The Welcome Table
An Inclusive Spiritual Community for Seekers, Doubters, and Believers
You Are God's Beloved Child
Mission and Opportunities
The Welcome Table inclusive spiritual community includes LGBTQ and other marginalized people who are active, struggling, or former Christians, as well as families and allies. We are committed to bringing our whole selves to God and each other as gifts to share in love.
Catholic teaching on our common human dignity, the unconditional, limitless, and intimate love of Jesus found in the Gospels, and the primacy of the individual conscience as formed in relationship with our Creator, the Word of God, and tradition, are the foundations on which our community stands.
Those interested in cultivating their relationship with the Divine in a safe space will find information about spiritual accompaniment with Vicki Sheridan, MDiv, certified spiritual director, here.
Want online events and resources like the ones below sent directly to your inbox monthly? Sign up here.
Featured Events and News
Gatherings
“Welcoming Pride” Service Online
Faithful America has partnered with Good Faith Media for a special online service, "Welcoming Pride," on May 28 at 8 p.m. ET, which will be a sending forth of faithful resistance. A gathering of the faithful living out love in action. A space to hold one another and be blessed to go forth into Pride Month with hearts full, feet ready, and faith renewed. With personal stories, words of encouragement, calls to action, and prayer, speakers will nourish and strengthen all who are weary, the LGBTQ and allies, during this dark time of anti-trans extremism in our country. Speakers:
Kali Cawthon-Freels (she/her), Faithful Pride Consultant, Good Faith Media
Rev. R Ward (they/them), Senior Minister, Kirkwood United Church of Christ
Rev. Rhina Ramos (she/her), Founder of Ministerio Latino
Rev. Randy Lewis (he/him), Assistant Minister, All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church
Sara Cunningham (she/her), Founder of Free Mom Hugs
These speakers have personally lived at the intersection of faith and queerness. They will share their stories and prayers on May 28. We hope to see you there.
New Ways Ministry Gathers Bishops and LGBTQ+ Experts for Dialogue
By Matthew Myers, New Ways Ministry, April 23, 2026
In the News
Article Excerpt: "‘To address the need for knowledge about LGBTQ+ people, to promote good pastoral care by our bishops, and to walk forward in synodality, New Ways has been sponsoring a series of two-day meetings, in which bishops interact with theologians, scientific professionals, other scholars, pastoral ministers and, most importantly, LGBTQ+ people themselves.
‘Since 2023, New Ways Ministry has hosted three such gatherings at Georgetown University, St. Louis University, and the Siena Retreat Center in Racine, Wisconsin. Seventeen bishops attended these programs, many attending more than one conference.’
The meetings discussed many different topics: pastoral ministry, moral theology, health care, psychological understandings of gender, employment issues, school policies, gay priests/lesbian nuns, and, perhaps most importantly, the positive and negative encounters that lesbian, gay, transgender, nonbinary and intersex people have had with the institutional church.”
Related: “New Ways Ministry’s Gathering of Bishops and LGBTQ+ Folk Made Synodality Real”
Online Events
Join FutureChurch for our 2026 Pride Panel!
What does it mean to live truthfully—especially within and alongside a tradition that has not always made space for the fullness of who you are? This panel brings together voices from the Catholic(ish) queer community to reflect on the courage, creativity, and spiritual wisdom that emerge from navigating faith, identity, and belonging. Grounded in lived experience and shaped by theological reflection, panelists will share their experience on authenticity, resilience, and the ongoing work of claiming one’s voice in the Church and beyond.
Moderated by James Reding of the God Talk podcast, this conversation invites all who are seeking a more honest and expansive way of living their truth—whether you identify as queer, Catholic(ish), both, or neither.
Spiritual Growth
Welcome to An Ignatian Prayer Adventure. This is an adapted version of the Spiritual Exercises. Materials are modified from the longer retreat in The Ignatian Adventure by Kevin O’Brien, SJ.
Join in a flexible experience of daily prayer and reflection. Choose to commit to a regular period of prayer each day, or start with only one day a week. Use as much or as little of the material as helps you in your Ignatian adventure.
Before You Begin
Week 1: Love, Freedom, and Purpose
Week 2: Finding God in All Things
Week 3: Something’s Broken
Week 4: Knowing Jesus
Week 5: What Do I Really Want?
Week 6: The Public Ministry of Jesus
Week 7: The Suffering Jesus
Week 8: God’s Love and Our Response
Online Course
Dates: June 1st , 3rd, 8th, 10th, 15th , 17th
Times: 4:00 - 5:00 PM PST
Format: 6 live sessions + self-paced lessons
Course: CLGS Catholic Ministry LGBTQ+ Ministry SU26
Registration Fee : $50 per participant (*No one will be turned away for lack of funds)
Imagine A More Just, Compassionate, And Hopeful Church With Radical Inclusion
This CLGS Micro Certificate in Catholic LGBTQ+ Ministry provides a comprehensive and accessible introduction to Catholic LGBTQ+ ministry by weaving together Scripture, Tradition, theology, ethics, and pastoral practice. Rooted in the Church’s call to accompany all people, the program equips participants with a strong foundation in the history of Catholic teaching on gender and sexuality, the insights of contemporary queer and contextual theologies, and the principles of synodal discernment. Through these lenses, students gain the tools to understand how LGBTQ+ experiences reveal God’s presence and invite the Church into deeper fidelity to the Gospel.
Dr. Ish Ruiz is an assistant professor of Latinx and Queer Decolonial Theology at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, CA, and holds a PhD in Theology and Ethics from the Graduate Theological Union.
Book Club Suggestion
Dr. Lucas Wilson is a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Toronto Mississauga and was formerly the Justice, Equity, and Transformation Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Calgary. A current Humanist Thought Fellow through the American Humanist Association, Lucas is the editor of Shame-Sex Attraction: Survivors’ Stories of Conversion Therapy (Jessica Kingsley Publishers). His public-facing writing has appeared in The Advocate, Queerty, LGBTQ Nation, and Religion Dispatches. He is currently working on two new anthologies: Don’t Ask, Tell All: Stories of Christian Colleges’ Anti-Queer Regimes (under contract with The University of Georgia Press) and Queer and Trembling: Stories of LGBTQ+ Religious Trauma (under contract with Jessica Kingsley Publishers).
DignityUSA members can use the code WILSON20 for a 20% discount on Shame-Sex Attraction. Order yours today to get your book on time for the discussion (see above).
Watch
These are the first days for Luciana, Maia, and Yenifer as caregivers in a nursing home. As trans women, this marks the first time they have secured formal employment; until now, they have worked exclusively in prostitution. As the days go by—sharing their lives within those corridors, isolated from the outside world—caregivers and residents forge increasingly deep bonds. Little by little, this strange place becomes—for them, too—a home.
Podcast
The Spiritual Life Podcast - Fr. Jim Martin, SJ Guest: Fr. Bryan Massingale
America, February 24, 2026
Intrinsically Ordered Podcast with Cade Bradley
Talking Scrupulosity with A Catholic Therapist: When OCD Meets Catholicism
Former youth minister (and current Catholic) Ashley Kiefer joins me to talk about the messy overlap of faith, OCD, and scrupulosity. We trace her journey from professional Catholic youth worker to licensed therapist, why quoting the catechism at every problem stopped working, and how therapy forced her to learn actual listening instead of spiritual “fixing.” We dig into what scrupulosity really is, how it shows up as a subtype of OCD, why sermons that end with “just trust God more” don’t work, and how online Catholic culture and “rad trad” spaces can quietly supercharge religious anxiety. Ashley shares practical steps for discerning when it’s time to see a therapist, how to find scrupulosity-literate help, and why dealing with OCD is not a betrayal of your faith.