Pope Francis has approved a pilgrimage for people who identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual and transsexual as part of the Jubilee 2025 celebrations.
The 2025 Jubilee, or Holy Year, is a year-long celebration of the Catholic Church that will take place from December 24, 2024 to January 6, 2026. As many as 35 million visitors are expected in Rome in 2025. Many of them will be pilgrims for the upcoming jubilee, a holy year the church celebrates every quarter-century.
On September 5 there will be a prayer vigil for members of the LGBT+ community and their families in Il Gesù, the Baroque Jesuit mother church in Rome and the burial place of St Ignatius of Loyola, the 16th century founder of the Jesuits.
On the afternoon of the following day, the LGBT+ pilgrims will pass through the Holy Door of St Peter’s Basilica, according to Il Messaggero.
The LGBT+ pilgrims will return to Il Gesù for a Mass celebrated by Bishop Francesco Savino, the vice president of the Italian Bishops’ Conference.
The event represents the first time in history that a specifically LGBT+ pilgrimage will be included in Holy Year celebrations.
The event is not yet listed in the official calendar of events but reports claim that the Pope has given the pilgrimage his blessing in spite of “internal resistance” from Holy Year organisers in the Vatican’s Dicastery for Evangelisation.
The idea is said to be the brainchild of Fr Pino Piva, an Italian Jesuit with pastoral ministry for LGBT+ Catholics.
Besides Pope Francis, it has the support of Archbishop Rino Fisichella, who is charge of Holy Year preparations, and Cardinal Matteo Zuppi of Bologna, the president of the Italian Bishops’ Conference.
Fr Arturo Sosa, the superior general of the Jesuits, is reportedly also supportive of the LGBT+ pilgrimage, describing the event as a “good thing”.
According to Franca Giansoldati of Il Messaggero, “a special moment of spirituality has been included in the official calendar of the Holy Year on September 6, and the historic Baroque church of the Gesù has become the promoter of welcoming LGBT+ pilgrims, their parents, workers and all those who gravitate to these rainbow associations”.
The pilgrimage will have the title “Church: Home for All, LGBT+ Christians and Other Existential Frontiers”.
It will be led chiefly by Tenda di Gionata, an Italian gay rights group with a focus on helping “society and the churches to open up to the understanding and reception of homosexual people”.
At previous events, the group has depicted Jesus Christ with a rainbow halo and before a rainbow flag, and has depicted Christ as a transsexual.
@Catholic Herald