The History of Quest

Quest's nine founding members, Catholic laymen, first meet together on 6th November. Provisionally calling themselves the Gay Catholic Group, they seek publicity in the Catholic press and begin to publish Newsletter.

The name is changed to Quest and a constitution (adopted in January 1976) prepared, with the purpose of Quest expressed in terms that have remained substantially unchanged.

With the national headquarters in London, local groups are established in other large towns, the first being in Birmingham.

A local group for Scotland is established in Glasgow.

Newsletter is supplemented with Quest Link, respectively differentiating the general discussion of homosexuality in church teaching, more particularly as recently (1975) expressed in the Vatican Declaration on Sexual Ethics, from matters domestic to Quest.

The English and Welsh bishops’ Social Welfare Commission publishes An Introduction to the Pastoral Care of Homosexual People, to the drafting of which Quest had made significant contributions.

Quest members participate, as diocesan representatives, in the National Pastoral Congress at Liverpool, whose report recognised a need ‘at all levels of the Church’ for ‘a continuing re-evaluation of attitudes’ to homosexuality.

Quest Linkline is provided as, and it remains, a telephone helpline for lesbian and gay people.

Quest’s first national conference, 'Faith, Hope and Love', is held at Leicester, and a conference has been held every year since then.

Publication of the monograph, Gay Catholics in Britain: The Story of Quest 1973–83, written by Michael Stephens, a founder and the first Chairman of Quest, who died the following year.

Quest is a founder member of the European Forum of Lesbian and Gay Christian Groups.

The ‘Tell a Priest’ campaign is launched and over the next five years individual mailings are sent to some 3000 priests in Britain.

Newsletter and Quest Link are replaced by Quest News and Quest Journal, with the latter intended for discussion, at a well informed academic and pastoral level, of Catholic understanding of homosexuality.

Quest is represented at the National Conference of Priests’ annual meeting with the topic 'Together in Mission and Ministry'.

Quest Journal responds in three special numbers (1986–87) to the Vatican Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons.

The Charity Commisioners recognise Quest as a charity established for the advancement of religion.

Quest, which had never sought formal ecclesiastical recognition, is listed among Catholic societies by the Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales in its national Catholic Directory.

Quest Journal ceases publication but is replaced (from 1995) by Quest Chronicle, while Quest News is renamed Quest Bulletin.

At its silver jubilee national conference in London, Quest adopts a new constitution with many administrative changes but retaining its purpose and Catholic commitment as originally formulated.

Quest, with no prior notification, is informed that its listing as a Catholic society in the Catholic Directory will be discontinued in the 1999 edition.

Quest’s founder, Ralph Long, addresses the 30th Anniversary Conference in Birmingham, giving a history of Quest from the first advertisement in the new paper, Gay Times, through to the present day.

Representatives of Quest meet with the Bishop of Hallam to discuss matters of mutual concern. Members can view a report of these meetings (if you click the link, you will be asked to log in if not already logged in).