LGBTQ+ Pilgrimage Memories Highlght the Power of Belonging

Reflections, stories, and blessings continue to be shared by those who participated in the recent LGBTQ+ Jubilee pilgrimage in Rome in September. The varied accounts contain a common narrative: this pilgrimage was not only a source of great joy and hope for those who participated, but also a demonstration of the flourishing that results when true inclusion is practiced. 

Sam Albano

Sam Albano, national secretary of DignityUSA, writes in his reflection for U.S.Catholic that the pilgrimage was “a celebration of belonging” and a time of great joy and consolation. He describes the power of both the pilgrimage Mass celebrated at the Church of the Gesù– during which the story of Peter and Cornelius from the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 10:1-48) was read– and the procession through the Holy Door that followed, noting:

“The story of Peter and Cornelius remains one for our own time. A people once thought to be on the outside of the church already bear the Holy Spirit and remind us that “God shows no partiality.” Walking the boulevard to St. Peter’s Basilica, it truly felt that a “year of the Lord’s favor” had fallen to God’s beloved LGBTQ+ people. On that warm sunny Roman Saturday, we felt that the scriptures were being fulfilled in our hearing. Truly the joys that we shared are the joys of the whole church.”

The pilgrimage was full of song, celebration, and joy, with many pilgrims wearing rainbow attire as members of Tenda di Gionata led the way with a rainbow-colored cross. “We were pilgrims among pilgrims, Catholics among Catholics, welcomed into a church that was already our home,” Albano writes, and he continues:

“Ours has been a decades-long, or even a centuries-long pilgrimage of abiding trust that Christ walks with us, and that our church can become what it is called to be. Our pilgrimage was not ended at the threshold of the Holy Door. God’s beloved LGBTQ+ people will continue to cross through the doors of our churches, proclaim our own dignity, and appeal to the church’s shepherds to join hands with us in doing the same. But for those two days in Rome, we experienced the great joy and consolation of simply being welcomed—even though we already belonged.”

Chris Vella, co-chair of the Global Network of Rainbow Catholics and president of Drachma LGBTI+, Malta, speaks similarly of the historic pilgrimage and the reality of inclusion to which it points in his reflection for Times of Malta:

“…What remains etched in my memory is the experience of over 1,000 people packing the beautiful Jesuit Chiesa del Gesù in the heart of Rome, singing, praying, reflecting and joyously celebrating our faith in Christ during the beautiful Friday vigil service. As one of the celebrants exclaimed: “Our eyes have known the tears of rejection… Today, however, there are other tears, tears of hope.”

Chris Vella

For Vella, the pilgrimage shared some similarities to a Pride celebration, in which dignity, community, and God-given uniqueness are honored:

“While our pilgrimage walk was by no means a pride march in the classical sense, as it was not intended to be a protest march, we walked just the same, as we do at every pride march, as witnesses to the dignity we hold, as humans, as children of God, as Catholics, and as LGBTIQ+ persons and proud parents of LGBTIQ+ persons.”

Vella remarks that one of the most pivotal moments in his pilgrimage experience actually came after the official event had concluded, when Vella and his husband attended “a normal Sunday Mass in a place not remotely linked to LGBTIQ+ issues” in Rome. It was there, listening to a priest speak “publicly and unashamedly” of LGBTQ+ people, that Vella reports he felt the true impact of the Jubilee pilgrimage and the vision of inclusion that it brings about, where LGBTQ+ Catholics are recognized and embraced like any others. He writes:

“[The priest] not only mentioned LGBTIQ people specifically, and their names distinctly, but unreservedly and unashamedly embraced us as children of God, with dignity, with a genuine yearning of love…I had never ever heard such a beautiful message delivered so bluntly and publicly during a random Mass that was not specifically organised for LGBTIQ+ people. It was so powerful that both my husband and I ended up shedding tears of gratitude to God for this grace.

“To me, indeed, while the previous days’ events had seemingly reached a climax, this Mass was an unexpected and yet truly providential moment that enraptured our hearts in a most singular way…I hold these memories in my heart and look forward in hope to a time when we are called by name, not by a pseudonym or a slur, and where there is no embarrassment or shame for being Catholic and queer.”

—Phoebe Carstens, New Ways Ministry, October 4, 2025