‘All Are Welcome:’ All Saints Church rallies to remain a ‘safe space’ for LGBTQ+ Catholics

When her child came out as transgender three years ago, Dr. Elizabeth Saarie was overjoyed. After years of watching her daughter’s struggle, “I felt joy that she was accepting herself and choosing to live authentically,” Saarie said.

But joy turned to panic as she realized her church would not see it that way. Her Catholic parish had become increasingly conservative and scornful of homosexuality and gender nonconformity. “The message was, she was not welcome there,” Saarie said.

Saarie, a family doctor acutely aware of the mental health dangers of rejecting LGBTQ+ youth, shed many tears while questioning her Catholic faith. Then she started looking for a more accepting parish.

She found it at All Saints Church in Syracuse, whose pastor, Rev. Fred Daley, is openly gay and preaches that “Any church that excludes people is going directly against the core teachings of Jesus.”

Saarie now serves on All Saints’ LGBTQ+ Task Force and has helped the parish launch a Transgender Family Support Group and a new group for gay, non-binary and trans Catholics who have been ostracized at other churches.

But now they fear a backlash from within their own diocese, in the form of a group called Courage International that urges gay Catholics to take a vow of celibacy like that required of Church clergy.

All Saints task force members say Courage uses a glorified form of conversion therapy that asks LGBTQ+ Catholics to deny their own identities, potentially at the expense of their self-worth.

The Diocese of Syracuse confirmed it is in the process of establishing a chapter of Courage International despite months of lobbying by All Saints beseeching Syracuse Bishop Douglas Lucia not to give it his blessing.

“We know that the folks at All Saints are concerned, but Courage is not conversion therapy,” said Danielle Cummings, chancellor and communications director for the diocese. “It’s a mission of accompaniment for people looking for ways to carry out their lives in a chaste and holy way.”

Courage International’s website describes it as an organization that “helps people experiencing same-sex attractions” pursue a “chaste life as required by Catholic teachings.” Its stated goals include “fostering a spirit of fellowship … to ensure that no one will have to face the problems of homosexuality alone.”

All Saints task force members say that’s akin to conversion therapy, defined as the widely discredited practice of attempting to change people’s sexual orientation or gender identity. The practice is banned in many countries and more than 20 U.S. states, including New York.

“Courage’s approach is to tell gay Catholics that something is wrong with you that you have to control,” said Bill Tenity, a retired teacher who has been with his husband for 25 years and drives 50 miles round-trip from Auburn to attend Mass at All Saints. “Our big issue with it is, you can’t ‘Pray the gay away.’ You can pretend to hide it, but it’s always there, and denying that can be harmful.”

Courage says it doesn’t ask gay Catholics to deny their “same-sex attractions.” It asks them not to act on them in keeping with age-old church doctrine that also prohibits sex outside of marriage, divorce and the use of contraception by married couples.

Cummings said the diocese will be “kicking off” a Courage chapter in response to requests from local Catholics seeking help with same-sex attraction. The effort is led by Fr. Chris Seibt, pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in Cicero and Divine Mercy in Central Square and a vice chancellor for the diocese since 2019.

Seibt did not respond to requests for comment by Central Current. However, speaking for the diocese, Cummings noted that Syracuse had a previous Courage chapter that had “fallen dormant” at least 10 years ago and said Seibt offered to help revive it on request from parishioners throughout the diocese.

As part of the plan, Lucia offered to meet with All Saints’ task force and hear their concerns this past April. They said he listened, expressed sympathy and promised to consider the potential impact of a Courage chapter on LGBTQ+ Catholics in Syracuse.

Several task force members, including Saarie, have since written to Lucia imploring him not to allow Courage into the diocese because of the potential for harm.

“Courage International overtly and unapologetically treats homosexual and transgender people as diseased and abnormal, using the offensive term ‘intrinsically disordered,’” Saarie wrote to the bishop.

“Please understand that your actions and inactions speak volumes to your parishioners about treatment of sexual and gender diversity. Our vulnerable members need acceptance and support, not psychological (or physical) violence.”

Tenity said the task force learned from a reporter that Lucia had approved the local chapter.

“I feel like the bishop played politics with us,” Tenity said. “For me, all trust is gone.”

“All are welcome”

All Saints, an unimposing church with white siding and simple wooden crosses atop its shingled roof, has a big sign over its front doors that says, “ALL ARE WELCOME.”

Inside the entry a rainbow banner that reads “Safe Space.” In the sanctuary, posters depicting Black candidates for sainthood hang overhead. A banner near the altar reads, “St. Patrick was an immigrant. Would he be deported today?”

Besides the LGBTQ+ community, All Saints has ministries devoted to many marginalized groups including immigrants and former refugees who make up a significant part of its congregation.

Fr. Daley’s Sunday Masses honor the “first languages” of new Americans in addition to English. At the 9 a.m. Mass, parishioners pray in Spanish and English accompanied by a Gospel choir. At the 11:30 a.m. Mass, an African choir sings in Swahili and French, and families wearing traditional garb of their African and Caribbean countries of origin fill the pews in joyful worship in as diverse a crowd as can be found in Central New York.

“Anyone who has ever sat in church counting the minutes until it’s over should experience the joy you can feel at All Saints,” Saarie said. “It is a church that lives through action what Jesus calls us to do, which is to love one another.”

Daley, known as “Father Fred,” came out as a gay priest in 2004 while serving as pastor at St. Francis de Sales Church in Utica. He said his own journey to self-acceptance has helped him live the message that “We are all created in God’s image out of love.”

In 2008, the Syracuse diocese created All Saints by merging the former Our Lady of Solace in Salt Springs and St. Terese the Little Flower in the Syracuse University area. The parish served many international scholars from SU and also welcomed a group of LGBTQ Catholics that had been meeting for years for Masses led by volunteer and retired priests, Tenity said.

“We had been holding services under the table until the early 2000s, when we approached the pastor at St. Andrew (the late Rev. Joseph Kane) asking to use the church for our Masses,” Tenity said. “Over time we started to become politically active. We marched in gay Pride parades and let people know that there were Catholic and gay people out there.”

When St. Andrew closed in 2009, the LGBTQ+ group joined All Saints, where “people felt comfortable going to the regular Masses,” leaving no need for their own Mass, Tenity said. In 2013, they formed the LGBTQ+ Task Force, which now includes a dozen members who meet monthly and more than 50 others on the task force email list.

Task force activities include participating in area Pride events such as the city’s Pride parade in June, the St. Joseph’s Health LGBTQ+ Pride Fair and Pride Day at the New York State Fair. The group also holds a lecture series dedicated to Fr. Mychal Judge, the openly gay priest who died at the World Trade Center on 9/11 while accompanying the New York firefighters as their chaplain.

Besides statues of Jesus, Mary and saints like those at every other Catholic parish, All Saints’ campus displays a large outdoor sculpture of firefighters carrying the body of the “martyred” Fr. Judge, who they hope will eventually be canonized as the Catholic Church’s first openly gay saint.

All Saints also gives an annual Father Mychal Judge award to a person or group displaying his compassionate inclusion for the September 11 anniversary. This year it went to Break Margins Africa, an organization All Saints supports in Nairobi, Kenya, to house and job-train youth disowned by their families because of their sexual orientation.

All Saints members say they’re grateful the Syracuse Diocese has allowed their LGBTQ+ ministry to thrive all these years. But over the past year or so, they say they feel a conservative backlash akin to President Donald Trump’s anti-DEI crackdown seeks to push them back toward the closet.

Pushback on Pride

All Saints’ LGBTQ+ friendly reputation came under the spotlight in June 2025, when the church’s Pride flag was stolen and burned by an unknown person who claimed credit in an anonymous email.

Daley’s response was to purchase a new rainbow flag, hold a special flag-raising and devote a Sunday Mass to LGBTQ+ Pride.

Daley invited a transgender member of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Kevin Noble-Ward, to give a reflection at the Mass. Noble-Ward told of how he loved the story of Pinocchio because “I wanted most of all to be a real boy.”

As early as he can remember, at age 18 months, Noble-Ward said, “I felt comfortable in my corduroy rompers, but I would pitch a fit when my mom dressed me in frilly dresses” because it felt so alien.

He said he was bullied in school because he so obviously didn’t fit his own body. “When I walked down the hall, I could hear kids saying, ‘Here comes the It,” he recalled.

Noble-Ward said he suffered deeply from denying his inner self. He went to seminary to become an Episcopal priest, but when it came time to be ordained, he declined. “I was so depressed that I didn’t feel worthy of going into the ministry and inflicting myself on a congregation,” he said.

Instead, Noble-Ward married a Methodist minister he describes as “my best friend.” After his husband’s death in 2019, he finally felt free to transition with help from Upstate Inclusive Heath Services, he said. He was 61.

“I had prayed and prayed to become ‘normal,’ but after 45 years of therapy, I came to the conclusion that maybe the real sin was denying who God created me to be in the first place,” he said.

Noble-Ward felt so warmly welcomed at All Saints that he began attending Mass there and joined its LGBTQ+ Task Force last year.

But other local Catholics who saw the video live-stream of the Mass where he spoke took issue, with many commenting anonymously on YouTube that Daley should be reprimanded for holding a “Pride Mass” and displaying a rainbow flag in the sanctuary.

Seibt responded by posting a video on the Sacred Heart website calling for “conversion of heart” for Catholics who fail to follow church teachings — “the young person engaging in sex outside of marriage, the married person engaged in another relationship, the married couple using contraception, the person questioning their gender identity, the person experiencing same-sex attraction.”

The video has since been taken down but can be viewed here.

Daley said modern science has provided mountains of evidence that sexual orientation is innate, not a choice that can be altered by prayer or therapy. “Good theology, good religion and healthy spirituality have to be based on good science,” he said. “Unfortunately, on this issue some people are blind to empirical science.”

All Saints members note that the Church’s current and previous popes, Pope Leo and Pope Francis, preached that all people are children of God and should be welcomed with dignity. A recent Vatican study group report on issues facing the Church also challenged tradition by including testimony from two gay married men, one of whom reported a negative experience with Courage International. (Courage decried the report as deceptive.)

Cummings said the diocese is not forcing Courage on anyone. She said the diocese has received inquiries “from people seeking support in leading a Christian lifestyle and pursuing holiness” from many parishes, not just the two that Seibt pastors.

“There’s a thinking that All Saints is the LGBTQ parish, and this is certainly a concern of theirs, but there’s not a church in the diocese that doesn’t have LGBTQ people and their family members, so our priests have constant dialogue on this issue,” she said.

Courage International claims more than 160 chapters worldwide and 99 in the United States, including four in New York state — in Manhattan, Rockville Center, Albany and Rochester. It does not yet list a Syracuse chapter. Some but not all Courage groups use a program akin to Alcoholics Anonymous’ twelve-step program.

On the Syracuse diocesan website, all mentions of Courage link to its national website, www.couragerc.org, except for a “Frequently Asked Questions” page that can be found under tabs for “Family/Respect Life,” “Chastity/Theology of the Body,” “Same Sex Attraction and Gender Identity” and finally Courage FAQs. It asks people to contact the local Courage chapter by emailing courage@syrdio.org.

Cummings said those who reach out to the diocese will be contacted by a priest who can help counsel them on how to pursue a chaste life. She said the chapter will not have a physical location “at first,” but “it could roll into a support group” depending on demand.

All Saints members hope that doesn’t happen, but meanwhile they said they intend to continue to love and accept people for who they are rather than judging them for who they love.

“It’s the ‘Come as you are’ church,” said All Saints LGBTQ+ task force member Toni Guidice after Mass on a recent Sunday. “There’s just so much joy and acceptance here.”

“It’s a beautiful place,” Tenity agreed. “I don’t know how anyone can leave here and not be inspired.”