(New Ways Ministry. Brian Flanagan).
For many theologians, June, in addition to being Pride Month, is a month of conferences. As the academic year ends, we take trains, planes, and automobiles to the meetings of the College Theology Society (CTS), the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States (ACHTUS), the Catholic Theological Society of America (CTSA), and others. You can spot us in airports, dragging a carry-on full of books and muttering to ourselves about not getting enough work done, or on trains finishing our last PowerPoint slides for the meeting. Part of my work at New Ways Ministry has been connecting and supporting the work of fellow LGBTQ+ Catholic theologians, and this year’s conference season has felt like a watershed moment for our presence and our voice in the church and academy in the United States. Discussions of LGBTQ+ issues and gatherings of LGBTQ+ theologians have happened at such meetings before, including an important CTSA panel on the important perspectives of LGBTQ+ theologians of color in 2023, and the establishment of an LGBTQ+ caucus at CTS that same year.