Catholic LGBT organisation New Ways Ministry publishes reflection on fear of hell
On November 1, 2026, US Catholic LGBT organisation New Ways Ministry published “Heaven Is Full of the People You Reject” on its blog for All Saints Day. The author, operations and communications manager Wesley Cocozello, connects fear of eternal damnation with LGBT Catholics’ experience of alienation from church life.
Cocozello writes that at an organisation event this year he spoke with a man whose partner was dying. According to the author, the man wept, fearing that his beloved would go to hell. This personal account underpins his reflection on the consequences of religious fear.
The article starts from the liturgical readings for November 1, including the Beatitudes in Matthew’s Gospel and Revelation’s vision of a multitude from different nations. The author sees them as an invitation to comfort, peacemaking and communion with people believers tend to avoid. He proposes paying more attention to mutual care than to imagining others’ damnation.
The article also recalls Pope Francis’s January 14, 2024 interview with the Italian programme Che Tempo Che Fa. As Catholic News Service reported on the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ website, the pope expressed hope that hell was empty, explicitly describing this as a personal thought rather than a dogma of faith.
Official teaching is set out in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: paragraph 1035 affirms hell’s existence and eternity, while paragraph 1037 says God predestines no one to hell.
New Ways Ministry has worked in the United States since 1977. According to its own description, it provides education, supports LGBT Catholics and develops dialogue within the Church and civil society. Cocozello is listed on its staff as operations and communications manager.
Uránia previously covered New Ways Ministry’s article on support for LGBT parishioners in Italy’s Diocese of Bolzano-Bressanone.
