Francis DeBernardo, the executive director of New Ways Ministry, wrote that 17 bishops have attended dialogues organized by the group since 2023.
The organization “has been sponsoring a series of two-day meetings, in which bishops interact with theologians, scientific professionals, other scholars, pastoral ministers and, most importantly, LGBTQ+ people themselves,” said DeBernardo. “At the conclusion of one meeting, one bishop was in tears when he expressed how little he had known about the realities of transgender people, and regretted how he may have unintentionally added to their pain.”
New Ways Ministry was the subject of a notification by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (1999) and a statement by the US bishops (2011) because of its dissent from Catholic teaching on homosexuality.
Pope Francis, however, praised Sister Jeannine Gramick, co-founder of New Ways Ministry, in a handwritten letter. He later met with Sister Gramick and other leaders of the group for 50 minutes.