LGBTQ + Catholics make a historic pilgrimage to the Vatican

Some 1,400 Catholics carrying rainbow outfits and transport crosses participate in the first LGBTQ + pilgrimage officially recognized in Rome as part of the year of the Vatican jubilee.

Coming from 20 countries, pilgrims attend prayer, masses and other activities this weekend – although they will not have a private audience with Pope Leo XIV.

His predecessor Pope Francis, who died in April, did not change the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church concerning the LGBTQ + community – but made openings in a decree in 2023.

These include allowing priests to bless the same sex couples – a decision that has made the Catholics of the Conservatives, especially in Africa, angry.

On Saturday, members of the LGBTQ + community entered the Saint -Pierre basilica through its holy door – a procession which symbolizes reconciliation.

The door only opens once in 25 years to mark the years of the Jubilee of the Roman Catholic Church.

“Not only do LGBTQ people walk and walk to say that they are part of the church, but official church institutions welcome them and help them tell their stories,” said Francis Debernardo, executive director of the New Ways Minister, quoted by the National Catholic Journalist website.

The ministry helps defend the LGBTQ + community within the Catholic Church.

Some 32 million pilgrims should go down to the Vatican this year for jubilee celebrations.

Pope Leo, who was elected in May, has not yet publicly approached the LGBTQ +community.

The American pontiff also did not comment on the decree of his predecessor in 2023.

In 2020, Pope Francis said that “homosexuals have the right to be in a family”.

“They are children of God … No one should be thrown out or make it miserable on it,” he said.

Three years later, Francis allowed priests to bless homosexual and “irregular” couples, in certain circumstances.

But the Vatican said that such blessings should not be part of the rituals of the regular church or linked to civil unions or marriages.

He added that he continued to see the marriage between a man and a woman.