Beyond the Numbers: Italy’s Quiet Transformation on Catholic LGBTQ+ Inclusion

The Rainbow Index of Churches in Europe 2025 (RICE) is an academic research project that evaluates and ranks European Churches on how they include and support LGBTQ+ people. Commissioned by the European Forum of LGBTI Christian Groups, the new edition was published in October.

One interesting bit of information the report produced is that Italy’s overall score rose only slightly – from 17.5/51 in 2021 to 18.5/52 in 2025 – while one of the survey’s factors, the Inclusivity Index, Italy’s ranking actually dropped from 37% to 36%, and its ranking fell from 17th to 29th place. This information is surprising since the Italian Catholic LGBTQ+ groups have been making great strides in recent years.

To better understand what is actually happening in Italy, Bonding 2.0’s Elisa Belotti spoke with several leading voices from the Italian Catholic LGBTQ+ movement: Innocenzo Pontillo, president of the association La Tenda di Gionata (Jonathan’s Tent); Alessandro Previti, contributor to La Tenda di Gionata and a liaison with Global Network of Rainbow Catholics (GNRC); and Luana Gravina, coordinator of the LGBTQ+ Christian network in Sicily.

Elisa Belotti (EB): In recent years, Italy has shown two contrasting dynamics: while public debate and politics have grown increasingly hostile toward LGBTQ+ people, within the Catholic Church more spaces of dialogue and welcome have begun to emerge. From your point of view, what are the main grassroots changes happening in parishes and Christian communities?

Innocenzo Pontillo:  Pope Francis’ pontificate has made visible many pastoral experiences of welcoming LGBTQ+ people and their families that were already present in the Italian Catholic Church. This is the evolution of a journey begun many years ago. The oldest groups are those in Milan and Bologna.

Innocenzo Pontillo (right), with husband Carlo.

Today in Bologna, groups formed by LGBTQ+ people of faith and their parents are an integral part of the diocesan pastoral care for families, led by Archbishop Matteo Maria Zuppi, who also serves as president of the Italian Bishops’ Conference. Similar developments have taken place in Florence, Bari, Turin, Chiavari and so on. It’s a clear sign that what began at the grassroots level is now finding growing openness even within the hierarchy.

The same can be said for the annual international prayer vigils to overcome homophobia and transphobia. They began in Italy more than ten years ago, when it was not possible to pray publicly about such issues within the Catholic Church. The vigils were born out of the pain of discrimination and exclusion, but also from a deep desire to create spaces of listening and hope. Over time, they spread to many dioceses, involving believers, parents, and priests.

After more than a decade of witness and perseverance, the vigils have now been recognized in the final document of the Italian Church’s Synod. It is an important milestone: a grassroots initiative has been welcomed as part of the Church’s collective journey.

EB: The Rainbow Index of Churches doesn’t seem to reflect this progress. Why is there such a gap between the official data and what is actually happening in local communities?

Alessandro Previti: The distance between what the report said and what is really happening in Italy has two main causes. First, the methodology of the Index is based on a partial reading, shaped by cultural and political assumptions that don’t fully take into account the specific context of each country. Second, many of the Italian experiences are not formally structured or publicized, so they don’t emerge through surface-level surveys.

Alessandro Previti meeting Pope Francis

The Index captures an image of the institutional Church that appears closed, but it cannot detect the movement happening beneath the surface: the life of small diocesan communities, family groups, and the pastoral care of religious people who quietly accompany LGBTQ+ believers. At the same time, it doesn’t recognize the signs of a Church that, from above, supports without imposing. We are like farmers who water seeds, not like those who plant fully grown trees unaware of the ground they’re nurturing. It’s a silent and profound process.

To understand this better, we can look at the results of the final document of the Italian Church’s Synod, particularly the sections concerning queer people. That document was approved with 95% of the votes and included more than 75 points and 100 proposals. Among them, five specifically addressed homoaffective and transgender people, all approved with between 77% and 95% support.

EB: How is the Italian approach, based on personal dialogue with bishops and local communities, different from the more confrontational strategies used by other movements? What results has it produced?

Alessandro Previti: In Italy, the strategy grounded in personal relationships has borne fruit. This approach is rooted in testimony and dialogue rather than disapproval, provocation, constant dissatisfaction, or shouting in the streets. Other movements, both in Italy and abroad, have chosen paths centered on public pressure or theological confrontation, methods that risk fostering bitterness, polarization, and division. Dialogue, instead, is a difficult choice. It places us in a position not only to speak but also to listen. The outcomes are not always what we hope for, but they are the most authentic.

For example, I think of the dioceses that now offer LGBTQ+ pastoral care, educational programs, and spaces for prayer and support. It took time to get here and, while these may seem small results from a media perspective, they are big milestones on an ecclesial level and huge on a social one, because they shift the focus from ideology to pastoral care.

And it’s not just the Church that is opening up. Many homoaffective and gender non-conforming people are moving from a stance of protest to one of participation: praying, ministering, sharing responsibilities, and embodying common values. Not waving flags, but living as whole persons.

EB: After the LGBTQ+ Jubilee Pilgrimage in September, can we speak of a new phase for the European queer movement? What new perspectives are emerging to dialogue with the Church?

Innocenzo Pontillo: The Jubilee pilgrimage of LGBTQ+ people, their parents, and pastoral workers was a bold act of faith to see where the Church’s journey has led. It was a moment of reconciliation lived within the Church after centuries in which queer people were neither seen, heard, nor recognized.

Through the LGBTQ+ Jubilee, this part of the People of God has found dignity and acknowledgment. What was once on the margins is now moving toward the center, bringing with it a profound responsibility: to share its story of faith, to be present, and to offer within the Church the goodness and hope that have matured through years of walking together.

The pilgrimage was a symbolic gesture, but also a deeply transformative one. It marks not only an opening, but also a call to contribute with our voices and our lives to the building of a more inclusive Church, more faithful to the Gospel.

EB: In Sicily this dialogue method brought interesting results. What did this journey teach you on how local communities can change the Church from the inside?

Luana Gravina

Luana Gravina: The Sicilian LGBTQ+ Christian network was founded in 2021, with the aim of being a place of encounter for those who have not yet found a safe space to be fully themselves. Over the years, we’ve built dialogue with the local Catholic Church through retreats, prayer vigils, and formation programs, witnessing through our lives that it is possible to live as both Catholic and LGBTQ+ without renouncing any part of who we are.

We’ve also built a friendship with Catania’s Archbishop Luigi Renna, who encourages us to live as authentic Christians, without compromise, and with the awareness that we are all God’s children. The archbishop’s presence at our retreats feels like a caress from the Church itself, a Church that, like a loving mother, embraces everyone without distinction.

This journey has taught us the value of personal relationships born from sincere dialogue. These relationships become trust, and trust becomes friendship. And in the encounter with real people and their stories prejudices begin to fall, the only true barriers that stand in the way of communion. Only through closeness can we help the Church rediscover its deepest calling: to be a home for all.

–Elisa Belotti, New Ways Ministry, November 24, 2025