For the first time in its history, the Vatican is hosting an official pilgrimage of LGBTQ Catholics, drawing more than 1,400 people from about 20 countries in what participants called a powerful sign of diversity within the Catholic Church.
The gathering, part of the Church’s Jubilee holy year, was organized by La Tenda di Gionata, an Italian association advocating for greater inclusivity among the faithful. While LGBTQ groups have visited the Vatican in the past, this is the first time such an event has been included in the Jubilee program.
Pilgrims will walk the same path as millions of others before them: on Saturday, they were to proceed along the main road to the Vatican and step through the Holy Door into St. Peter’s Basilica. Hundreds attended a morning Mass at the Church of the Gesù in central Rome, after holding a prayer vigil on Friday night.
“We are not just some outsiders who are welcomed sometimes, or more regularly, we are part of the same family,” said Yveline Behets, a 68-year-old transgender woman from Brussels. Wearing a rainbow T-shirt, she described walking 80 miles of the ancient Via Francigena pilgrimage route to Rome with 30 others. She said she hoped the Church would embrace “plurality,” after years of struggling to feel acknowledged by fellow Catholics.
Hugo, a 35-year-old from Quebec who declined to give his last name, said the event carried special weight for him. “The LGBTQ pilgrimage is a really important signal for us to feel more included,” he said. “I hope it will let people who are on the fence to allow themselves to be more welcoming towards homosexuals in the Church.”
But Hugo acknowledged the challenges ahead. “There are fears and a sort of misunderstanding when it comes to the life that homosexuals lead,” he said. “If everybody got to know everyone else, I think a lot of barriers would come down. But a lot of obstacles remain,” he added, especially for couples who seek Church blessings for same-sex marriages.
The pilgrimage comes at a delicate moment for the Catholic hierarchy. Pope Francis, who died in April, had extended repeated gestures toward the LGBTQ community, most notably his 2023 decision to permit priests to bless same-sex couples — a move that drew sharp resistance from conservatives, especially in Africa.
His successor, Pope Leo XIV, has reaffirmed the Church’s teaching that marriage is between a man and a woman but has said he will not reverse Francis’s decision.
For many families, the struggle is personal. “Many of our children no longer go to church because they are made to feel that they are wrong. That absolutely needs to change,” said Beatrice Sarti, 60, of Bologna, who attended with her gay son and is a member of La Tenda di Gionata.
“The first thing to do is train educators, the seminarians, the priests and the bishops, starting at the grassroots,” she said, while acknowledging, “it is a very long process.”
Though Pope Leo did not grant the pilgrims a private audience, their inclusion in the Jubilee calendar marked a milestone for LGBTQ Catholics who have long felt excluded. For Behets, Sarti and others, the weekend’s steps toward St. Peter’s Basilica symbolized something larger: a Church still grappling with tradition, but taking, however cautiously, steps toward change.