Yunuen TRUJILLO. LGBTQ Catholics: A Guide to Inclusive Ministry. Foreword by Sr. Jeannine Gramick, SL. New York: Paulist Press, 2022. pp. xiii+113. Pb $19.95 E-book $13.37 ISBN: 978-08091-5577-4. Reviewed by James BRETZKE, S.J., John Carroll University, University Heights OH 44118

Yunuen Trujillo has worked in various ministries with youth and the GLBTQ communities in Los Angeles and wrote this short book to provide some background and resources for ministry, as well as support to Catholic GLBTQ community.

Trujillo  makes many points already fairly well accepted in this sort of pastoral ministry, and also provides several helpful concepts, such as “othering” by which the GLBTQ are marginalized and then authentically treated in a positive manner. Probably the most helpful part of the short book is her recounting of her own coming out story over many years, and the Appendix which contains brief accounts of other gay women and men.

Methodologically she does engage somewhat in what could be called “proof-texting” and/or cherry picking of various Church documents that do portray a more positive theological and psychological aspects of GLBTQ situations.  Also to her credit she does briefly (perhaps too briefly) explain the concept of “intrinsically disordered” used in the Catechism. However, there is a regrettable reluctance to engage at the necessary length with what some might term “texts of terror” for the Church. E.g., CCC #2257 which states
Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered." They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

While pastoral workers may prefer to ignore such texts, the larger community which looks on this ministry with a jaundiced eye certainly will fasten on these texts, and so a guide for inclusive ministry should help its intended audience in responding to these uncharitable and uneducated approaches. Similarly, she does do a bit of helpful exegesis on a couple of the biblical passages that seem to deal with “homosexuality” (such as the Sodom and Gomorrah story in Genesis 19), but again it would have been helpful to extend this treatment, at least briefly, to the other problematic passages found in the Holiness Code (e.g., Deuteronomy 18) and the New Testament passages frequently used as proof-texts (such as 1 Corinthians 6:9 and Romans 1:26-27).