James Martin is a bestselling Jesuit priest and prolific author; he is profiled in S&P's Living Spiritual Teachers Project. He sets out in this controversial book to build a bridge between the Catholic institutional church and the marginalized LGBT community.

Using a speech, passages from the Bible, and questions for reflection, Martin asks both sides to reach out to each other with "respect, compassion, and sensitivity." That is a tall order given the Catholic Church hierarchy's association of sexuality with sin and its rampant misogyny and homophobia.

We were deeply moved by Martin's advocacy of LGBT people and his awareness of the steep and harrowing challenges they face. Thankfully, the author makes up for his slighting of the breadth and depth of the Catholic Church's anti-gay antagonism with "A Prayer for When I Feel Rejected." See a copy of this prayer in the excerpt.

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