Singapore Archdiocese acknowledges need to better serve LGBTQ+, divorced, special needs Catholics

The Singapore Archdiocese has acknowledged a need to better serve marginalised groups within the Catholic community, including those with special needs, the divorced and those identifying as LGBTQ+.

In its 2025-2035 Archdiocesan Pastoral Plan released on September 8, the Archdiocese listed a wide variety of challenges within the Archdiocese that it hopes to address over the next decade. These include building communities of faith in and across parishes, strengthening unity amidst the Archdiocese’s diversity, and embracing synodality.

 Among the issues that the plan, titled “Communion in Mission”, raises, is the need to build a welcoming Church, “a Church that reaches out to those on the margins”.

Archdiocesan dialogue sessions from 2021–2024 revealed that many Catholics and their families feel “overlooked” by the Church. These include the unmarried, divorced, or widowed; those with special needs; and those identifying as LGBTQ+.

“Yet there is little knowledge of their pastoral needs and spiritual well-being,” the report observed.

For example, “there is little understanding about the participation of the divorced in the sacraments,” the document continued. “Furthermore, the language used within the Church has inadvertently excluded them despite the roles they play in their families.”

Conversations with LGBTQ+ Catholics and their parents also revealed that they had “felt judged and unwelcomed in the Church.”

For parents, “the perceived requirement for perfection, as propagated by some clergy, exacerbates their feelings of guilt, isolation, and self-doubt regarding their loved ones’ salvation and acceptance by God,” the plan noted.

Individuals with special needs and their families likewise voiced their desire for greater accessibility to church facilities, participation in Mass, and catechism.

“There is a common desire amongst these Catholics and their families for greater involvement in parish life, and for their children to receive the sacraments similar to other children.”

The plan proposed several possible ways to better serve these marginalised groups. For LGBTQ+ individuals and their families, the Catholic community could be encouraged to better understand their needs and aspirations through regular dialogue sessions. Clergy, too, could be supported to recognise their role in shaping attitudes.

For Catholics with special needs and their families, parishes may consider dedicating more resources to accessible spaces, training, and manpower in order to create catechism programmes tailored for them.

The Archdiocese further highlighted that Jesus, in His earthly ministry, “ministered to people in their particular cultures and realities and according to the stage of their life and faith journeys.”

“He especially reached out to those on the margins, those that society, religion, or family shamed or hated, ignored or excluded,” the plan emphasized.

“Like Jesus, we want to recognise and respect them as God’s own, even more so to welcome and include them into the communion that is the Church. Treating these marginalised groups of Catholics any less is hurtful to the Body of Christ.”

The full and summary versions of the Archdiocesan Pastoral Plan are available at catholic.sg/pastoralplan2025.

(Christopher Khoo is a Singapore-based freelance journalist and educator).