(LifeSiteNews) — Dissident Catholic website New Ways Ministry has released its “best” and “worst” news items from 2024.
Founded in 1977 by pro-LGBT nun Jeannine Gramick, New Ways Ministry was officially condemned by the Vatican in 1999. It was also rebuked by Cardinal Francis George in 2010 while he was president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The group has enjoyed a sweeping rehabilitation under Francis, who has written letters of support and even met with Gramick along with her heterodox collaborators at the Vatican.
The organization released its twin lists at the tail end of December after asking visitors to its website to vote on what they believed were the best and worse stories from the past year. Predictably, news about clergy defending orthodox Catholic teachings was the “worst” while the “best” news was where clergy dissented from established Church doctrine.
The third worst story of 2024, according to the poll, was when Francis condemned “gender ideology” as the “ugliest danger” in the world. The second worst was the failure of the recent Synod on Synodality to meaningfully address LGBT issues. The overall worst story from 2024 was when Ghana’s bishops supported a pro-family bill that bans sodomy, homosexual “marriage,” and LGBT propaganda.
“The failure of the Synod on Synodality to take up LGBTQ+ issues in any substantial way is not surprising to find near the top of the list, as so many people had high hopes for this event and had participated so vigorously in it,” editor Francis DeBernardo said.
Other notable news items included in the group’s top 10 worst stories of 2024 was Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s decision to offer a Mass of reparation after a sacrilegious funeral for a drag queen at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City and when U.S. bishops opposed blessings for homosexual couples after the release of Fiducia Supplicans in 2023.
The best story of 2024, according to New Ways Ministry, was when the Vatican doubled down on providing blessings for same-sex couples. The second-best story was when Francis met with “Catholic intersex, transgender, and ally people at the Vatican” thanks to the efforts of New Ways Ministry.
BREAKING: #PopeFrancis met with group of “transgender, intersex,” LGBT people & @NewWaysMinistry at #Vatican today for nearly 90 mins.
Among other things in mtg, they asked him to approve sex change surgery.
“The pope was very receptive,” one participant said of the mtg. pic.twitter.com/X2usYgpUiT
— Michael Haynes 🇻🇦 (@MLJHaynes) October 12, 2024
The third-best item was when the Vatican’s official newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, published a “pro-LGBTQ+” article by left-wing Dominican priest Timothy Radcliffe, who was scandalously named a cardinal at the most recent consistory.
Fiducia Supplicans “continued to have a strong influence” on the Church in 2024, DeBernardo wrote while reflecting on the group’s “best” news items.
“Advances in LGBTQ+ equality in Germany’s Catholic Church continue to grow,” he also noted. “News from Germany made the ‘Best’ list in 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, and 2017, making good Catholic LGBTQ+ news stories from Germany second only to Pope Francis in terms of appearances on the ‘Best’ list.”
As LifeSite has reported for many years, New Ways Ministry does not seek to help Catholics struggling with same-sex attraction or gender confusion live chaste, holy lives. Rather, it is striving to normalize the LGBT agenda in the Church by radically altering and even abolishing long-established Church teaching on the immorality of homosexual acts, transgenderism, sex-change surgeries, and a range of other sexual behaviors.