Trusting LGBTQ+ Students

In August 2022, Catholic educators in the Archdiocese of Omaha, Nebraska, were excited to welcome their students back after more than two years of online learning. The pandemic had been challenging, and reacclimating would be tough. But the return to in-person classes meant that teachers could resume doing the kind of ministerial work that Catholic schools are known for: caring for their students as whole people and providing a place where they could feel safe. Instead, the school year was “awful,” according to one educator. What made things particularly rough was the surprise dissemination, just a few weeks before classes began, of a controversial document issued by the archdiocesan Catholic Schools Office.