Board

Marianne Duddy-Burke was the Board member representing North America and Secretary of the GNRC Board.  She is the Executive Director of DignityUSA, the largest and oldest organisation of Catholics committed to justice, equality and full inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI) persons in the church and society.  She has also served as the organisation’s President, Vice-President, New England Regional Director, and President of the Boston chapter.  Marianne received a Master of Divinity degree from Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was an Honours graduate of Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Marianne is DignityUSA’s primary spokesperson and has represented the organisation in countless news stories and interviews in national and international media of all kinds.  She speaks regularly at conferences throughout the United States on issues of importance to LGBTQI Catholics and their families.  She was featured in the video DignityUSA: A Conversation with Marianne Duddy, and her work has been included in several books, including, most recently, Catholic Women Confront their Church: Stories of Hurt and Hope. Marianne took part in early discussions with members of the European Forum of LGBT Christian Groups, We Are Church, and other international Catholic networks that eventually led to the formation of GNRC.  In 2017, she served as facilitator of the official meeting of GNRC’s Second Assembly in Munich, where the GNRC’s Constitution was adopted and the organisation was formally established as a Non-Governmental Organization registered in Italy.  In 2019, she was instrumental in bringing GNRC’s Third Assembly to Chicago, in conjunction with DignityUSA’s 50th anniversary national conference. Marianne grew up in a devout Catholic family in New Jersey, where she attended Mt. St. Mary High School, run by the Sisters of Mercy.  She continued her active religious life at Wellesley and was president of the Newman Centre group representing Catholic students there, until she was forced to resign because she was a lesbian.  Fortunately, she found the Boston chapter of Dignity soon after her graduation. Marianne Duddy-Burke has over thirty-five years of non-profit and corporate leadership experience.  In addition to her many years of work for DignityUSA, she has worked in the health care, human resources consulting, and elder care fields.  She lives in Boston, Massachusetts, with her spouse, Becky Duddy-Burke, and their two adopted teenaged children, Emily and Finn.

Paolo Alacqua has represented Acceptance Sydney in GNRC since attending the Second Assembly in Munich in 2017. He joined the Membership and Nominations Committee at that time and served as Chair from August 2018 to August 2022. He also attended the Third Assembly in Chicago in 2019 and is a member of the Constitutional Committee. In these roles, he has become familiar with the policies, procedures and aims of the GNRC. For Acceptance Sydney, he has served for many years as a committee member, public officer, and treasurer. He has organised Masses for the LGBTIQ+ community, retreats, Mardi Gras (Pride Parade floats and other Pride events), and various social events. Paolo has worked for more than 30 years in the airline industry, most recently in commercial management positions. He has experience in managing operational matters across multiple global stakeholder groups; global relationship and partner management; policy design and compliance; business case development and presentations; and project management. Among the current challenges he sees for GRNC are: maintaining a unified voice for LGBTIQ+ Catholics across multiple global regions; focusing on aligned priorities that advance the aims and mission of GNRC; and conducting the affairs of GNRC in an empathetic and consultatory manner. As Secretary, he sees himself as part of a team, focused on supporting the Co-Chairs in managing an efficient and well-organized Board, resulting in outstanding outcomes for GNRC and its members.

Christopher studied history and sociology at university and became a history teacher, first at the secondary school level and later as lecturer in a pre-tertiary University College associated with the University of Malta.  While his primary research has been on the history of Malta in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, he has recently begun research on LGBT realities there in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He is currently working fulltime as Assistant Secretary general with the Malta Union of Teachers, representing educators in all sectors of Education. He is also Secretary of the Malta Historical Society and is Coordinator of Drachma LGBTI. In 2015, Christopher attended the inaugural conference of the Global Network of Rainbow Catholics in Rome and was elected to the group’s Steering Committee.  Over the next two years, he worked with the committee to create the framework and legal foundation of the GNRC.  In 2017, GNRC was established in Munich as an official Non-Governmental Organization registered in Italy.  Christopher was elected to the GNRC’s first board of directors as one of the two Co-Chairs and was re-elected to the same role both in 2019 and in 2022.

We are all made of love, in likeness to our celestial Father. He made us to love and to be loved. Our love comes from Him so to negate our love is to negate Him. Dr. Victoria Rodriguez (she) is a trans mother of 3 children. She has a PhD in Molecular Biology and works as a mathematics teacher in a public high school in Spain. As a bisexual Catholic, she belongs to several Catholic faith groups, such as Ichthys Sevilla, PADIS+G Sevilla, Trans Christians, CLC, Cursillos de cristiandad and the GNRC. Some of these faith groups are exclusive to LGBTQ people, others are diverse, and there are also those where she is the only LGBTQ person. But in all of them, she can be herself openly, share her faith in the community and try to draw closer to God.  Victory: The Good News of the Gospel for a Trans Mother of Three – Crismhom

Hails from India and has lived in England as a Non Resident Indian since the late 1960s. She has worked in media for over thirty years. She set up a training and production company as a co-operative for Asian women in London, England. She worked as a Senior Lecturer at London Metropolitan University, London. Then worked as a free lance trainer and educator in England as well as in India. Ruby previously served on the GNRC Steering Committee in October 2015 and became Co-Chair of the GNRC Board from 2017 till 2022. She served as Chair of Quest, England from 2012 to 2019 Ruby is now Convenor for Quest London South East.  She is current Chair of LGBT+ Catholics Westminster, London England And is Chair of Bridge and Embrace, an apostolate for LGBT& Catholics in India.

Gonzalo is the director and founder of the largest youth volunteer organization in Mexico: Fundación Iluminando con Amor. He is also a spiritual companion and currently collaborates with the network of rainbow Catholics in Mexico (REDCAM) and is the Regional Officer of GNRC.

Inés Pujol serves as the Diversity and Equality Officer on the Board of the Global Network of Rainbow Catholics (GNRC). She is a pastoral leader, philosopher and theologian from Costa Rica, committed to building inclusive spaces within the Catholic Church where every person is recognized and celebrated in their full dignity.

Since 2022, Inés has been part of the Women and Diversities Commission of GNRC Latin America, promoting reflection, dialogue, and action toward equality and inclusion across the region. From 2022 to 2025, she served as Regional Representative for Diversity and Equality in Latin America, fostering collaboration among local communities, faith groups, and advocates for LGBTQIA+ inclusion.

She also served as the Coordinator of Espacio Seguro Católico in Costa Rica (2022–2023), a community dedicated to pastoral accompaniment and the affirmation of LGBTQIA+ Catholics. Since 2023, Inés has been a member of the Latin American Commission “Women in the Church and Society”, where she represents women of diverse sexual orientations and gender identities. From this role, she works to ensure that the ecclesial citizenship conferred by baptism is fully respected, envisioning a Church that is inclusive rather than segmented.

Inés is also part of groups such as Cristianxs Trans and the Rainbow Trans Catholic Network where trans people are accompanied to follow their path of faith with a pastoral accompaniment and also from these communities seeks the complete inclusion of trans people in the different ecclesial environments and that the Church also understands gender identity not as an ideology but as part of the mystical body of Christ.

Through her ministry and advocacy, Inés strengthens GNRC’s commitment to diversity, equality, and safe participation for all, contributing to a more just, compassionate, and truly inclusive Church.

Agnes Burg has a master’s degree in Building Technology and Urbanism, and worked as a designer and project architect in the Netherlands. Later she became a nun ( OCSO, Trappist), received an extensive monastic formation and obtained a bachelor’s degree in Religious Sciences at the University of Leuven. She was sent from Belgium on a mission to DRC and later to France. There she left religious life and settled in an ancient farm in the south of France, renovating the place, tending a flock of sheep and reading obscure books on the founding thoughts of the Second Vatican Council. She was appointed member of the Pastoral Council of her diocese, became involved with the European Forum of lgbtiq+ Christians as member of the Catholic Working Group, and was elected International Representative of the French lgbtiq+ member group David § Jonathan Arc-et-Ciel. The Synodal Process in the Catholic Church aims for an inclusive and pluralistic Church based on the unifying values of Jesus’ Gospels, and the GNRC is for Agnes an excellent collaborative space to help along this ongoing adventure.