Title: Jesuit Joins Georgetown To Advance Research, Support for LGBTQ+ Catholics

Fr. Lucas Sharma, S.J., has joined Georgetown’s Jesuit community with a unique mission. 

Starting this fall, he will serve as a Jesuit pastoral associate in Georgetown’s LGBTQ Resource Center, minister to the campus community, and continue his studies on religion, gender and sexuality as part of his Ph.D. in sociology. 

Sharma’s work is part of Georgetown’s inaugural John Hayden Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship, made possible through the estate of John T. Hayden, which also supported the university’s new Hayden residence hall. The fellowship allows Sharma to accompany students, support and develop programming, and conduct research on the topic of LGBTQ+ Catholics.

“It is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be able to give in this particular way and continue my research,” he said. “Hopefully, my work can inform how we might make Georgetown a place of more belonging for students on the margins across identities.”

Sharma graduated from Gonzaga University and volunteered in the Jesuit Volunteer Corps in Washington, DC. He pursued a master’s degree from Loyola University Chicago and joined the Jesuits in 2012. 

Sharma has since earned master’s degrees from Fordham University and the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University and has taught sociology at Seattle University. He continues to serve on the university’s board of trustees and as the Jesuit advisor to Seattle’s law school dean. He also recently published a study in the Sociology of Religion that predicts Catholic priests’ attitudes toward homosexuality based on their approval of Pope Francis.

“We are honored to have Fr. Lucas Sharma, S.J., join Georgetown for the Hayden Dissertation Fellowship and enrich our community with his insights, research and ministry,” said Fr. Mark Bosco, S.J., vice president for Mission & Ministry. “We look forward to working alongside him to create an ever more welcoming environment for our student body.”

Fr. Sharma’s appointment marks an important step in involving Jesuits in the LGBTQ Resource Center’s work, said Eleanor Daugherty, vice president for Student Affairs. 

“We are delighted to welcome Fr. Sharma to our LGBTQ Resource Center and support his impactful scholarship as a sociologist,” she said. “In partnering with the Office of Mission & Ministry and integrating Fr. Sharma into our work, we are furthering Georgetown’s mission of caring for our students’ whole selves and helping all Hoyas feel like they belong and that they matter.” 

At Georgetown, Sharma will complete his dissertation for the University of California San Diego, in which he’s interviewing LGBTQ+ men and women who have left and stayed in the Catholic Church. He’s hoping to learn how LGBTQ+ communities understand their Catholic faith and sexuality in light of Church teachings and the Catholic Church.

We sat down with Sharma to learn more about how he was drawn to studying and supporting LGBTQ+ Catholics, his research findings and his new role at Georgetown.

How did you become interested in working with the LGBTQ Catholic community?

During the pandemic, I lived at our Jesuit retirement center in Los Gatos, California. One day, a Jesuit said, ‘You should ask Father Leo about his ministry in the 80s in San Francisco with people with HIV.’ So I [did]. We sat outside, and this Jesuit priest started to cry as if he was remembering getting involved for the first time. He said, ‘I found a population that nobody cared about, and I wanted to go be there.’

I am inspired by Father Leo’s example to ‘go be there,’ and want to do the same – to accompany not just LGBTQ Catholics but also all people who identify as LGBTQ because I also desire to follow in Pope Francis’ words of ‘todos, todos, todos,’ the Church is for everyone.

That’s the reason I find a lot of joy in being a Catholic priest, a joy in working at Jesuit colleges. I feel this firm conviction that they really are for all. The hope for me is that we might someday have a church where people feel like they belong.

What do you hope your Ph.D. dissertation will shed light on?

I’m hoping to understand how, in today’s context of the Catholic Church in the United States and across the world, people — by virtue of being themselves — are shaping the institutional church. I’m curious to find out how their own witness or presence is helping the Catholic Church grapple with the experiences of people on the margins. And from a theological perspective, what God might be doing through and with them and to the larger church.

It’s not just religious people like priests or theologians who shape what the church looks like. It’s also the entire people of God and the diversity of people’s experiences who shape what the future of the institutional church will look like.

What are you finding so far?

When I proposed this project, I imagined a binary between those who stay Catholic and those who leave Catholicism. I have interviewed 32 men and 17 women who’ve left at this point. What I’ve found is there is a more nuanced, complicated relationship than just leave or stay. A lot of my participants who’ve left talk about the enduring positive components of Catholicism that continue to shape their lives, whether their formation in Catholic social teaching and their concern for the poor and their Catholic experience, or their sacramental imagination, finding God in the world and imagining how God is working through various things in the world.

There’s this Portuguese conception of saudade, a longing that’s deeper than nostalgia. There’s something more complicated than just leaving or staying.

One inspiring thing is that … many of the people I’ve interviewed so far talk about how Catholic institutions like Georgetown have helped them affirm who they are and find their sense of self, and that’s something they’re grateful for.

What will your work look like with the LGBTQ Resource Center?

I’m hoping to accompany students and support programming. For example, tonight I’m hosting students in what we’re calling the Queer Bakery. We’re going to bake and decorate cupcakes and spend time being together. The next program … we’ll cook a meal so that college students can learn cooking skills but also build fellowship. I have this firm sense that when we cook together, when we share a meal together, we get to know each other more deeply and share who we are.

This is an example of the larger work of the LGBTQ Resource Center which aims to cultivate community and joy among our students, accompany them as they grow as leaders, and in doing so, uplift their voices. We fundamentally believe that this is part of affirming the dignity, the beauty of each person. It’s part of cura personalis, caring for the whole person, meeting each student where they are. We also seek to accompany our faculty and staff who might want to come to programs or find support and community with one another. 

What do you want the Georgetown community to know about you?

It’s my privilege to be here at Georgetown University, and, in my short experience so far, I see how talented and bright, but also compassionate and generous, Georgetown students are. It’s my hope that together we can continue to do this work, whether one identifies as LGBTQ or not. Come find me in the Office of Student Equity and Inclusion. It’s always a privilege to get to know students.