Matthew LaBanca Receives the Fr. Mychal Judge Award

On September 21, after mass at All Saints Catholic Church in Syracuse New York, Matthew LaBanca received the parish’s Father Mychal Judge Award. The honor, awarded by All Saints LGBTQIA+ Task Force, is given to people and groups who exemplify the values of the gay, Franciscan priest and NYC Fire Department chaplain who died in the 9/11 attacks.

LaBanca, an openly gay man, was fired for marrying his longtime partner after working for 10 years as a Catholic school music teacher and parish music director. When he was offered a financial settlement in exchange for signing a nondisclosure agreement, LaBanca declined and wrote the play “Communion” instead. His firing made national news and the play went on to have a sold-out Off-Broadway run in late 2024 at the cell theatre company. In 2025, Bill McGarvey directed the film “Communion”– a cinematic hybrid that blends live theater, documentary, and conventional filmmaking. It is currently being submitted to film festivals. A pre-release version of the film is available for streaming privately through CommunionFilm.com.

LaBanca performed the one-man play in Syracuse the night before the award ceremony. His remarks upon receiving the award are reprinted below.

By Matthew LaBanca

That God made me gay has been the biggest blessing of my life.

I never thought I’d say that at a Catholic church lecture.

In a way, God making me gay forced my hand, to know myself and to love myself for who I really was, and all of that has given me so much. It brought me to my husband. It brought me to the fulfilling life that we’re building together, and to work that means a great deal to me as an actor, as a writer and as a teacher.

I’m very fortunate, because I know that there are many gay souls who are brought up in religious settings that do not have this same reaction. They don’t have the luxury to question imposed shame and its place in their life in the world, and they just fall victim instead to its cruel grasp.

And maybe it’s the strength in my veins from my family who are here today. The strength gleaned from their generationally immigrant upbringing, and ironically, their Catholic upbringing that brought me to this place of authenticity. It is a way of being that–while peppered with plenty of self doubt—is perhaps an authenticity that Mychal Judge would have advocated for.

But regardless of how I got here, I’m just full of appreciation for being here. I want to thank those of you that that saw my show last night that brought me here to Syracuse. I called my play “Communion” because I wanted to push back against the narrative that being gay and Catholic is a divisive paradigm. I wrote it to pull myself together at first, but also to bring people together, not just in community, but within themselves, and to remind, if they would see it, those in higher places, the cost of division and the cost of judgment, including the pain of staying hidden in the shadows just to avoid pain and condemnation, which I believe is the last thing that God wants for us.

For so much of my life, Sundays used to look just like what we are doing today at All Saints, leading a parish in “Here I am, Lord,” “All are Welcome,” and “Let There Be Peace on Earth,” singing words that meant something to me. Now I don’t do that anymore. Being kicked out of a church for marrying your husband creates a struggle. It’s a struggle to get through the shunning and the dismissal when you know that you’re living the authentic life that God called you to live.

In my play and in in real life, I write a letter to a high-ranking committee of diocesan officials that decided the fate of my employment. And in it, I ask them, do not exclude me in the name of purity. Include me in the name of love. Those are things that I think that Mychal Judge would have also advocated for.

The number of people who have told me “your story is my story.” Or “I wish my parents could see this.” Or “you brought me closer to God”– even just last night–I’ve found very humbling. It’s affirmed my calling to this piece “Communion” which I’ve lovingly dubbed my theatrical ministry.

I’m fortunate enough to be friends with a Broadway producer who saw “Communion” in its developmental run, and she told me that this piece would be really great if it were filmed so people who might want to see it, or need to see it, or might not want to be seen in a theater seeing it can discover it. If you follow “Communion” on social media on Instagram, on our website, it’ll lead you to the ability to stream it, to get it, and to share it with others.

In it, I tell the story of walking past the front entrance of the church of the parish that had just fired me on Thanksgiving Day and seeing large signs on the doors that said, “This is a no judgment zone and a place of unconditional love.” And it was signed “Jesus.” I was outraged with that hypocrisy and was just steaming. But just 20 minutes later I ran into a priest I’d known years before on the street. I asked “Did you hear what happened to me? Did you see the sign? He was the first priest to publicly apologize to me. That such a synchronicity could occur told me that while the church had spoken, God had his own way of answering. That Thanksgiving morning, after apologizing to me, the priest simply said “Matthew, just remember, the church isn’t God.”

It led me to the realization that God was in the people, and God is certainly in people like you here at All Saints today. I cannot tell you what it means to be invited to your community, to the church of my roots. It’s such a gesture of reparation, and it’s truly a gift. You here at All Saints are living a message that I heard in so many of those hymns I sang with my choir during my years of ministry in the church, “All Are Welcome,” “I Will Hold Your People in my Heart,” “Let It Begin With Me.”

You’ve brought those songs to life this weekend for me, you’ve brought me more life, in communion with myself and in communion with each other. And I want to thank you for this award, but I also want to reflect it back to you, because this belongs just as much to you as it does to me.

Thank you so much.