In New York, Catholic LGBTQ Ministry Outreach Holds Pilgrimage Connecting AIDS History and the Rights Movement
From September 25 to 27, 2026, a three-day Catholic pilgrimage brought together LGBTQ+ Catholics, clergy, religious sisters and brothers, and family members in New York City, organized by the pastoral resource Outreach. As reported by the Catholic publication New Ways Ministry, the pilgrimage connected key landmarks in the city that reflect both the Catholic Church’s care for patients during the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the broader struggle for civil equality.
The pilgrimage was led by Outreach founder Jesuit Father James Martin and the organization’s executive director, Conor Reidy. The spiritual structure of the journey drew upon the Easter Triduum: reflecting on the grief and suffering of Good Friday, the prayerful waiting of Holy Saturday, and the hope of Resurrection Sunday. Pilgrims gathered for a welcome Mass and reflections at the Church of St. Francis Xavier in Manhattan, a parish with decades of active LGBTQ+ ministry and home to an altar dedicated to victims of HIV/AIDS. The route continued through Greenwich Village to St. Veronica’s Church, where Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity cared for terminal AIDS patients in the 1980s, and to the New York City AIDS Memorial, built on the grounds of the former St. Vincent’s Hospital, where the Sisters of Charity established the city’s first specialized AIDS ward. Participants also visited the historic Stonewall Inn—the site of the 1969 uprising that helped launch the modern LGBTQ+ civil rights movement—before concluding the weekend with Mass at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola on Park Avenue.
Participants highlighted the varied spiritual dimensions of the experience. Ursuline Sister Jeannie Humphries remarked that the pilgrimage deepened her awareness of the adversity and resilience that marked the Catholic LGBTQ+ community in the 1980s and 1990s. Father Daniel Serbicki, a pastor from the Diocese of Buffalo, noted that encountering this history enables him to offer more compassionate pastoral accompaniment to his parishioners. For older generations who personally lived through the losses of the epidemic, the gathering offered a meaningful space to process grief within a praying community. At the same time, conservative Catholic commentators and traditionalist outlets have historically criticized Father James Martin’s public outreach initiatives, expressing concern that such ministry formats could blur Catholic moral teaching regarding sexuality and marriage.
Outreach was founded by Jesuit Father James Martin under the auspices of America Media as a resource and dialogue platform for LGBTQ+ Catholics, their families, and parish leaders within the institutional Roman Catholic Church. The history of American Catholicism and sexual minorities has often combined dedicated pastoral care—most visibly through Catholic hospitals and religious orders during the AIDS epidemic—with ongoing theological and doctrinal tensions concerning the scope of ecclesiastical recognition for same-sex couples.
Previously, Urania reported on Pope Leo XIV opening a Vatican assembly of bishops to discuss pastoral care for LGBTQ+ Catholics, the participation of Spanish LGBTQ+ Catholic organization CRISMHOM in an official papal event in Madrid, debates in the Diocese of Syracuse surrounding the Courage International ministry, and the prestigious award presented to openly gay Catholic theologian Father Bryan Massingale of Fordham University.
