IDAHOBIT: Catholic Prayer Services to End Discrimination and Violence, Part 3

This year, the International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia (IDAHOBIT) showed Catholic Church leaders exhibiting greater support for LGBTQ+ people, along with calls for greater inclusion within the Church. The day is observed each year on or around May 17 and serves as a focal point for Christian communities to gather in prayer, reflection, and solidarity with LGBTQ+ people who face violence, discrimination, and exclusion.

Over the next few weeks, Bondings 2.0 will be posting excerpts from some of the homilies and talks held at these vigils. We are doing so not only to recognize the excellent comments that were made, but also to inspire other Catholic LGBTQ+ ministries to start their planning for hosting similar events in their parishes on May 17, 2027

It’s never too early to request a public appointment for a bishop or diocesan official. Catholic teaching explicitly condemns prejudice and violence against LGBTQ+ people, so church officials should have no doctrinal objection to such events.

Let’s try to double the number of Catholic vigils in 2027!

(We are grateful to Progetto Gionata, the blog of La Tienda di Gionata, an LGBTQ+ Catholic group in Italy, for having catalogued all these talks!)

Today, we feature the voices of LGBTQ+ people:

Lorenzo Caruso Michele, a university student, gave his testimony at a vigil in the church of St. Peter in Banchi, Genoa, Italy. He described the pain and doubt he felt over his sexuality for many years, until finally, in preparation for entering seminary, he understood his queerness as part of God’s plan:

“It was during the Ignatian exercises for discernment, prior to entering the seminary, that I first learned that God looks upon my life with love, in its complexity and entirety, including my orientation. It was from there that my journey of true self-acceptance began.”

Lorenzo Caruso Michele speaking at IDAHOBIT prayer service

Lorenzo also describes the changes he hopes to see in the Church:

“Queer people shouldn’t be included because a certain theme has been more or less accepted. They should be recognized because they’re already there, because their lives are already integrated, in all their nuances, into God’s plan. Until we see this, until Pope Francis’s ‘todos, todos, todos’ is fully realized, our task, as queer Christian groups and pastoral commissions, will be to continue to fully commit ourselves. It would be wonderful to see pastoral commissions called not ‘for inclusion,’ as we do in Florence, but ‘for recognition.’”

Enrico’s story is similar to Lorenzo’s, though as a child of the 1980s, his road to acceptance has been longer. At the vigil at Jesus the Redeemer parish, in Modena, Italy, he described all the times he has come out in his life, and how the process of finding oneself never ends: 

“The process of searching for and defining oneself is complex and complicated in itself, especially for children who are gay or begin to question whether they recognize themselves in their biological sex. They must contend with the lack of role models to inspire them, to identify with, to feel defined by. This quest is as close to a spiritual and mystical quest as you can get, not only because it is profound but also because it forces you to confront a society that, at best, is unprepared to help you, and at worst tries to convince you that you are wrong, that you are sick….The processing of all these experiences, my faith, and the desire to find support on my journey, led me to approach the study of religious studies—again with the intent of seeking confirmation and reassurance.”

One of the more powerful testimonies came from the vigil organized by the diocesan family office of the Diocese of Chiavari, held in the church of San Giovanni Battista in Chiavari, Italy. Daniela and Elisa, whose love story spans a decade are devout Catholics, though they note that growing up Daniela was “freer,” while Elisa was “more rigid.” They met for the first time in 2011, at World Youth Day in Madrid, and felt an instant connection. 

For some time, that connection remained platonic. Elisa was planning to take vows for a  consecrated life, and did so in 2017,. Daniela recalls standing “by her side as a sister.” The following years were fraught with ups and downs as the two women entered into and navigated a secret relationship, sought help from priests and other religious leaders, and found only “closed doors.” Finally, last October, the two married, and Daniela describes the way God exists in their relationship:

“What we try to do every day, with all our rough edges, is precisely to care for our love. And in this care is God, who is the one who cares for love par excellence, the one who is love.”

Elisa adds: 

“There’s something else I’d like to say. I’m a nurse and I accompany sick people towards death: I work in palliative care. One of the biggest regrets people tell me before dying is that they weren’t able to live the life they wanted, because they were always stuck in something.”

Congregants at the vigil held at the Church of San Giorgio Maggiore, Naples, heard the story of “Maria,” a Southern Italian woman forced to live her feelings in silence for many years. The Naples vigil was an ecumenical one, so the congregants also heard from Waldensian pastor Letizia Tommassone gave the opening address:

“Let us pray for a world without violence, and for churches capable of safeguarding the dignity of every person.”

At the heart of the vigil, said Tommasone, is a “desire to bring before God the real wounds experienced by so many people discriminated against or excluded.” 

That desire lay at the heart of each vigil, across Europe: the desire to make visible the struggles that were before invisible, to, as Lorenzo Caruso says, gain recognition rather than inclusion, since we are already here.

—Lynnzee Dick, New Ways Ministry, June 2026