Chicago’s LGBTQ Catholic community has been gathering for Mass since 1971, when a volunteer began hosting Masses in her home. When the H.I.V./AIDS crisis hit Chicago, there was a great need to establish a way to minister more formally to the LGBTQ community, to provide a place where people could go to feel welcome, experience community and heal.
Seeing this need, the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin founded AGLOChicago, in 1988, as a supra-parochial organization, a parish without a physical church, to celebrate Mass for the LGBTQ community. Today, AGLO gathers for Mass each Sunday evening at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church at 7:00 PM.
LGBTQ people, along with our allied supporters from all over the metropolitan area, gather each Sunday to participate in the liturgy celebrated by priests from Chicagoland parishes and religious congregations, who offer to preside over a congregation with common experiences and shared challenges.
For over 35 years, AGLOChicago has brought together the LGBTQ community, providing a sense of home, a place to recharge, and a place to grow in relationship with God and neighbor. AGLOChicago is an all-volunteer organization with LGBTQ people serving as lectors, sacristans, cross-bearers, and ministers of care and of hospitality. AGLO regularly offers Mass, after-Mass socials, faith-sharing groups, online and in-person retreats and social justice events with other faith groups and organizations.
