A child’s experience of Catholicism can transform the life of the whole family.

That’s what we saw in the canonization of St. Carlo Acutis earlier this month. The Acutis family wasn’t especially devout—until their son began to practice his faith with fervor. His mother, Antonia, said, “If in the case of St. Therese of Lisieux, her parents were the great educators[,] in the case of Carlo, the roles were reversed. He was my little savior, and above all he was my great educator in the faith.”

But it can also go the other way. When someone comes out as LGBT+, and reports feeling rejected or condemned to isolation in the Church, the whole family’s faith can be shaken.

Building Catholic Futures works with parents of LGBT/SSA+ people in guided discussions, where we draw out the insights they’ve learned from their children’s experience and help them articulate what they wish they’d known before their children came out. That is one way we serve mothers.

But we also serve mothers, fathers, siblings, partners, and friends when we help Catholics evangelize and catechize gay people themselves! Each gay person who discovers the joy of the Gospel is a potential St. Carlo: one who guides their whole family, and all their loved ones, into deeper faith.

One recent survey found that mistreatment of LGBT+ people was the most common theological or moral reason given for loss of Christian faith—more likely to drive people away from Christ than abuse by clergy or disagreement with teachings. Gay people themselves are not the only ones whose trust in God is damaged when Catholic institutions seem unwilling to receive their gifts or accept their honest testimony.

And gay people themselves are not the only ones who are helped when Catholic ministry leaders foster their discipleship and faith.

Prayer requests

A friend of Building Catholic Futures recently made her Rite of Simple Promises as a lay Dominican. Here she is receiving the white scapular. Please pray for María, her family, and her work with BCF!

And please pray for the repose of the soul of Theresa Wildenberg. Keith’s mother went to her reward after dinner with Keith’s father, her husband of 61 years. Her last words were, “Yes, it was good.”