Letter to Archbishop Hebda on Synod Summary Failing to Prioritize LGBTQIA+ People

Dear Archbishop Hebda:

The LGBTQIA+ Catholics of Dignity Twin Cities are aware of the major effort that your staff and you made organizing the three-year long Archdiocesan Synod from 2020 through June, 2022. We participated in the Synod process at the parish level where we voiced, in the very limited time given for feedback, the lack of welcome that we experience at official and unofficial levels in the Archdiocese. We are also aware of your special invitation to meet with us on June 23 of this year to be part of this Archdiocese’s response to the USCCB, and the Vatican’s October 2023 Synod on Synodality. On that evening you gave us a generous amount of time, and displayed your talent for effective listening, which we appreciate. We expected that your summary of that meeting that you sent to the USCCB would be made public, and look forward to it being publicly available.

However, we hope that you can do much more than just listen. We hope that you can truly empathize with – and then act to prioritize justice for – the voices of LGBTQIA+ persons damaged by the Church, whose plight you have ignored.

After reading through your letter summarizing the results of the Synod, November 20, 2022, we came away convinced that you listen to us with your eyes wide shut. We are reminded of Jesus’ quote of Isaiah 6:10, (in Matthew 13:14-15), “They have eyes to see but do not see, and ears to hear but do not hear.” In the 57 pages of the letter there is no mention of LGBTQIA+ Catholics, which might be excusable if we did not show up for the Synod sessions, but we did. Our absence from the letter is itself further marginalization of our community in the Church. Your letter makes plain that you are only listening to those who think you are doing a good job. The letter emphasizes your wish to evangelize today’s young people, but that effort will utterly fail unless you include LGBTQIA+ Catholics in every phase of your youth outreach because the word has been out for a very long time, to youth and everyone else, that the Roman Catholic Church is hostile to us.

There are many ways you could demonstrate your willingness to lead on this issue, if you are willing to lead. You could withdraw the “Guiding Principles for Catholic Schools and Religious Education Concerning Human Sexuality and Sexual Identity,” that target our transgender youth. You could publicly emphasize current Archdiocesan guidelines prohibiting harassment of LGBTQIA+ employees and students. You could announce an end to discrimination against Archdiocesan, parish, and school LGBTQIA+ employees who exercise their legal and moral right to marry, as the German bishops have done. You could prescribe timelines for engaging in anti-harassment and anti-discrimination initiatives to protect LGBTQIA+ people who come into contact with, or work for, the Archdiocese, and act as if their lives mattered to you.

Make no mistake, we are LGBTQIA+ Catholics.  We are here.  We are queer. We are not going away. We request another meeting with you to discuss the above topics.

Sincerely,

Brian McNeill, President, Dignity/Twin Cities