LGBTQ+ Catholics feel more welcome in pilgrimage to Rome

More than 1,000 LGBTQ+ Catholics and their families participated in a Holy Year pilgrimage to Rome on Saturday, celebrating a new level of acceptance in the Roman Catholic Church after long feeling shunned, and crediting the late Pope Francis with the change.

- BY NICOLE WINFIELD

CATHOLICS walk through the Holy Door of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican.

Some wept as they walked through the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica in the rite of passage of Holy Year pilgrims. They said the moment felt important in the life of the church and their community.

“It just felt epic, like I was able to touch the hand of God,” said Justin del Rosario, who carried a big wooden crucifix across the threshold of the Holy Door with a group of pilgrims from the U.S. that included his husband.

Several LGBTQ+ groups participated in the pilgrimage, which was listed in the Vatican’s official calendar of events for the Holy Year, the once-every-quarter-century celebration of Catholicism. Vatican organizers emphasized that the listing in the calendar didn’t signal endorsement or sponsorship.

The main sponsor of the pilgrimage was an Italian LGBTQ+ advocacy organization, Jonathan's Tent, but other groups participated, including a group of trans women from southern Rome, DignityUSA and Outreach, another U.S. group, as well as the Brazilian National Network of LGBT+ Catholic Groups.

For LGBTQ+ Catholics from the U.S., the celebration in Rome comes at a time when their rights at home have been curtailed under the Trump administration, reminiscent in some ways of decades past.

“I was here 25 years ago at the last Holy Year with a contingent of LGBTQ people from the U.S., and we were actually detained as a threat to the Holy Year programs,” said DignityUSA’s Marianne Duddy Burke.