The LGBT outreach ministry founded by Father James Martin, a controversial Jesuit priest, recently posted a revised version of the penitential prayer from the Catholic Mass that suggests "degrading self-talk" is a sin and invokes the intercession of "queer saints."

In an Oct. 25 essay for Outreach titled "An LGBTQ Catholic guide to the Mass: Praying the Confiteor," Ariell Watson Simon, who is married to another woman, wrote about her negative experiences of praying the Confiteor prayer at Mass as she was wrestling with a homosexual identity in college.

Simon, who received a Master of Divinity from Boston College School of Theology and Ministry and works as a chaplain at a rehabilitation center, criticized what she described as the "overemphasis on sexual morality" in the Roman Catholic tradition, quoting Pope Leo XIV's assertion that "there are much greater, more important issues, such as justice, equality [and] freedom."

Simon claimed her "internal struggle over my sexuality was a distraction from examining my conscience on other important topics," and later listed "structural sins like racism, xenophobia and transphobia" as particularly concerning.

The Confiteor confesses to God and one's fellow Christians that one has "greatly sinned, in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and in what I have failed to do, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault." When acknowledging one's faults, the confessor traditionally strikes his breast three times as a sign of sorrow and humility before invoking the intercession of the Virgin Mary, as well as all the angels and the saints.

The penitential rite in the English Book of Common Prayer, though it does not invoke the intercession of saints, features a similarly worded confession of sin by which Anglicans confess that they have sinned "in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone."

In her essay, Simon penned her own revised, gender-neutral version of the Confiteor, calling it "a Confiteor for LGBTQ Catholics." She urged readers to "say it like you mean it" and "hear it as a call for mutual aid in the project of healing and growth."

"I confess to our Loving God and to you, my siblings, that I have fallen short in my prejudiced thoughts and my biased judgements, in my careless words and my degrading self-talk, in what I have done to cooperate with injustice and in what I have failed to do to resist it; through my fear, through my complacency, through my worst errors," Simon's version said.

"Therefore I ask all my spiritual ancestors, queer saints, and you, the human family, to pray with me, that together we might build a better tomorrow. Amen."

Outreach founder James Martin has long faced accusations of being at odds with orthodox Catholic teachings on sexuality, though he has denied them, according to the Catholic News Agency. In 2021, he faced rebuke for reposting a tweet referring to God as "Her" and suggesting that using female imagery to represent God is "theologically correct."

During an interview with former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in 2025, Martin described Buttigieg's homosexual parenting as "beautiful" and likened it to the relationships within the Trinity between God the Father and the Son. The late Pope Francis, also a Jesuit, raised eyebrows in 2024 for penning the preface to the Italian version of Martin's book about the resurrection of Lazarus.

Issues regarding sexuality and gender continue to divide Catholics and other Christians. In August, the National Catholic Reporter stoked backlash for publishing an op-ed that urged readers to celebrate "Transgender History Month" by praying to allegedly transgender saints.

Written by Emma Cieslik, whose byline described her as "a queer, neurodivergent religious scholar and museum worker based in Washington, D.C.," the op-ed argued that transgender history "is intimately tied to the Catholic Church, where a rich history of saints whom medieval historians now identify as transgender inspires a new generation of saints living among us."

Cieslik went on to falsely attribute modern transgender identity to multiple historical Catholic figures, most of whom were women who assumed traditionally masculine haircuts, apparel or social roles to pursue asceticism or monastic safety.