Yunuen Trujillo
The love and inclusion of LGBTQ+ people is not only sacred in itself, but also greatly enriches the church, a message that pastor and author Yunuen Trujillo continues to emphasize in his LGBTQ+ ministries, including two essays he contributed to U.S. Catholic .
In an essay, Trujillo, an advisory board member for New Ways Ministries and a contributor to Bondings 2.0, examines how love, marriage, and children intersect in the church. Some see marriage and having children as “symbols of conformity, a way of determining who is in the church and who is out.” This approach excludes many Catholics, including LGBTQ+ people, as well as couples and single parents who can’t or won’t have children of their own.
Trujillo challenges such rule-based notions of love, arguing that love goes beyond merely being reproductive; “love is life-giving in multiple ways.” She connects her argument to the issue of fiducia supplicants and the celebration of “irregular” couples, including gay couples.
“What is that blessing? ‘In a short prayer preceding this voluntary blessing, the clergy may pray for the individuals to have peace, good health, a spirit of patience, dialogue, mutual assistance, and the light and power of God,'” the document reads.
“Some Catholics seem troubled by this possibility. Openness to the Blessing is an acknowledgement that grace-giving love exists even in so-called ‘irregular relationships,’ and it reminds us all that these connections already enrich our Church,” he said.
“I believe that the committed and loving unions of LGBTQ Catholics, as well as the civil and childless unions of other heterosexual Catholics, are life-giving and a blessing in themselves. The Holy Spirit calls us to discern how they are a blessing to the Church and, as a result, to give them a blessing.”
In another essay, Trujillo focuses on one way LGBTQ+ people are a blessing to the church: serving as godparents.
Trujillo had been a godmother before, but when asked recently, it felt different because she was in a same-sex relationship and her partner was the other godparent. Another problem was that the child’s parents were not in Eucharistic Marriage. All of this made finding a parish a bit difficult, and Trujillo had to turn to a priest who was a close friend. Of this option, she said:
“After I explained the situation to him and asked him if he would celebrate his baptism with a lesbian godmother, his answer was simple: ‘Yes! When?’ As the late, iconic Mexican queer singer and composer Juan Gabriel said, ‘Pero qué necesidad, ¿para qué tanto problema?’ (‘But why should it be such a problem?’)”
Trujillo points out that in October 2023, the Vatican issued a document confirming that LGBTQ+ people can serve as godparents and baptism witnesses, and that children of same-sex couples can be baptized.
“Let’s be honest, most parishioners don’t read these documents, and their religious formation only grows to the extent of the pastor who guides them. Parishioners who want to grow spiritually and who are not afraid to tackle difficult issues are more likely to leave the Church if their pastor is not pastoral; not because they don’t have a vocation, but because their needs are not being met. But when they eventually decide to come back to be baptized, I hope they will encounter many Fr. M. in their own parish.”
—Angela Howard McParland (she/her) and Robert Schein (he/him), New Ways Ministries, July 27, 2024
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