One of Building Catholic Futures’s mottoes is, “Expect gay discipleship!”

Our mission is to equip Catholic institutions to evangelize and catechize gay people of all ages. In other words, we help Catholics find and form gay missionary disciples.

But that can sound very strange to a lot of the people we encounter. Imagine if somebody came to your town saying, “I am the unicorn-feed salesman. I go door to door selling unicorn fodder, and if you spread this in a trough in your backyard, it attracts unicorns.”

This person is a scammer, right? Because there are no unicorns. And sometimes when BCF goes to a diocese, school, or other institution, people marvel at us: The unicorns are in town! But they have absolutely no expectation that there are unicorns in their town, who could come to their backyard if only unicorn fodder were spread.

So there’s a step before equipping Catholics to find and form gay missionary disciples: showing them what gay missionary discipleship looks like. We say, “Look, here are several unicorns. One is right there in your school already! (Or your chancery, or your parish.) Check out the sparkly horn. I bet you have a million questions, and a million things you want to do now with your unicorns. Okay, let’s talk about unicorn attraction and sustainability.”

We’ll be telling you more about how BCF shows people what gay missionary discipleship looks like soon. For now, though, we have a request: If you’re an LGBT/SSA+ Catholic who is seeking to grow in discipleship, and you have an icon corner, bedside table with your Bible and prayerbook, or other area where you pray—send a photo to [email protected]! 

And if you come to this conversation as a parent, priest, or friend of LGBT Catholics, send us an image of the saint or saints who inspire you in this area of your life. We want to share the diversity of holy helpers whom Catholics turn to in this area, and show the ways people make a place in their home for prayer.

And if you’d like to add to your holy-card collection, don’t forget to get a friend to sign up for this newsletter. Everyone who signs up for updates from BCF in the month of February will receive a code for a 20% discount at The Modern Saints.

If you have a saint who has interceded for you before in matters of faith and orientation, please ask that saint to pray for Building Catholic Futures as well! Thank you so much, and know that you’re in our prayers too.