'I'm a Catholic Nun. I'm Standing Up for Trans People'

I was as surprised as the next person when I recognized that I might be drawn to becoming a Catholic nun.

I graduated from pharmacy school in 1981 and was out of the church during my college years. I had a house, I was going on vacation, I was living the good life, and I had some money, but still, something was missing.

So, I went back to the Catholic Church and started claiming my faith again as an adult. I got to know some sisters who were doing some amazing things, advocating for justice in Nicaragua and Guatemala, and in our nation's capital. They were in their thirties and forties and were not wearing a habit, which is not at all what I remembered of sisters while growing up.

Rediscovering God and Faith

When I was 26, just a year after going back to church, some major events happened to me. My younger brother, Eddie, fell at work and died from a very tragic closed head injury.

That was the first time God really had my full attention through tragedy. I was being supported by my faith community and my home parish and I noticed that God was drawing me in.

I began believing that God was calling me into a deeper relationship. I was on fire with the spirit. I went to what was called a vocation weekend and found that the Catholic sisters I was around were very independent and spoke their minds.

I became excited at the possibility of centering my life on this relationship with God amid a group of women that could support and challenge me.

So, in 1986, I entered the congregation of the sisters of Providence at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods in Indiana. When I told my mother, she said: "Barbara, why would you want to align yourself so closely with a church that treats women so poorly?"

My dear mother Alice raised seven kids and married my father, an Italian man. She was a classic Irish housewife, and she recognized the misogyny and lack of respect for women in the Catholic Church.

Challenging the Catholic Church

The Catholic Church was, and still sometimes is, slow to embrace the LGBTQ+ community.

I started my healthcare career as a pharmacist in the early '80s at the cusp of the AIDS epidemic. I was in Chicago working as an oncology pharmacist, treating many gay men who were having this kind of cancer that came with HIV called Kaposi's sarcoma.

They would tell story after story of how they were pushed out of their families and out of their churches too. It didn't make any sense to me then, nor does it now, that we would ostracize them because of some choices they made.

When a person has lung cancer, and they've smoked for 25 years, we still treat them as human beings deserving of high-quality health care and of our love, care, and attention. I believe that our behavior shouldn't dictate whether we should belong in a church community or not. We belong because we're created in God's image, no matter what. No exceptions.

So, during that time, I felt empowered being a sister because my community and I were helping each other make decisions independently and taking a stand against injustice.

Over the years, I've had conversations with people who have felt unwelcomed in church, or like they were given a cold shoulder for being a member of the LGBTQ+ community. Although no one ever shared with me that they were called names or verbally abused, they still felt a distance.

It pains me because once a person has been made to feel unwelcome, it's a real uphill battle for them to be welcomed again into a church community. In 2003, a group of sisters, myself included, started an inclusive Catholic group.

The group was birthed out of our frustration with the lack of equality that was happening around us, not just in the Catholic Church, but in the U.S. as a whole. Creating the group was our way of telling people who have felt unwelcome in the church: "You belong."

Over the last two or three years, a group of justice promoters from vowed Catholic religious communities have spoken about LGBTQ+ rights and women in the church, and inclusion.

I've lost track of how many state legislatures have horrendous bills in front of their state houses that are very anti-trans. In the U.S., we know violence against trans women of color especially is skyrocketing.

In early February, ahead of International Transgender Day of Visibility in the U.S., we decided to write a statement of solidarity as Catholics, knowing full well that our church has been a source of much sorrow and pain for the LGBTQ+ community.

Advocating for the LGBTQ+ Community

We met on March 17, but just a few days after, the United States Catholic Bishops Conference (USCCB) put out a teaching about what Catholic healthcare institutions are allowed to do in terms of offering medical or surgical treatment to the trans community.

So, after our bishop's conference came out with this statement, we felt an even greater urgency to speak up and say: "Wait a minute." There are a whole lot of Catholic persons who welcome members of the LGBTQ+ community, we know that you're whole as you are, and we're going to find a way to reach out to you and to be there with you.

That is what being a Catholic sister is about. Part of our life commitment is to reach out to the people that are pushed aside and to those who are being made to feel like they are less than whole.

After writing up the first draft of our statement, we called in some persons from the LGBTQ+ community to read it because as members of the core group, none of us identified as trans.

Because of the potential backlash from the church, these persons chose to remain anonymous, but they still helped us write and edit our statement of solidarity.

Within the mission statement, we wrote that we stood with and welcomed the LGBTQ+ community. We wanted to be sensitive and use the right language, and send a message that was supportive, so these members gave us some feedback.

Initially, we would have signed off the letter as "Catholic Women Religious" because that's how we identify ourselves. But after some feedback, we decided to have gender-neutral terms in the whole document. We left out the word "woman" and the statement is just as valid; we signed off the letter as: "Vowed Catholic Religious Honor."

On International Transgender Day of Visibility, March 31, across the country there were vigils and protests in front of courthouses. Across the country, our religious group took to the streets.

Where I gathered at Vigo County Courthouse, there were 50 people; a mixture of sisters, laypeople, and high school students. Our other sisters joined protests in Kansas City, Chicago, and Washington D.C.

The Aftermath of International Transgender Day of Visibility

Following the International Transgender Day of Visibility, we received a variety of responses through our website contact form. I had to count them up for a report I gave to my leadership team just recently. Two-thirds were positive and one-third were negative.

A touching one was a postcard I got mailed from somewhere in New Jersey. It said: "Thank you for your statement. It means so much to us. You'll never know how much this has meant that you were willing to do this." They signed their first names. I don't know them, and I may never meet them, but it was so touching to see.

Another email came through from a mother who wanted us to know how important it was for us to be publicly supportive. She wrote: "As the mother of a transgender son who has heartbreakingly felt edged out of the Catholic Church for loving and supporting my child, I want to thank you for the letter of support you and so many others signed onto on the trans day of visibility."

She herself, a mother supporting her own son, felt like she got pushed out of the church. Even if that was the only response we got—that's why we do this.

Of course, other people told us that they were praying for our souls because we were so misguided, and some insisted that we were going against church teaching by standing with the LGBTQ+ community.

Honestly, I believe that's not true because the church teaches us to love everyone.

I hope that as a global Catholic Church, we are able to have the confidence to speak up and use our power to influence people positively. All persons belong in the church. Everyone is welcome.

It is also my hope that we can continuously do things like this for the human community; to use our influence and our power to build up the community and to do whatever it takes to promote the common good.

Because of our statement, other churches and religious communities made public commitments, as Catholics, to support the trans community. That is a sign that people are paying attention.

Our church has had all kinds of flawed thinking throughout the years. But the thing is, we keep learning new things, and are brought to new understandings of God's love for us. It is that love that compels us to be open to all persons without exception.

Sister Barbara Battista is a justice promoter and sister of Providence at Saint Mary-of-the-Woods, Indiana.

All views expressed in this article are the author's own.

As told to Newsweek associate editor, Carine Harb.

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