The Vatican is organizing its first-ever pilgrimage for LGBTQ+ Christians, their relatives and allies during its 2025 celebration of Jubilee, a Holy Year that only occurs every 50 years. The historic event is just the latest in numerous recent pro-LGBTQ+ overtures made by Pope Francis, head of the Catholic Church.
The pilgrimage — which is entitled “Church: Home for All, LGBT+ Christians and Other Existential Frontiers” and which will take place on September 6, 2025 — will include a visit St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City (the Catholic Church’s city-state located in Rome, Italy), a prayer vigil for members of the LGBT+ community and their families held in the city’s Il Gesù church (built in 1584), and a celebratory mass overseen by Bishop Francesco Savino, Vice-President of the Italian Bishops’ Conference.
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The pilgrimage will be led by Tenda di Gionata, an Italian gay rights group that helps “society and the churches to open up to the understanding and reception of homosexual people,” The Catholic Herald reported. At its previous events, the group has depicted Jesus Christ as a transgender person, wearing a rainbow halo or standing in front of a rainbow flag.
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The idea for the pilgrimage reportedly came from Bolognese Jesuit, Pino Piva, who has cared for LGBTQ+ people over the past few years, according to the Roman newspaper Il Messaggero. Pope Francis reportedly approved of the pilgrimage despite “internal resistance” from Holy Year organizers.
Though the event is not yet listed in the Vatican’s official calendar of events, it reportedly has the support of Holy Year preparations coordinator Archbishop Rino Fisichellaand Cardinal Matteo Zuppi of Bologna, president of the Italian Bishops’ Conference.
The pilgrimage is just the latest in numerous pro-LGBTQ+ overtures made by Pope Francis and the Church.
Francis has criticized his own church’s leaders for becoming too focused on divisive issues like homosexuality. He told U.S. bishops to lay off the anti-gay attacks and compared homophobes to Nazis. He also suggested that he could support same-sex unions, said that celibate gay priests should be allowed to serve, and even met with other LGBTQ+ activists, reportedly telling one man that God made him gay and donating money to a group of transgender sex workers. He has criticized anti-LGBTQ+ conservatives, excommunicated an anti-LGBTQ+ priest, met with trans activists and denounced Uganda’s “Kill the Gays” law.
In January, he called laws criminalizing homosexuality “unjust” and insisted that God loves all his children just as they are. He also called on Catholic bishops to welcome LGBTQ+ people into the Church. In 2020, he also said that nations should recognize civil unions for same-sex couples because they “have a right to a family.”
However, Pope Francis has also said that the Catholic Church can’t bless same-sex relationships because they’re a “sin,” that gay priests are being “fashionable” and should “leave the ministry,” that bishops should reject priesthood applicants suspected of being gay, that gay couples can’t be families, that U.S. clerks have a right to deny marriage certificates to same-sex couples, that parents should send their gay children to therapy, that trans people will “annihilate the concept of nature,” and that trans youth shouldn’t try and access gender-affirming medical care. He has also used anti-gay slurs during meetings (though he apologized for that).
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