A Second Welcome: Inside the 2nd Annual LGBTQ-Inclusive “Pride Mass”

By Angelina M Tucci, Rancho Cucamonga Resident

13th Sunday in Ordinary Time, June 27

On the drive to the Cathedral of San Bernadino for the Embrace Family Ministries’ second annual LGBT-inclusive Mass, I thought about my relationship with Christianity—not with Jesus, but with the Church. I didn’t want to focus on controversies. I wanted to witness something I thought would never exist.

I had learned about this Mass earlier this year at Riverside Pride, my first Pride ever. My friend Connie Bottini and I were working a booth for our union’s LGBTQ+ Committee when we wandered over to a table run by a ministry I’d never heard of. They were promoting their annual “Pride Mass” and I was surprised that not only something like this existed but that it had the Bishop’s endorsement. Here was a ministry created to address a real need in the diocese.

As Bishop Alberto Rojas would later say, “the pews should be safe spaces.”

Since the late 1990s, the San Bernardino Dioceses had acknowledged that queer Catholics and their families were in need.

Like many others, I had given up on the institutional Church. Too much controversy not being addressed, and sitting next to misguided worshipers was the excuse I used. But my relationship with Christianity has always been complicated, and it started long before I understood why.

My coming-out story is directly tied to the Church. It was 2008, and California was consumed with Proposition 8, a ballot measure to ban same-sex marriage. I was in my freshman year of high school, still trying to name feelings I didn’t yet have words for. One day after Mass at my home church of St. Peter & St. Paul in Alta Loma, someone was passing out “Vote YES on Prop 8” yard signs. That moment—learning that queer relationships not only existed but were under attack—turned out to be a big deal for me. It unlocked a whole part of me I hadn’t been able to articulate. Over the next two years, I went from pretending to crush on boys to embracing my ‘baby-butch’ self and getting a Bieber hair cut. The deepest self-reflection I’ve ever done happened during those years, and the best physical spot for it was in the church pews.

After dropping out of high school in 2011, I returned to Church almost instinctively. I crave education, and when I discovered Confirmation classes, I signed up. Those classes rebuilt my academic confidence while I enrolled at Chaffey College and fed my curiosity through art history courses. The iconography of the Middle Ages and Renaissance drew me deep into the Church’s visual and intellectual tradition. I had no idea how much that history shaped the world we live in today. Eventually I stepped away again, attending only for friends’ milestone celebrations. I put further religious development aside, trusting I would return someday.

I had no plans for 2026 to be that year, but everything fell into place.

So, I ended up attending this specific Mass as my most recent reintroduction to Catholicism. All these complex thoughts left my mind immediately as I walked into the Cathedral.

I was greeted by many smiling faces—even keeping to myself I felt the warmth and care radiating within the congregation. Waiting for the mass to begin I took note of the queer people everywhere. The choir and band had visibly queer members serving. Families, friends and couples all there for this celebration. And when the procession passed my aisle, I saw rainbow-patterned stoles draped over the clergy. My jaw dropped.

Bishop Rojas’ homily centered on the theme that the Church, an institution that claims to welcome everyone, has too often failed those who need it most. He urged us to leave behind outdated hang-ups that prevent acceptance of God’s love.

The first reading told the story of the Shunammite woman who showed radical hospitality to the prophet Elijah, insisting her husband build a permanent room for him. Her faith let her see a stranger as holy and respond with generosity. That, the homily implied, is the model we are called to follow. Put love of God first, even above family ties or social comfort.

The least surprising moment came near the end. As Francine Bradley, one of the ministry’s organizers from Palm Springs, was giving closing remarks and thanking the clergy, when alone protester stood up and began chanting over her.

He was given the option to sit quietly or leave. He refused. A group of men from the congregation calmly and efficiently escorted him out. There was no chaos, no shouting back. The community was putting into practice what we just reaffirmed during Mass. The protestor had put his own sense of righteousness above the love of God, the very trap the homily warned against.

I shouldn’t have been so surprised by everything that Mass offered. When I stepped away from the Church, people like Karla Camacho kept holding a seat open for me and actively continues to build more seats.

That’s why I sat down to talk with her. Her story, I knew, would inspire others the way it inspired me

Karla Camacho-Gay Catholic Previously Excluded, Now the First to Welcome

Karla grew up Catholic in West Covina and came out to her supportive parents in high school around 2004.

She’s always been active in the church, even working for the Church. Eventually a coworker invited her to a young adult group. She was nervous but went. That first meeting, she later learned, had been orchestrated to discourage her. The leaders had planned an anti-LGBT talk specifically because they knew a gay person was coming, joking afterward that they’d “see how long she lasts.” She almost walked out, but something told her to stay. Years later, one of those coordinators approached her with tears in his eyes, admitting that her dedication was proof that she belonged.

She was the one who “lasted” the longest, ironically.

Karla and her partner Lisa we asked to be on a commission to help rebuild the relationship with LGBT community. The first year was pure survival. The second year focused on visibility—letting people know the ministry existed. This year, the focus was spirituality. “What do we need as LGBTQ Catholics?” The group is small, about a dozen deeply active members, but it started even smaller—just Karla, her girlfriend Lisa, and a handful of parents and grandparents who wanted to support their loved ones. “That’s how we started,” she told me. Giving me more confirmation that allies are foundational support in all queer spaces.

The spark for the Gifted & Called Ministry came when Karla visited the previously established LGBTQ Catholic ministry in Palm Springs. During the sign of peace, she saw same-sex couples embracing and kissing just like straight couples. “I came back and kept telling everybody, ‘Why can’t we have this at home?’”

That vision, of couples together forty-plus years, gave her energy and hope. It’s the same vision that now anchors the monthly gatherings in St. Mary’s of Fontana—Making a point to sit at Mass together every first Sunday and having coffee and “lectura divina” afterward. Its a standing invitation for anyone looking to further and more deeply read scripture together as a community. Their doors are open even to non-Catholics. The group includes Buddhists, Jews, atheists—anyone drawn to a spiritual life in a place free of judgment

When I asked what sustains her drive, Karla returned again and again to the basics. “When things are difficult and you don’t know what to do, you have to go back to the basics,” she told me, “and the basics is love.”

That’s the lens through which she approaches everything, including supporting our trans siblings—the group marched at Riverside’s Trans Visibility Day with handmade posters. It’s also what she tells parents who are struggling. “Ask the hard questions, chew on them. Know that God doesn’t just love you, but he likes you. He finds joy in who you are.”

Bringing Politics into the Church—They’ve Always Been Present

None of this exists in a political vacuum, pretending it should, would benefit only a few. The “Pride Mass” being hosted at the cathedral for the first time is political. The single protestor also took political action. The Church is political and the question we all should be asking is—whose politics shape the parish?

At the center of all this is the first reading: a woman who encountered someone walking the path of God—a path she also followed—and instead of measuring his faith against her own, she accommodated him to the best of her ability. No questions asked. Karla and the Gifted & Called and Embrace ministries are doing the same—not for a prophet, but for queer Catholics, for questioning parents, for anyone willing to explore the teachings of Jesus.

I walked into that cathedral expecting to observe and I walked out realizing I’d been given a room of my own.

The welcome was always there. People like Karla are simply helping others trust that love again—God’s love, yes, but also the love we show one another and the love we’re finally learning to give ourselves