ATLANTA—Kathy Farrell helped start the ministry Fortunate & Faithful Families when her son shared with family members that he was gay.

Some 20 years after that day, and 11 years since organizing the nonprofit, she continues to be passionate about its mission.  

“Our agenda is to love our children, help them to know that they are loved by God and to keep families together and hopefully in the church,” said Farrell, who is 74 and serves as a spiritual director. 

Fortunate & Faithful Families is a lay-led ministry that serves families and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) community, hosting retreats, workshops and helping parents who feel uncertain after children share their sexual orientations. 

“All we deal with is love,” said Farrell.   

She spoke with The Georgia Bulletin with some responses edited for clarity:  

What was the origin of Fortunate and Faithful Families?  

We have three children, and one of our children, after he graduated from Notre Dame University, came out to us. Not a huge surprise, but, you know, kind of verified our feelings. That was in 2003 and almost immediately, strangely, God started peppering me to do something to help parents navigate this route. I did a lot of different things in that 10-year period before we started Fortunate & Faithful Families, but in 2013, when Pope Francis was made pope, I was asked to speak at the Shrine of Immaculate Conception and then we ended up that fall having our first retreat.  

After that retreat, several parents met with then-Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory at Ignatius House Jesuit Retreat Center. He just came by himself, and all we did was tell him our stories of how much we love our children and how much we love our church.   

What are the primary goals and objectives of Fortunate and Faithful Families? 

I’m a spiritual director, and all I ever cared about for my children was for them to know and love God and to let that be the guiding force in their lives. What we saw were so many, not just LGBT persons, but their families leaving the church, and oftentimes, extremely sadly, conflating the church with their perception of God’s acceptance and love for them. Regrettably, many persons and sometimes families step away not just from church, but from God.  

The desire was to encourage family unity, encourage parents to love their children and to not shame them or try to make them somebody that they’re not, and if possible, to encourage faith and church community in this journey. 

How do members of the group maintain their Catholic identity while embracing their LGBT children? 

I don’t really see a problem with maintaining my Catholic identity and loving my child. In fact, I’ve said it to Archbishop Hartmayer, if I were given a choice of you’ve got to either love your church or love your child, but you can only love one, I would have to choose my child. If I don’t love my own child, am I following Jesus Christ? 

What are ways the organization helps parents navigate that spiritual journey with understanding of what the church teaches about homosexuality? (The Catechism of the Catholic Church calls homosexuality “intrinsically disordered.”) 

My perception of Catholic theology is that it is based upon Scripture, church tradition and lived experience. For those of us who have lived the experience of our truly, deeply beloved LGBT children, my concern is how to keep people flourishing in their relationship with each other and with God. 

We never advocate for anything that is outside of church teaching. We don’t talk about same-sex marriage. We definitely don’t talk about sex. I don’t talk about sex with my heterosexual children. It’s not because I think there’s anything wrong with sex, I think it’s an amazing gift from God, but it’s not my business.  

What does Fortunate & Faithful Families do for families to help them? 

Our first initial contact is panicked parent will come to us really struggling. Usually then it’s a listening ear and just trying to give them a space to share their story. In our 11 years, we’ve had many, many panels and educational opportunities, but we also have a lot of community building and potlucks and after-Mass coffees where people share.  

Without hearing people’s stories, without actual encounter and engagement personally with people, number one, there’s little understanding, and number two, there’s no expansion of vision. I’m a firm believer in deeply, deeply listening and encountering people who may not all think the same as we do, but I don’t think Jesus said, only love the people that think like I do. In fact, that’s not the way he lived at all.  

What challenges does Fortunate & Faithful families face within the Catholic community and how have those been addressed? 

What we have tried to do and what I think now will happen is we’ve tried many, many times to set up an educational forum to help priests and deacons and, you know, those who are maybe misunderstanding our intent. We’re not undermining anything. We’re really trying to, I think, accomplish the same thing is, you know, loving families and fully embrace our children who are going to grow into wonderful children of God, which is what they’re called to be. But we have had a lot of pushback.   

In the past 11 years, has the organization seen any shift in attitudes within the broader Catholic community? 

Regrettably, some of the shift in attitude is some people just say, oh, forget it, I’m leaving the church. And even if we try to encourage them to stay and be part of the community, et cetera, sometimes they just have had it. But on the other hand, we go to something like the Outreach conference in August. It is like every single person is honored and listened to, and there is just such a spirit of love and enthusiasm for following God. And it’s a very faith-filled conference. And that’s what I think has sustained us as fortunate, faithful families. All of us are very, very committed to God and to our faith and really to our church, or we would have left, too. 

Archbishop Hartmayer recently announced the formation of a pastoral advisory committee for the LGBTQ+ community. What was your reaction to that news? What does it mean to you?  

We are thrilled with the formation of the pastoral advisory committee and the movement of LGBTQ ministries to the Office of Restorative Justice. The committee is a wise and compassionate response to the voices of LGBTQ persons and families during the synod listening process. Many have felt excluded and misunderstood, and restorative justice is such a positive position from which to rebuild bridges of respect, compassion and sensitivity. We feel the dynamic work of the Holy Spirit (and some intercession from Father Henry Gracz in heaven) in all of this. With God’s grace, our families and our church will be blessed and strengthened. (The late Msgr. Gracz was the pastor of the Shrine of Immaculate Conception and a supporter of the LGBT community.)