LGBTQ+ Jubilee Pilgrimage, Part 2: “A gift that future generations can receive”

Today’s post, the second part of a two-part series on the LGBTQ+ pilgrimage for the Jubilee Year,  is by guest contributor Emma Cieslik (she/her), a queer, disabled museum worker and writer, and the director of the Queer and Catholic Oral History Project. Part 1 can be found here.

In December 2024, the Italian LGBTQ+ group La Tienda di Gionata (Jonathan’s Tent) announced plans for an LGBTQ+ Pilgrimage for the Jubilee Year.  The pilgrimage, with the theme “Church: A Home for All, LGBTQ+ Christians and Other Existential Foreigners,” will be held on September 6, 2025 in Rome. The pilgrimage represents a significant step in LGBTQ+ visibility in the Church. In Part 1 of this two-part series, LGBTQ+ Catholics reflected how this event holds space for LGBTQ+ Catholic communities to come together. In this second piece, LGBTQ+ Catholics acknowledge the importance of queer visibility for all Catholics, paving a path towards affirming and celebrating the dignity of LGBTQ+ peoples. 

Statistically, all Catholics have met an LGBTQ+ person, perhaps even sung and celebrated Mass with them, perhaps even met one in a confessional or convent. “We have a rich tradition of closeted people who are participating, who have participated, in many aspects of Catholic life since the beginning,” said Maxwell Kuzma, a trans man and lifelong Catholic who is a contributor to The National Catholic Reporter and Bondings 2.0. Just last year, Brother Christian Matson, a diocesan hermit in Kentucky, came out as a trans man,challenging the conception that trans people do not exist within the Church.There have been a number of trans saints through the history of the Church, including St. Marinos the Monk who although assigned female at birth entered a monastery as a man.

“I hope this [pilgrimage] is an opportunity for Catholics to meet gay people,” said Brent Taghap, (he/they) is a queer, nonbinary Catholic from Chicago. “I know that’s so silly. It’s just as simple as meeting somebody, you know, meeting them halfway.” Kuzma agrees, pointing out that a pilgrimage invites Catholic allies and LGBTQ+ Catholics’ families to walk in their own shoes. “The joy of an LGBTQ+ pilgrimage is to see that LGBTQ people are serious about Catholicism too,” Kuzma said, “and can participate in these time honored ways that resonate across time.” This pilgrimage is an example of “ordinary LGBTQ+ Catholics” speaking up about their faith.

For queer Catholics, the pilgrimage is also a reminder of how their relationship with the Church is an ongoing journey, just like any Catholic’s spirituality. For Kuzma, “the whole concept of connecting the spiritual journey with [gender] transition really bloomed for me with Sister Luisa Derouen, a Dominican Sister of Peace who has been working with the LGBTQ+ community since 1999.

Kuzma warns that today, more than ever, it would be easy for the Church to feed into growing political polarization in the world, especially politicizing LGBTQ+ people, their existence, and their bodies. In January, President Trump signed an executive order this month denying the existence of nonbinary and trans people. In his order, Trump claimed to be “defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the federal government,” a statement that seems remarkably similar to “Male and Female He Created Them,” a document released by the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education in 2019. Only days after Trump signed this order, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ president Archbishop Timothy Broglio agreed with Trump’s order about trans and nonbinary identity, albeit criticizing his orders threatening immigrants and refugees, the death penalty, and the environment.

But as Kuzma said, the Church has an obligation to honor the dignity of LGBTQ+ people, not just LGBTQ+ Catholics. This pilgrimage represents a vital albeit small step that creates space for LGBTQ+ Catholics around the world to feel seen and served by the Church despite continued pushback from some Catholic leaders. Although the pilgrimage is localized to Italy it is a spark of hope for trans, nonbinary, and gender expansive Catholics in the United States and around the world that face legal discrimination, violence, and murder for living authentically.

When Francis DeBernardo, Executive Director of New Ways Ministry—an LGBTQ+ affirming Catholic organization, wrote about the event on Bondings 2.0 he said, “we can see what a sea change has taken place in terms of responding to LGBTQ+ people. This development did not happen overnight, but has many small steps which paved the way for it.” The hope is that this pilgrimage sends a signal to queer Catholics around the world as a small contingent walks through the Jubilee doors and hopefully into a more intentionally inclusive Church.

As Kuzma said, he hopes this pilgrimage is a “gift that future generations can receive and benefit from the graces of [the Church] sooner rather than later.”

—Emma Cieslik (she/her), July 5, 2025