Freedom Within Religion: The Participation of LGBT+ Catholics in the Jubilee 2025

Abstract

In 2000, during the Great Jubilee, the Catholic Church opposed the celebration of the International Gay Pride in Rome. Twenty-five years later, in 2025, the LGBT+ Jubilee pilgrimage was included in the official Jubilee program. This article analyzes both the narratives of those who participated in the pilgrimage and the sociohistorical factors that made this event possible. Using digital content analysis of 50 testimonies collected by La Tenda di Gionata, the Catholic LGBT+ organization responsible for organizing the LGBT+ Jubilee pilgrimage, the study shows that the principle of dignity emerges as the main narrative legitimizing the belonging of LGBT+ Catholics within the Church, expressed through recurrent claims for recognition rather than through mere welcoming. Furthermore, the article identifies two endogenous factors that contributed to the conditions under which this event took place: the pragmatic strategy of Pope Francis’s pontificate and the alignment and convergence of the Catholic LGBT+ movement with the wider culture of rights. The study suggests that these developments were made possible by the unexpected consequences of religious freedom within the religious field, which enabled a major shift in the understanding of religion, from a duty-centered to right-centered framework, in the contemporary world.

1. Introduction

Pope John Paul II (Paul 2000) described the 2000 World Gay Pride in Rome as “an affront to the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 and an offence to Christian values”. He explained that the Church “cannot be silent about the truth”, reaffirming the official teaching on homosexuality.

His statement marked the peak of strong political and ecclesial pressure to stop the event, a campaign supported by the center-right opposition (Stanley 2000) and by Prime Minister Giuliano Amato, who declared: “Unfortunately, we must adapt to a situation in which there is a Constitution that imposes restrictions and establishes rights” (Battaglia 2017). The Pope’s words provoked immediate and strong reactions from Italian gay associations, who accused the Pope of promoting homophobia, prejudice, and discrimination (Galán 2000; Stanley 2000).

Twenty-five years later, during the Jubilee of 2025, the scene in Rome was different. As part of the official celebrations, La Tenda di Gionata, in collaboration with international LGBT+ Catholic organizations, organized an LGBT+ Jubilee pilgrimage to the Vatican, representing a form of visible participation by LGBT+ Catholics within an institutional space in which their presence has been historically contested.

This visibility, however, did not imply the absence of institutional tensions. The organization of the pilgrimage faced several difficulties. The event was first included in the official Jubilee calendar, later cancelled, and eventually reinstated under the name “Pilgrimage of La Tenda di Gionata Association and other associations”. The Jubilee organizers quickly distanced themselves from the event, arguing that anyone can organize a pilgrimage. The participants were also asked not to display flags; a restriction justified for logistical reasons. The Eucharistic celebration did not take place in St. Peter’s Basilica but in the Chiesa del Sacro Nome di Gesù, and it was presided over by Bishop Francesco Savino, Vice President of the Italian Bishops’ Conference. His homily was emotional and pastoral, yet it made no direct reference to the LGBT+ acronym. Although Bishop Savino mentioned that the Pope was informed and would send a greeting, the Pope did not make any special greeting to LGBT+ pilgrims during the Angelus.

Despite these institutional tensions, over the past twenty-five years, the Vatican’s position toward Catholic LGBT+ groups has changed in identifiable ways, marked by the growing visibility and persistence of LGBT+ Catholics who continue to claim their place within the Church. What changes within the Church, LGBT+ groups, and the broader social context have shaped this process? What institutional, organizational, and social changes have influenced this shift? These are the guiding questions of this study.

In addressing these questions, the article is organized into four main parts. It provides a theoretical framework of religious freedom as a plausibility structure within contemporary pluralism for analyzing LGBT+ dynamics within the Catholic Church (Section 2). It explains the context of the Jubilee and introduces the methodology of the study (Section 3) based on content analysis of secondary data entirely composed of 50 testimonies published online by La Tenda di Gionata. Furthermore, Section 4 presents the results of the analysis. It examines the Catholic LGBT+ movement and the pontificate of Pope Francis as endogenous factors shaping the Jubilee pilgrimage. It subsequently analyzes how narratives of recognition and dignity emerge in pilgrims’ testimonies to legitimize their presence within the Church. Finally, Section 5 discusses how these factors operate within a broader transformation related to a shift in legitimacy from religious authorities and institutions toward individual subjects. This shift involves changes in plausibility structures and supports not only expectations of tolerance, but also claims to the fundamental right to believe or not to believe, even within religious traditions.

2. Religious Freedom as Plausibility Structure

Without dismissing the influence of institutional constraints, LGBT+ research has demonstrated that the development of LGBT+ movements and identities is critically shaped by the processes of individualization, de-traditionalization, and globalization (Wilcox 2006; Yip 2010). It has been particularly noted that LGBT+ believers transfer interpretive authority of the sacred to the self (Yip 2002; Wilcox 2002), supported by broad humanistic values and norms such as social justice, human rights, personal dignity, freedom, and diversity (Yip 2008).

This reflects the dynamics of a pluralist situation, where it is not possible to integrate the whole society into a single social basis or plausibility structure that supports a common worldview (Berger and Luckmann 1969; Berger 2011), nor to segregate or eliminate those who think differently (Berger 2011). As a result, worldviews lose their massiveness and must focus instead on “constructing and maintaining subsocieties that may serve as plausibility structures for the demonopolized religion” (ibid., p. 62). In this context, the ability of religion to create a unified world is reduced “to the construction of subworlds, of fragmented universes of meaning” (ibid., p. 155).

However, the pluralistic situation has not led to the irrelevance or privatization of religion. Instead, it has reconfigured the perception of legitimacy regarding the sacred. Particularly, religious legitimacy has become grounded more in individual freedom of choice than in institutional obedience (Giordan 2014, 2016), a shift that constitutes the very basis of religious freedom (Breskaya et al. 2024). Taylor (1989) described that process as the “massive subjective turn” in modern culture. Building on this concept, Heelas and Woodhead (2005) argue that contemporary spirituality is fundamentally linked to new forms of subjectivism. This subjective life spirituality increases and becomes dominant in the culture to such a degree that it is described as a spiritual revolution.

In other words, contemporary believers exemplify spiritual seekers (Wuthnow 1998) operating within the logic of a spiritual marketplace (Roof 1999). Insofar as the pluralist situation has produced a context in which different beliefs demand not merely tolerance but the active exercise of the right to believe or not believe, religious freedom can be understood as a plausibility structure. This structure supports the development of diverse forms of spirituality, even within established religious traditions (Giordan 2009).

Against this backdrop, the distinction between “welcoming” and “recognition” is fundamental. Formal tolerance is limited when it is reduced to forms of conditional acceptance of individuals perceived as external to a given system. This perspective instead emphasizes the importance of a culture of rights based on the recognition of rights as inherent to every person. In the absence of such a culture of recognition, patterns of social invisibility can emerge. Within this framework, religion emerges as an ambivalent social actor: while historically associated with imposing restrictions on rights, it also holds the potential to contribute to recognition-based approaches to human rights (Witte and Green 2012).

Therefore, freedom of and from religion, when understood as a plausibility structure that guarantees the expression of pluralism, elevates individual freedom of choice from the framework of mere tolerance to the level of rights that each person can claim in both public and private spheres (Giordan 2009). From this perspective, the demand for recognition, rather than welcoming, can be understood as part of a broader transformation from a religious ethic grounded in institutional duty to one rooted in rights (ibid.).

This shift in the basis of legitimacy has created the sociocultural conditions enabling LGBT+ Catholics to organize publicly, articulate their faith on their own terms, and challenge pastoral and doctrinal practices from within the Church. Within this framework of religious freedom as a plausibility structure, the Catholic LGBT+ movement can thus be understood as consolidating its visibility and participation in ecclesial processes. Likewise, this shift has enabled recent forms of pastoral openness in the Catholic Church, where appeals for dignity and recognition are no longer framed as concessions granted from above but as legitimate claims rooted in the rights of believers within a pluralistic religious landscape.

This perspective, largely developed in Anglo-American Protestant settings, may tend to place excessive emphasis on religious competition and often assumes a high degree of individual religious mobility. It also appears to prioritize rational choice and institutional dynamic as key explanatory factors. Evidence from the Global South suggests the need to reconsider these assumptions (Morello et al. 2017; Vilchis-Carrillo et al. 2023). In many contexts, religion may not be experienced as a fully free or autonomous choice, but rather as a practice shaped by ongoing negotiation within social, cultural, and institutional constraints. From this perspective, remaining within a religious tradition despite partial disagreement does not necessarily indicate individualism, but can instead reflect a form of situated freedom influenced by structural conditions, limited alternatives, and non-rational elements such as emotional attachments and a sense of belonging (ibid.).

3. Context and Method

La Tenda di Gionata is a Catholic volunteer association founded in 2018 by a group of volunteers from the Progetto Gionata (Progetto Gionata 2025a, 2025b, 2025c). This association was created to promote hospitality, formation, and information for LGBT+ Christians, their families, and pastoral workers, fostering dialogue with different Christian communities (Progetto Gionata 2025c). Over the years, it has organized spiritual retreats, training sessions, prayer vigils against homophobia, lesbophobia, and transphobia, pastoral meetings, and it regularly produces small publications aimed at building bridges between LGBT+ believers, their families, and Church ministers (Progetto Gionata 2025a, 2025b, 2025c).

The LGBT+ pilgrimage began during a meeting for LGBT+ pastoral collaborators in Bologna, where the participants asked: “Everyone has a Jubilee… why don’t we?” (Belotti 2025b) After this, a letter was sent to the Jubilee Office, which replied positively. On 6 September 2024, La Tenda di Gionata officially announced that LGBT+ Catholics would take part in the Jubilee (Pontillo 2024).

At first, the pilgrimage was included on the official Jubilee website among the many events planned for 2025. The news immediately created debate in several Catholic circles. Shortly after, the event disappeared from the website, and the link showed an error message (Shine 2024). The Dicastery for Evangelization, when questioned by the media, initially denied that the event had never been published. However, online archives confirmed that it had been included, creating more confusion and criticism (ibid.). Agnese Palmucci, from the Jubilee’s organizing team, explained that the event had been removed only because the organizers had not provided enough information (ibid.). She also said that the inclusion of the pilgrimage did not mean official support from the Church, noting that anyone can organize a Jubilee pilgrimage (Adamczeski 2024).

For several months, the information about the pilgrimage did not appear on the official Jubilee website. Nevertheless, the organizers from La Tenda di Gionata worked to involve many national and international LGBT+ Christian groups (Belotti 2025b), such as Outreach, led by Father James Martin, and the Global Network of Rainbow Catholics. Most of the preparation took place during the pontificate of Pope Francis (O’Loughlin 2025), and the fact that the event was not cancelled by Pope Leo XIV was understood as a sign of openness (McLellan 2025). Finally, in August 2025, shortly before the pilgrimage, the event returned to the official Jubilee website, although under a different title: “Pilgrimage of La Tenda di Gionata Association and other associations” (O’Loughlin 2025).

The program began on Friday, 5 September 2025, with an international meeting titled “Listening to the Experiences of LGBT+ Catholics” at the General Curia of the Society of Jesus, sponsored by Outreach, featuring Father James Martin, SJ, and testimonies from LGBT+ Catholics from different countries. Later that evening, a prayer vigil was held at the Chiesa del Gesù under the theme “Church, Home for All: Starting from the Margins”, attended by LGBT+ Christians, their parents, and numerous allies. During the vigil, a cross brought to Rome by a group of pilgrims who had walked over 100 km along the Via Francigena from Terracina to Rome was presented as a symbol of faith and perseverance.

On Saturday, 6 September 2025, Bishop Francesco Savino, Vice President of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, presided over a Eucharistic celebration at the Chiesa del Gesù, followed by the central act of the pilgrimage: the procession of more than one thousand pilgrims along the Via della Conciliazione toward St. Peter’s Basilica, where they crossed the Holy Door. The day concluded with “The Pilgrims’ Rest”, an event supported by the Global Network of Rainbow Catholics, which included an ecumenical blessing and a shared meal. Finally, on Sunday, 7 September 2025, pilgrims joined the Pope’s Angelus in St. Peter’s Square, concluding three days of prayer, dialogue, and public visibility within the framework of the Holy Year.

La Tenda di Gionata published 114 pieces of content related to the Jubilee, including participant testimonies, reflections, and notes from other media, between 6 December 2024 and 29 November 2025. Particularly, the organization invited people to share “your thoughts, your story, or your hope”, both from those who were planning to join the pilgrimage and those who wished they could participate (Pontillo 2025; Progetto Gionata 2025d). All content was translated into English and other languages by the La Tenda di Gionata’s team of volunteers.

A content analysis approach was adopted, emphasizing meanings and recurrent themes (Andreu Abela 2000; Krippendorff 2019). A coherent corpus was built with 50 selected testimonies in digital format related to the Jubilee pilgrimage. In our research, all of the information analyzed was based on secondary data, since these testimonies were requested, collected, and published online by La Tenda di Gionata. In the Results section, individuals are cited using the names as they appear in the original digital entries. As the materials analyzed consisted of publicly accessible online publications, no informed consent forms were required, and full references to these sources are provided in the References section.

The inclusion criteria focused on personal testimonies because, insofar as people first build mental models based on their experiences and then express these models in their discourse (Van Dijk 2008), testimonies offer direct expressions of personal meanings. The selection criteria were that testimonies presented first-person narratives or explicitly conveyed an individual’s voice through interviews or direct narratives, situating the subject biographically in relation to the Jubilee and focusing on motivations for participation or lived experience. For this reason, news and other posts that did not contain personal testimony on participation in the Jubilee were excluded.

Themes expressed through phrases were used as units of analysis, and each publication was treated as a unit of context (Andreu Abela 2000). The analysis focused on what the Jubilee pilgrimage meant for the participants. An initial review was conducted to identify common themes that could guide the manual process of thematic coding (ibid.). No categories were imposed a priori; instead, the analytical categories emerged inductively from the content itself (Saldaña 2021). The number of categories was defined following a criterion of thematic saturation. This article focused on the most recurrent themes, rather than providing an exhaustive account of all categories that emerged from the coding process (Haidar 1998).

This study has several limitations. The corpus is based on voluntarily submitted testimonies published by La Tenda di Gionata, which favors self-selected narratives characterized by engagement, visibility, and a positive orientation toward the Jubilee, while underrepresenting more critical or disengaged perspectives; as a result, the findings may display thematic heterogeneity but limited analytically relevant variation within each category. As the analysis relies entirely on secondary data, the researchers had no control over the conditions under which the testimonies were produced. Finally, given the qualitative and context-specific nature of the study, the findings are not intended to be statistically generalizable and do not represent the full diversity of LGBT+ Catholic experiences, particularly those of individuals who remain hidden, disengaged, or relate to Catholicism in more conflicted ways.

4. Results

This section presents the results of the analysis, drawing on the reading and coding of pilgrims’ testimonies. It offers the explanation of how, according to the perceptions expressed in the pilgrims’ testimonies, the organization of Catholic LGBT+ groups and the pontificate of Pope Francis were key endogenous factors that made the pilgrimage possible. These results are presented in dialogue with the existing literature. It also suggests that, in relation to participation in the pilgrimage, a recurrent theme in the testimonies is related to the concept of “dignity”, which functions as a narrative through which pilgrims legitimize their presence within the Church.

4.1. The LGBT+ Catholic Movement

Many participants highlighted the central role played by La Tenda di Gionata in making the pilgrimage possible. For example, Laure (2025), a French pilgrim, linked the experience about “we, LGBT+ Christians, were truly taken seriously, we were fully recognized as believers” directly to the careful and detailed organization carried out by La Tenda di Gionata, noting that “we were not invited”. Giovanni (2025), a priest who accompanies LGBT+ Christians, offers a similar reflection, describing the initiative of La Tenda di Gionata as something that “began quietly, without high expectations”, but that nevertheless “crossed national borders”. Sergio, an Italian pilgrim, emphasized that the Jubilee pilgrimage was the result of years of collective experience within the Progetto Gionata network. He recalled organizing an initial pilgrimage in 2017, when “we were about twelve people and we walked the Via Francigena of the North, the best-known route in Italy. Since then, we have walked together every one or two years. The 2025 pilgrimage was the seventh one” (Belotti 2025a).

Beyond the Jubilee itself, participants underscored the broader role of these organizations in sustaining LGBT+ Catholic lives and initiatives. Sean (2025), an Australian pilgrim, highlighted the commitment of La Tenda di Gionata to “«enlarging the tent»” (Isaiah 54) in order to make space for everyone, to make our Christian communities ever more sanctuaries of welcome and support for LGBTIQ+ people and for anyone who is a victim of discrimination”. This support also extends beyond Italy. With the backing of La Tenda di Gionata, Adelard, from Burundi, founded Gay Christian Africa, “a space in which the experiences and reflections of African LGBTQ+ Catholics can emerge, as well as those of people from other denominations”, with the aim of “ensuring that sexual orientation and gender identity are not perceived as obstacles to living one’s faith” (Belotti 2025c).

Similar dynamics were described in other regions. Sister “Quena,” a collaborator of PADIS+, a Catholic pastoral network founded in Chile in 2010, described its role in accompanying LGBT+ people, their families, and friends, and reflected on its wider responsibility within Latin America: “PADIS+ is like an older sister for other parts of our Latin American Church, because it has already walked a long path, it has a history to share, from which we have also learned from our mistakes. Moreover, it is a pastoral experience that welcomes not only LGBTIQ+ people, but also their parents and families” (Valdés Ossa 2025). The transformative role of such networks within the Church was further emphasized by Juan José (2025), a Spanish pilgrim, who recalled a roundtable organized by Outreach before the vigil, where Catholic LGBT+ groups from around the world were encouraged to “never abandon either courage or prophecy. The Lord is faithful […] We are the Church, let us build the Church together. Let us help the Catholic Church face this reality. Let us help the Pope to be Pope. You are at home, feel part of the family”.

Christian LGBT+ movements emerged during the sexual revolution of the 1960s, appearing in different parts of the world. The oldest and most enduring LGBT+ Christian organizations are the Metropolitan Community Churches, within the Protestant tradition, founded in 1968, and Dignity, from the Catholic tradition, founded in 1969 in the United States by Augustinian priest Father Patrick Nidorf. Dignity experienced rapid growth in its early years; however, the 1986 Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons banned the organization from meeting in Catholic spaces (DDF 1986, p. 17). Since then, Dignity has held their worship services, social gatherings, and community programs in other churches and community centers. Its ministry in the United States has been marked by an ecumenical spirit and strong connections with broader civil rights and activist movements (Steidl 2022).

In the Italian context, La Tenda di Gionata can be seen as the heir to a rich legacy of Catholic LGBT+ organizing. During the 1970s and 1980s, several groups emerged, including Il Guado in Milan, which remains active today. These early communities operated with limited public visibility, often in near-clandestine conditions. By the 1980s, they began to take a more active role in seeking the normalization of homosexuality within the Church, particularly in response to the public debates surrounding HIV/AIDS. Faced with restrictions from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, many of these groups turned to Protestant spaces for support and collaboration. In the 1990s, visibility increased, accompanied by secular alliances with Arcigay and the development of liturgical, biblical, and theological strategies. This process culminated symbolically in the 2000 World Pride in Rome, where LGBT+ Christians participated openly and visibly for the first time (Mennini 2023).

After 2000, there were several attempts to build a coordinated national movement that could integrate the various local experiences, but these efforts achieved only partial success. Some of the reasons mentioned for this limited progress are the absence of a central headquarters, the difficulty of organizing a national structure with limited resources (Gnavi 2008), and internal debates over visibility, which reflected the broader challenge of exposure within Catholic contexts, where many preferred to avoid public identification (Arnone 2018). Progetto Gionata eventually overcame these obstacles, achieving consolidation as a national movement with the capacity to mobilize Catholics internationally, as demonstrated by the organization of the LGBT+ Jubilee.

The 2000s marked a period of internationalization for Catholic LGBT+ movements. The Global Network of Rainbow Catholics (GNRC) originated in Rome, Italy, on October 3, 2014, when a group of LGBT+ Catholic leaders and allies gathered for Ways of Love, an international theological conference on LGBT+ persons and the Church organized by the European Forum of LGBT+ Christian Groups. A year later, in October 2015, more than twenty LGBT+ communities from around the world founded the GNRC in Rome. The initiative emerged as a response to the announcement of an extraordinary global Synod of Bishops on the Family, which inspired LGBT+ Catholics and their families to organize at a global level (Global Network of Rainbow Catholics n.d.). Since then, the GNRC has promoted international coordination, supported local initiatives, and provided input and resources for the Synodal Path process.

While Protestant communities have developed inclusive churches founded to affirm both faith and LGBT+ identities or welcoming churches that allow participation without full affirmation, the organizational structure of Catholicism has only permitted the emergence of support groups operating on the periphery of the ecclesial institution (Gross 2008), but with the intention of promoting dialogue, presence, and visibility within the institution (Loseke and Cavendish 2001; Mitchell 2009; Radojcic 2016; Arnone 2018; Deguara 2018; Mikulak 2019; Lampe et al. 2019). However, they have consistently received the support of priests, religious men and women, and, in some cases, bishops who have endorsed their activities (Steidl 2022; Mennini 2023).

Despite their marginal position within the ecclesial structure, Catholic LGBT+ groups have gradually gained not only visibility but also influence, as reflected in their participation in the Synodal Path. In this global initiative launched by Pope Francis, LGBT+ groups were invited to take part in discussions about the Church’s practice and future. In Italy, one notable example was the participation of Rosario Lo Negro, a pilgrim and member of Progetto Giovani Cristiani LGBT+, who criticized the Synod document for its limited sensitivity and visibility regarding the Catholic LGBT+ community. In a later reflection on his experience at the Synodal Assembly, he questioned:

Why not call LGBTQ+ people by name? We are inside the Church, we are not outside. We need recognition, participation. And there is no need to accompany us, because we are very capable of moving alone. I myself have participated in many retreats, moments of prayer and training together with doctors, theologians, psychologists.

(Caccia 2025)

This was not an isolated participation. Church actors openly debated the issue, withdrew the original document, and approved a revised final version, explicitly recognizing and encouraging pastoral accompaniment for the LGBT+ Catholic community (Conferenza Episcopale Italiana 2025, p. 30).

Their activism is framed not as a break from religion, but as a faithful effort to remain in communion with the Church. Rather than rejecting the Catholic framework, they act from within to push for changes in doctrine and practice regarding LGBT+ people (Radojcic 2016; Arnone 2018). In this way, they combine religious commitment with a clear call for institutional change. This kind of religious activism not only strengthens their own sense of belonging but also encourages broader religious communities to question their assumptions about gender and sexuality and to move toward greater inclusion (Avishai et al. 2024). As has been noted, these groups also serve as platforms for broader political activism in collaboration with protests and events organized by secular and religious LGBT+ movements (Arnone 2018; Steidl 2022; Mennini 2023).

4.2. The LGBT+ Aggiornamento of Pope Francis

Several participants pointed to the role of Pope Francis in making the LGBT+ pilgrimage to Rome possible. As Tiziano, one of the organizers explains, “the support of Pope Francis became decisive. Thanks to his intervention we were able to continue with peace of mind” (Belotti 2025b). Innocenzo Pontillo, coordinator of La Tenda di Gionata, makes a similar point when he notes that “such a welcome would have been revolutionary in the past, but now, with Pope Francis and the world we live in, things are changing. Today’s world encourages us to be authentic” (Spera 2025b). Expressions of gratitude appear in several accounts, such as that of Staffan (2025), a Swiss deacon: “I also thank God and Pope Francis, because he has opened the way to bless the love of same-sex couples and of people in non-conventional relationships”. Juan José (2025), a Spanish pilgrim, reflects, “perhaps the door to cross was not the physical one, yet «holy», but the door of inclusivity, plurality, and listening that Francis had opened”, and Lorenzo (2025), an Italian pilgrim, who gives thanks “to Pope Francis, who so ardently desired our presence: The presence of the least fortunate, of the rainbow sheep”.

Pope Francis is not only referenced in relation to the pilgrimage itself but also in connection with the pilgrims’ personal processes of meaning-making. As Sean (2025), an Australian pilgrim, explains when visiting the Pope’s tomb: “It was a profoundly emotional moment: being there, aware that it was precisely he who had made this pilgrimage possible and who, in some way, had also contributed to my personal journey”.

Several pilgrims emphasized the symbolic importance of Pope Francis’s gestures. Carola (2025), a lesbian pilgrim, described his “simple, bare tomb” as “his final catechesis” and “a warning, an invitation to humility”. Ada (2025), a Catholic, feminist, and lesbian pilgrim, portrayed him as “a simple person, truly capable of love, as Jesus testified in his life, an indelible sign and constant presence of God’s Love in my life”, and recalled his vision of the Church as “the Mother of all: a fraternal and welcoming harbor for everyone, where the logic of open arms prevails rather than pointing fingers, because everyone, everyone, everyone […] matters, and no one is useless or superfluous”.

This inclusive orientation is echoed by Angelo (2025), from the coordination of the Mosaiko Group in Rome, who stresses that “we can no longer afford half-open doors, tolerances filled with embarrassment, or half-hearted dialogues”. For other pilgrims, this attention to “that existential periphery […] where life knocks most forcefully” (Anonymous Priest 2025) and the call “to solidarity with those who live on the margins and in the peripheries” (Sean 2025) becomes concrete in the Jubilee pilgrimage, where “more than ever, the call of Pope Francis will become alive […] [inviting] the Church to be a «field hospital», a place where one heals, welcomes, and listens” (Mosaiko 2024).

In contrast, several participants articulate criticisms against the Catholic Church as an institution, pointing to the difference between the inclusive faith experience lived during the Jubilee and the everyday reality of exclusion in local ecclesial contexts. Adelard, a pilgrim from Burundi, denounces that “the silence of the Catholic Church […] is deafening it communicates that LGBTQ+ people are considered less human, less worthy of dignity” (Belotti 2025c). This concern is echoed by Father Noppenberger, a German priest, who is “very aware of the risk that the Catholic Church may relapse into its old «rhetoric of sin»” (Heider 2025). Similarly, Juan José (2025), a Spanish pilgrim, recalls “when from the pulpits LGBTQ+ people were demonized”. As Tiziano, one of the organizers of the jubilee, observes, “hostility, conflicts, and wounds do not occur only at major Church events, but often in parishes and in everyday life” (Belotti 2025b).

In this context, Paolo (2025), an Italian doctor and theologian, acknowledges that the path toward full acceptance remains long, noting that “snakes, discrimination, and manipulation still slither; scorpions, abuse, violence, and marginalization have not lost their thorns”, even if faith, hope, and commitment persist. For pilgrims such as Mara (2025), the mother of a gay son, these tensions recall “the violence of a deafening and embarrassing silence that fell upon us in the community in which we had grown up”, and reflect on how “the slowness and resistance of the Catholic Church to change, the nostalgia for Pope Francis, and the fear of the new course of Pope Leo had weakened in me the hope of a Church truly being a home for all”.

These perceptions are in line with the Church’s longstanding opposition to LGBT+ rights at both the doctrinal and political levels. The Catholic Doctrine distinguishes between homosexual orientation and acts, describing the latter as “intrinsically disordered” and morally unacceptable (DDF 1975, 1986) while rejecting more lenient interpretations and defining homosexual orientation as an “objective disorder” (DDF 1986). At the same time, the Doctrine states that homosexual persons must be “accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity” and should not suffer “unjust discrimination” (Paul 1992, p. 2358). These documents also frame same-sex sexuality in ascetic terms, calling individuals to “unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition” (ibid., p. 2358) and to live in chastity (ibid., p. 2359).

Official Church documents describe homosexual practices as sources of “distorted opinions and practices” (DDF 1986) and restrict access to roles in areas such as teaching or adoption (DDF 1992). They exclude from the priesthood “those who practice homosexuality, present deeply rooted homosexual tendencies, or support the so-called gay culture” (Congregation for Catholic Education 2005) and state that Catholics should oppose the legal recognition of same-sex unions (DDF 2003). The Church also denounces what it sees as pressure to change its position, criticizing Catholic LGBT+ groups, rejecting their interpretations of Scripture, and claiming that their members ignore or undermine Church teaching (DDF 1986). Finally, these texts frame attempts to influence civil legislation as threats to the nature and rights of the family, presenting the Church as a representative of those it considers excluded by the “pro-homosexual movement” (DDF 1986, 1992, 2003).

In this context, the Vatican has introduced the notion of “gender ideology” as a rhetorical tool to discredit feminist and LGBT+ studies while reaffirming the transcendent nature of the sexual order (Garbagnoli 2016). At the center of this discourse is the idea of male–female complementarity as divinely ordained and essential to humanity, a theme strongly promoted by recent popes and presented as part of the “new evangelization” (Case 2016; Garbagnoli 2016). The concept of “gender ideology” also works to re-naturalize the sexual order by framing gender scholarship as a threat to moral and social stability, homogenizing diverse views and adopting scientific language to strengthen its claims (Case 2019). In this sense, it has been a key concept in the anti-gender movement worldwide (Donà 2021; Morán Faúndes 2019; Paz González 2022; Ozzano and Alberta 2015; Trappolin 2022).

Under the pontificate of Pope Francis, Church discourse on gender and sexuality shows a shift in rhetorical emphasis, moving away from explicitly condemnatory language and toward terms such as “accompaniment” and “mercy” (Case 2016, 2019). This new discursive orientation is marked by the marginalization of sexual issues within the papal agenda and a stronger emphasis on social concerns, poverty, and compassion. As a result, the public increasingly perceives the Church as less “obsessed” with sexual morality (Sgró Ruata and Vaggione 2018).

Also, in interviews and writings, Pope Francis invited Catholics to view every person within a pastoral context, asking whether God “rejects or endorses” the existence of gay individuals with love, and he criticized those who used Scripture to condemn LGBT+ people (Sharma 2025). Moreover, he publicly supported civil unions for same-sex couples (Dulle 2020) and urged governments to abolish anti-homosexuality laws (Poggiolo 2023). Francis’s pastoral attitude was also visible in his personal interactions with LGBT+ persons and advocates, including repeated meetings with Fr. James Martin, SJ, known for his LGBT+ ministry.

However, Pope Francis reaffirmed the traditional view of the family as a heterosexual and fertile union and rejects any equivalence between same-sex unions and marriage (Sgró Ruata and Vaggione 2018). At the same time, he introduces a new discourse that portrays gender and sexual rights activists as “ideological colonizers”, suggesting that the Global North imposes “gender theory” on poorer nations in exchange for aid (Case 2016, 2019).

Another expression of the tensions within the Pope Francis’ pontificate appears in Fiducia Supplicans. Prior to this declaration, the DDF (2021) reaffirmed that blessings could not be imparted to same-sex couples, as such unions were considered incompatible with Church teaching. At the same time, it maintained that individual homosexual persons could receive a blessing, provided that they “manifest the will to live in fidelity to the revealed plans of God as proposed by Church teaching” (DDF 2021).

In turn, Fiducia Supplicans frames blessings within a pastoral perspective that cautions against rigid moral frameworks. It warns that imposing “too many moral prerequisites” on a blessing (DDF 2023, p. 12) risks grounding pastoral practice in “the fixed nature of certain doctrinal or disciplinary schemes” (ibid., p. 25). In this context, the document emphasizes that “pastoral charity requires us not to treat simply as «sinners»” those who seek a blessing (ibid., p. 26). Within this framework, the document affirms that “it is God who blesses” (ibid., p. 27) and that blessings respond to situations in which people spontaneously seek them, since “such blessings are meant for everyone; no one is to be excluded from them” (ibid., p. 28).

However, the document sets clear limits, stating that such blessings must not take any ritualized or liturgical form proper to the sacrament of marriage (DDF 2023, p. 31), nor take place in concurrence with, or in connection to, civil unions, in order to avoid doctrinal confusion (ibid., p. 39). Despite these restrictions, some Catholic communities have developed more public and ritualized forms of blessing for same-sex couples (Witherington 2024).

Overall, the narratives and measures adopted under Pope Francis are pastoral rather than doctrinal: despite showing a more open and consistent attitude toward LGBT+ persons, the Church’s official teachings on homosexuality remain unchanged. This perspective allows for the simultaneous maintenance of the Church’s conservative teachings on sexuality while also attending to individual pastoral needs (Federico 2021).

This orientation has had a notable influence on pastoral practice. The approval or disapproval of priests toward Pope Francis often reflects their acceptance or rejection of a pastoral ethic toward LGBT+ people (Sharma 2025). Moreover, his pontificate has encouraged a new way of doing pastoral theology that challenges traditional moral theology “from below”. The principle of pastoral care, revitalized in Francis’s magisterium, calls for a theological interpretation of praxis, including the praxis itself, allowing Church teaching to be reinterpreted in areas where reliance solely on Scripture and natural law has proven insufficient to guide consciences effectively (Lunardon 2025).

4.3. The LGBT+ Jubilee Pilgrimage: From Welcoming to Recognition

One recurrent theme that emerges from the testimonies published by La Tenda di Gionata of those who participated in the Jubilee is the pursuit of recognition rather than acceptance. The Jubilee becomes a key moment to state publicly that the aim is not to ask for permission to enter, but to seek full recognition of a presence that has always been there. As Yveline (2025), a transgender Catholic woman from Belgium, explains, “the Catholic Church is like a large family, of which I am a part, with my personal identity and, at the same time, with its «family traits»”. This emphasis on recognition is also reflected in Ada’s (2025) words, who describes it as “the desire to affirm that «I am existing, we are there, we exist», even if we still move on the margins of blurred visibility [though] not by our own choice”.

Angelo (2025), from the coordination of the Mosaiko Group of Rome, further develops this idea by saying that participating in the Jubilee means “trying to be the Church within the Church. Not asking for a place, because in every family there is a chair for everyone, and we are already inside, with our lives, our relationships, our concrete faith”. Finally, Tiziano, one of the organizers of the jubilee, captures the core of this shift in a concise way: “We are no longer speaking only of welcome, but of recognition and enhancement” (Belotti 2025b).

This idea is also echoed by certain church leaders. For example, Monsignor Francesco Savino, Vice President of the Italian Bishops’ Conference and the prelate who presided over the Mass preceding the Jubilee pilgrimage, stated in an interview: “It is not a matter of «welcoming» someone into the Lord’s house, but of recognizing that all are already its legitimate inhabitants […] And so, once again, the message is clear: in the heart of God, the peripheries become the center, because there are only beloved children” (Spera 2025a).

In this sense, the theme of dignity emerges in the testimonies as a central narrative through which participants legitimize their belonging to the Church. For many participants, their participation in the Jubilee served as a confirmation that faith and LGBT+ identity are not opposed. For instance, Hector (2025), an American pilgrim, describes a shift from understanding faith as being loved by God “despite being gay” to experiencing divine love as unconditional, without conditions, limitations, or restrictions. Elisa, an Italian professor and journalist, explains that LGBT+ believers prepared for the Jubilee not “in spite of” their identity, but precisely “through it”, integrating faith and identity into a single path (Belotti 2025b). This interpretation is echoed by Father Noppenberger, priest of the diocese of Baden-Württemberg, who emphasized that no one crossed the Holy Door to ask forgiveness for being queer, insisting instead that “identity is not a sin” (Heider 2025).

Jubilee was interpreted by participants as signifying a restoration of dignity. Bishop Savino’s (2025) words “it is time to restore dignity to everyone, especially to those from whom it has been denied”, spoken during the Mass and received with applause by the attendees. The reception of the bishop’s words is clearly reflected in the pilgrims’ testimonies, where dignity is described as something experienced collectively and emotionally. Mara (2025), the mother of a gay son, reflects: “I saw mulberry trees planted in the sea because I experienced a Church in which «dignity was restored to everyone, especially to those from whom it had been denied», and my heart was filled with joy and gratitude”. Similarly, Maria Aminti (2025), from the Kairos parents’ group in Florence, recalls “that they made us all feel like a worthy, active, and important part of our beloved Church”. These quotes show a turning point: a public acknowledgment, within the Church itself, that the exclusion endured for years has no grounding in the Gospel.

The reflections that follow echo the bishop’s words, framing dignity as a call to rebuild relationships and restore a sense of equality within the Church. As Carola (2025), a lesbian pilgrim, explains, “to restore dignity (a path that is just at the beginning) means bringing us back to the same level as other believers and overcoming the «pietistic» welcome”. Irene (2025), a Catholic religion teacher, develops this idea by highlighting the need for renewed community ties, stating that “it is time to break the barriers of indifference, rebuild the bonds of community, and offer hope to those who have lost it. It is a call to care for one another, because dignity is not a privilege but a right that belongs to each person”. In this sense, drawing on biblical imagery, Fabiana and Luana (2025), a Sicilian couple who shared their testimony during the Vigil, describe how, although they are “silenced by a Church that would want us at the margins”, they nonetheless affirm that, “like Bartimaeus, cry out with our lives that our love has the same dignity as every other love”. Tiziano (2025), coordinator of the Mosaiko group in Rome, adds a communal and ecclesial dimension to this understanding, affirming that:

We try to live and think that the Church builds itself from the base and then go up and bring this message high. The most important aspect was the communion between us, and it is what we care about most. The pyramids are not built from the summit, but from the foundations, and we are part of those foundations, perhaps even hidden, but perhaps no longer. Foundations with the dignity of the children of God, because we are baptized.

In this way, the Jubilee is a symbol of this change. In the words of Mauro, an Italian pilgrim and participant in Catholic Action, it is an “act of liberation […] personal, but also cultural, social, and spiritual. This pilgrimage became a second revelation, before all of society, in Italy’s largest city, Rome. I put all my energy into spreading the message of this Jubilee: the Church must be a home for everyone” (Belotti 2025a). Or, as the Kairos (2024) group expresses, “Crossing the Holy Door becomes a profound gesture, one that says: «This is also my home»,” but “it is not only a personal gesture, but an act that challenges the entire Catholic Church,” because “when a marginalized person decides to enter, they bring with them their wounds, but also the possibility of transforming the community”. Therefore, “this gesture is not only for those who perform it, but for the entire Church. It is an invitation to build together that Kingdom where each person finds their place”.

Taken together, these testimonies show that dignity functions simultaneously as a claim for recognition and as a concept deeply embedded in Catholic tradition. On the one hand, the language of dignity articulates a demand for rights, equality, and public recognition within the Church, challenging long-standing forms of exclusion. On the other hand, this claim is not framed in opposition to Catholic belief but grounded in a religious worldview in which dignity derives from one’s relationship with God and baptismal belonging. This dual positioning reveals an ongoing tension between rights-based revindication and the theological framework that sustains it.

5. Discussion: Dignity and Religious Freedom

The Jubilee illustrates how religious freedom can open pathways for the restoration of dignity in contexts marked by marginalization. Across the testimonies, dignity emerged as a recurring theme, understood as a form of public recognition within the Church of a presence that has always been there, even if the institution has ignored it and has made efforts to exclude it.

For many participants, the Jubilee is understood as an act of restoring dignity that had long been denied. This perspective is supported by the repeated affirmation that identity is not a sin, and that God loves without conditions. Dignity, in this sense, implies being treated at the same level as other believers, without exceptions or reservations. It also involves moving beyond paternalistic forms of welcoming, where LGBT+ Catholics are tolerated but not fully recognized. Instead, dignity is linked to the creation of more horizontal and supportive community relationships, where each person is valued as an equal member of the Church.

A central element in the restoration of dignity is the shift from welcoming to recognition. In many testimonies, welcoming is understood as a gesture that still reflects a position of power: it implies tolerance, concession, or acceptance granted from above. To be “welcomed” means that someone with authority allows you to enter, as if your presence depended on their permission. For LGBT+ Catholics, this form of acceptance continues to place them on the margins, reinforcing the idea that they are guests rather than full members of the community.

Recognition, in contrast, expresses a very different understanding of belonging. It affirms a space of presence within the Church that has always been there, rather than “admitting” someone who was outside. The process of internal recognition of LGBT+ Catholics within the Church boundaries means making visible what has long existed, acknowledging the faith, commitment, and contributions of LGBT+ believers as part of the Church’s life. For many participants, this movement from welcoming to recognition marks the true restoration of their dignity: not asking for permission to belong but showing that they have always belonged.

This restoration of dignity for LGBT+ Catholics is possible within a broader social context where religious freedom functions as a plausibility structure that legitimizes the claim of rights of diverse forms of religious and spiritual belonging and experiences (Breskaya et al. 2024). While this dynamic may appear to reflect the subjective turn of the contemporary spiritual revolution (Heelas and Woodhead 2005), the testimonies reveal important nuances. On the one hand, many LGBT+ Catholics reject the systematic exclusion they have experienced in the Church and demand recognition based on a dignity discovered through their own experience of the sacred. In this sense, their personal spiritual journey becomes a source of authority. On the other hand, this does not lead to an absolute individualization of belief. These participants are not spiritual seekers (Wuthnow 1998) choosing among religious options in a free market (Roof 1999). Instead, they reaffirm their belonging to the Catholic Church and exercise their freedom by choosing to remain within it. Their claim is not about leaving the institution, but about being recognized as full members of the same community of faith.

Catholic LGBT+ believers largely maintain a Catholic understanding of dignity, grounded in the idea of being created by God and recognized as children of God. However, this understanding of dignity is articulated through two closely related rights-based developments. First, contemporary Catholic conceptions of dignity are deeply anchored in the language of human rights that emerged after the Second World War, representing a significant reconfiguration of earlier theological frameworks (Brady 2021; Kirchhoffer 2016). Second, Catholic LGBT+ believers mobilize this same notion of dignity to contest the limitations that ecclesiastical authorities have sought to impose in the realm of sexual morality (Beattie 2017). As a result, the revindication of dignity unfolds within the institutional religious framework itself, generating a tension between rights-based claims and ecclesial authority. In other words, this dynamic is not framed as a break with Catholic tradition, but as an expression of religious fidelity, a pattern that characterizes not only Catholic LGBT+ activism, but Christian LGBT+ movements more broadly (Talvacchia et al. 2015). This tension resonates with previous research on online LGBT+ Catholic communities, which shows how support for Pope Francis and more inclusive church leaders coexists with a critical stance toward traditional authority structures perceived as unable to fully incorporate peripheral voices (Giorgi 2019).

This suggests that religious freedom offers an appropriate framework for understanding why LGBT+ believers choose to remain in religious contexts that have often been hostile toward them. Their decision cannot be explained simply by the availability of some inclusive Christian communities or by the wider secular LGBT+ environment. Instead, many LGBT+ Christians stay within the Church because they are exercising their right to religious freedom: the right to believe, to remain, and to practice the faith with which they identify and to which they consider themselves belonging. Their permanence is an expression of agency rooted in their personal conviction that they have the right to inhabit their own religious tradition.

Thus, religious freedom manifests itself as a concept with the meaning that varies according to the context (Breskaya et al. 2024). Moreover, in this case, it appears as a protective framework for LGBT+ Christian communities, enabling them to safeguard themselves from restrictive elements within their own traditions and to exercise both their faith and sexuality freely. In this way, it is possible to contribute to a different understanding of the tensions between religious freedom and the rights of the LGBT+ community, which are often framed within a zero-sum logic in which any advance for one side is perceived as a loss for the other (Franck 2016; Trigg 2016). This perspective provides evidence of the other side of the paradox of religious freedom, showing that it can be mobilized not only to restrict LGBT+ rights, but also to defend and sustain them (Bielefeldt and Wiener 2020).

In addition, it is important to note that this logic of rights appears within a fully spiritual framework. The testimonies do not refer directly to human rights, nor do they name or invoke them. Instead, they use spiritual arguments to affirm their belonging to the Church, such as being baptized or being created and loved by God in their diverse sexuality. Their demand for recognition is not based on an appeal to human rights discourse, but on the higher authority of God. As noted earlier, these arguments have been developed within the LGBT+ Catholic Movement, which has grown in dialogue with the secular LGBT+ movement and with other Christian LGBT+ communities. This shows how new religious worldviews are emerging from different social bases, suggesting an alignment and convergence with the language of rights as a broader cultural framework in which LGBT+ identities are being formed (Breskaya et al. 2018).

The 2025 Jubilee also reveals the tension between traditional structures and emerging ones. Since their beginnings, LGBT+ Catholic groups have developed in a constant negotiation with the institution, often working from the outside or from the margins. In the 2000s, the LGBT+ Catholic movement gained global visibility and transnational coordination, supported by broader socio-cultural shifts that promoted sexual liberalism, progressive legislative reforms, increasing sophistication of secular and religious lesbian and gay politics, and the growth of scholarly research in theology and the social sciences (Yip 2010). In this context, LGBT+ Catholic activism has evolved as a form of religious activism from within the Church. This activism does not present itself as a rupture but as an expression of critical fidelity, seeking pastoral and doctrinal change from an ecclesial position. At the same time, these groups also function as platforms of civil activism, collaborating with wider LGBT+ movements and operating explicitly within a logic of rights.

Furthermore, the continued presence of LGBT+ Catholics has also influenced the Church, which must constantly negotiate the tension between pastoral practice and doctrinal teaching. The ambiguity of Pope Francis’s pontificate created practical spaces where recognition becomes possible, even without doctrinal change. The ambiguous signals from ecclesial authorities (allowing the pilgrimage but avoiding the LGBT+ acronym, prohibiting flags, and Pope Leo XIV’s silence) show how, within a logic of scandal avoidance, Church leaders accept the dignity of individual Catholics but withhold recognition when such identities are expressed in collective or cultural terms (Dillon 2018). This ambivalence is similar to what has been observed in other areas related to human rights such as migration (Giordan and Zrinščak 2018; Ališauskienė et al. 2025).

This coexistence of doctrinal rigidity alongside pastoral openness can be understood as a pragmatic strategy in the face of contemporary debates on gender and sexual rights (Breskaya et al. 2018; Giordan and Zrinščak 2018). It allows the Church to uphold doctrinal consistency for internal audiences and theological conservatives, while simultaneously responding to broader social expectations related to human rights, dignity, and non-discrimination. This ambivalent positioning allows the Church to avoid direct confrontation with secular norms, preserve institutional credibility, and remain engaged with believers whose moral intuitions increasingly align with rights-based frameworks. In this sense, the pastoral ambiguity under Pope Francis functions as a mediating device: it softens the institutional stance without altering doctrine, enabling the Church to navigate contentious moral terrains without explicitly conceding to rights-based claims.

6. Final Considerations

This article examined the institutional, organizational, and social changes that have shaped the conditions under which the LGBT+ pilgrimage to Rome within the 2025 Jubilee became possible. Rather than resulting from a single factor, this process reflects the convergence of transformations within the Church, the Catholic LGBT+ movement, and the broader cultural context shaped by rights-based frameworks. Change is not understood as a doctrinal rupture, but as a gradual process of consolidating presence within the Church, and the 2025 Jubilee functions as a symbol of this process.

The long-term consolidation of Catholic LGBT+ groups has been central to this process. These groups have evolved into coordinated national and transnational networks and frame their activism as religious action from within the Church. This reflects an alignment and convergence with the contemporary culture of rights, combining theological arguments with rights-centered claims that remain intelligible in ecclesial contexts (Radojcic 2016, Arnone 2018).

The pontificate of Pope Francis has introduced a pastoral centrality that reorients Church discourse on sexual morality. While doctrinal positions remain formally unchanged, a shift in rhetorical emphasis can be observed, moving away from explicitly condemnatory language toward pastoral approaches centered on accompaniment and mercy (Sgró Ruata and Vaggione 2018; Case 2019). This pastoral flexibility operates as a pragmatic institutional strategy, particularly in debates related to rights.

Finally, these developments are embedded in broader social changes linked to the growing influence of rights-based cultural frameworks in Western societies (Yip 2008, Breskaya et al. 2024). In this context, freedom within religion emerges as a key dimension of contemporary religious life, understood as the capacity of LGBT+ believers to claim recognition and dignity as the basis for legitimizing their presence within the Church, beyond forms of conditional acceptance or mere welcoming.

Future research should continue to explore the role of religious freedom within religious traditions themselves, particularly as a form of protection against dominant or hegemonic interpretations. Further attention is also needed to examine how national and sociocultural contexts shape these claims, as well as to systematize and articulate emerging findings within the growing field of religious freedom studies.