New Ways Ministry, which dissents from Catholic teaching on homosexuality, said that “queer voices emerged loud and proud in both their worship and their calls for reform” during Katholikentag (Catholic Day), the biennial German Catholic gathering first held in 1848.
During the gathering, which took place in Würzburg from May 13 to 17, “more than 200 people attended a queer worship service,” according to New Ways Ministry. Held inside the Order of Saint Augustine’s church, the service was “prepared by the initiative #OutInChurch, the Augustinian Monastery in Würzburg, the Federation of German Catholic Youth (BDKJ), the Network of Catholic Lesbians, the Ecumenical Working Group on Homosexuality and the Church (HuK), and ‘Queer and Christian in the Diocese of Würzburg.’”
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). Pope Francis, however, praised Sister Jeannine Gramick, co-founder of New Ways Ministry, in a handwritten letter, and subsequently met with Sister Gramick and other leaders of the group.