VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) – Pope Francis met Wednesday with a large LGBT group at the end of his general audience, with both parties agreeing in their efforts to build a “hospital Church that excludes no one.”
Around 110 members of the dissident Italian LGBT group “La Tenda di Gionata” (Jonathan’s tent) met with Pope Francis September 21, at the conclusion of his weekly general audience. The group consisted of “LGBT + Christians, their parents and the pastoral workers who accompany them (priests, nuns and consecrated persons),” according to the group.
È iniziata l’udienza in Vaticano al termine della quale i cristiani LGBT, i loro genitori e gli operatori incontreranno papa Francesco pic.twitter.com/nwDDUhDPkb
— Progetto Gionata (@gionatanews) September 21, 2022
L’Avvenire, the daily newspaper of the Italian Catholic Bishops Conference, reported that the 110-member group was wearing t-shirts adorned with “rainbow hearts” and the message “in love there is no fear” – a version of the words of St. John’s epistle: “Fear is not in charity: but perfect charity casteth out fear, because fear hath pain.” (1 Jn 4:18)
One woman, Francesca, a lesbian, attended the meeting with her “partner” and handed Pope Francis a number of letters from parents of “LGBT children.”
“I knelt down but he immediately signaled to pick me up,” she told La Stampa. Her “partner” added that “meeting the Pope is a confirmation of the journey of faith that will lead us to civil union.”
The pair told L’Avvenire that in their local parish in the Archdiocese of Modena-Nonantola, they “show up as a couple, without flaunting anything but also without hiding.”
The group also presented Francis with two books of LGBT “testimonies.”
The meeting is not included on the livestream video uploaded to the Vatican News YouTube account, but pictures can be found on the Vatican Media site.
Writing about the meeting afterwards, one of the group wrote that she was “aware that a man, with all his holiness, risen to be pope, could single-handedly have the power to erase the sin of the Magisterium Church towards LGBTI+ people, is only a naive hope.”
“We cannot leave him alone” in the promotion of LGBT ideology, wrote Anna Battaglia, whose son lives as a homosexual.
https://t.co/1mV1yqlect La stampa: Vaticano, i cristiani omosessuali incontrano Papa Francesco: “Non siamo più figli di un Dio minore” pic.twitter.com/H5QGzG6TKy
— Progetto Gionata (@gionatanews) September 21, 2022
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While Battaglia denounced the Church’s approach to the LGBT movement as “sin,” L’Avvenire welcomed the fact that Francis’ pontificate was effecting a change in mentality towards the movement. The paper read: “Today, fortunately, thanks precisely to Pope Francis, his reflections on the subject and, above all, Amoris laetitia, the situation is changing just about everywhere.”
The group was accompanied by Father Gianluca Carrega, who coordinates the LGBT outreach for the Archdiocese of Turin. Carrega thanked Francis for Amoris Laetitia, saying that the document “encourages us as LGBT pastoral workers to move forward.”
Carrega reportedly encouraged Francis to continue building a “hospitable Church that excludes no one,” to which Francis nodded. The priest later told La Stampa that he addressed the Pope saying:
Your Holiness, you have two hands. With one you show us the way and with the other protect us, because there is still prejudice and unjust discrimination of LGBT people in the Church.
Founded in 2018, La Tenda di Gionata promotes “ever more sanctuaries of welcome and support toward LGBT people and any person affected by discrimination.”
Wednesday’s meeting marks the fifth public occasion that Pope Francis has met with a group advocating for LGBT ideology. In June, Francis met a transgender group, one of whom – a man now living as a woman – claimed the Pope told him to “always be myself.”
Six weeks later, he then received the transgender group for the fourth time this year.
Pope Francis has apparently been making an increased number of such “important messages” to the LGBT movement in recent months. During a private audience in May, Francis allegedly told dissident U.S. activist and professor Aaron Bianco, who is in a same-sex “marriage,” to continue his efforts to make the Church more open to homosexual unions.
But Francis does so in contradiction to the Catholic Tradition. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s (CDF) 1986 document “On the pastoral care of homosexual persons,” states that a “truly pastoral approach will appreciate the need for homosexual persons to avoid the near occasions of sin.”
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The Catechism of the Catholic Church #2357 also teaches that: “‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.’ They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.”