SÃO PAULO – The National Conference of Bishops of Brazil (CNBB) has appointed a bishop to head the pastoral care of Catholic LGBT+ groups in the South American country.

Bishop Arnaldo Carvalheiro Neto of the Diocese of Jundiaí, on the outskirts of São Paulo, will have a three-year term.

The news, made last week, was received positively by the National Catholic LGBT+ Groups Network.

“For us, it’s the recognition of our 11-year-long activity,” Luis Fernando Rabello, the Network’s Executive Secretary, told Crux.

The first Catholic LGBT+ group was formed in Rio de Janeiro in 2007. It was the start of other initiatives, which after a few years looked for more national organization. In 2014, the Network was founded, gathering groups from different cities.

“In 2018, the Network appointed national coordinators for the first time. Three years later, we joined the National Laypeople’s Council of Brazil [known as CNLB], an official Church organization,” Rabello said.

Over the years, the Network continued to growth, and now encompasses over 25 groups.

“Two new on-line clusters are being organized at this moment,” Rabello said. The Network is present in all Brazilian regions.

According to Rabello, the first initiative emerged in 2007 when it became clear that there were Catholic LGBT+ people looking to deal with their spirituality in a less dogmatic way. They also needed a safe space to be, given that they had faced some forms of violence in their original communities and had to leave them.

Years later, Pope Francis would open that door in many ways, he added.

“Francis gave visibility to LGBT+ groups on different occasions. The subject appeared in the Synod on the Family [2014-2015] and also in the Synod on Synodality [2023-2024]. He also addressed it in the declaration Fiducia supplicans [2023],” Rabello mentioned.

Brazil’s Catholic LGBT+ groups in general are accompanied by priests or religious brothers and sisters. Over the past decade, LGBT+ Pastoral Ministries were formed in the Archdiocese of Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais state, and in Nova Iguaçu, Rio de Janeiro state.

The so-called Sexual Diversity Pastoral Ministry was officially created in a few parishes of Belo Horizonte in 2017. In 2018, Archbishop Walmor Oliveira de Azevedo publicly denied their existence.

“His statement discouraged the groups to keep working and the experience got to an end,” Rabello said.

In Nova Iguaçu, the initiative had been promoted by Bishop Luciano Bergamin. In 2018, he had to retire – and the new bishop didn’t want to continue the practice.

Some groups enjoy good standing with a few dioceses and bishops, like the one in the Archdiocese of Curitiba. The Network has always tried to keep close to the episcopate, having met with CNBB’s president in the past.

Rabello hopes that the designated bishop will work “as a hand to give us support and to make us closer to CNBB and individual bishops.”

“Concretely, we ceased to be on the fringe and we’re now ecclesial subjects,” he said.

CNBB’s initiative was mostly unprecedented. Rabello claimed only Germany and Belgium has the Church been as open to LGBT+ groups.

“I think such a particularity of our Church is a breath of the Holy Spirit,” theologian Suzane Moreira told Crux.

Moreira, a PhD candidate in systematic–pastoral theology at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, emphasized that the Church has historically avoided dealing with “delicate questions” like the LGBT+ theme.

In Brazil, that dimension has been evolving for at least two decades, she said, and the current measure is in line with that process.

“The Church used to fear that topic. So, it has been a great step, one that brings us much hope,” she added.

In the short term, however, nothing will change, in Moreira’s opinion.

“People who have been homophobic for decades and are part of the Church will not just change their minds out of the blue. Those are dense situations, and it takes time to really transform them,” she said.

“I think it’s relevant that the Network will not feel alone anymore in the Church. The priests and religious sisters and brothers who accompany it many times don’t talk publicly about it. Now, maybe they’ll feel safer to speak about it,” Moreira said.

For Francisco Borba Ribeiro Neto, a religion sociologist, CNBB’s unprecedented decision emerges from the peculiar nature of the Brazilian society.

“In Brazil, a more rigorist stance tends to displease most Catholics. We’re a society that prefers to avoid conflict. So, there’s a disposition from the Church to find ways of providing pastoral care that would not entail an immediate condemnation of homosexuality, but would lead to a growing mutual understanding,” Ribeiro Neto said.

CNBB’s decision doesn’t have anything to do with the German Synodal Way, which was, in Ribeiro Neto’s opinion, an attempt at making Pope Francis take measures that he was not willing to take.

“The Brazilian episcopate would never do anything like that, given that it has been historically loyal to the Magisterium – and especially now, when anybody is willing to create embarrassments to the new pope,” he said.

But the fact is that the Brazilian Church has to deal with a large LGBT+ community eager to be closer to it.

“It’s a community that wants to be welcomed and received and is open to dialogue in order to build a better relationship. Both sides, the bishops and the LGBT+ groups, know there will be mutual concessions along the process,” he added.

Ribeiro Neto compared the challenges of such an initiative with the pastoral care of couples in a second union.

“I hope it can be a laboratory for the universal Church, so it can enhance important pastoral practices. Maybe it’s a contribution from the Brazilian Church to the universal Church,” he said.

Bishop Arnaldo Carvalheiro Neto, 58, was ordained a bishop by Pope Francis in 2016. He studied Spiritual Direction at the Institute for Spiritual Leadership, in Chicago, and Hospital Chaplaincy at the Mater Misericordie Hospital in Dublin. He also holds a Master’s degree in Pastoral Counseling from Loyola University.

Carvalheiro Neto is considered to be a moderate bishop. He ministered a course to the Network in the past.

In Luis Rabello’s opinion, that’s an additional step in the Network’s path and offers relevant support in its struggle against prejudices.

“We want to keep working against exclusion and violence in the Church, and we know it will be a long process,” he said.