Is the church open to homosexuals and trans? The Pope, before a crucial event in the Vatican

The crucial appointment is between 22 and 26 of this month in the Vatican in the tenth edition of the World Meeting of Families, postponed by the Covid-19 epidemic. Pope Francis will welcome delegates from episcopal conferences, movements and associations.

The big news seems to be coming in the preparations and in the new organization of the one of the Church’s two international mass events. The other is the meeting of young people.

The organization is “multicentric and widespread”. It extends to diocesan communities all over the world to plan initiatives based on the theme of the meeting, which is: “Family love, vocation and the path of holiness”.

The Pope, in a video message, invited the faithful to “be lively and creative to organize themselves with families, in harmony with what will happen in Rome”.

With this vast international scenario connected to the center of the Meeting in the Vatican, it opens up an opening space whose size is uncertain, for homosexual and transsexual families and the blessing of male, female, mixed and LGBT couples.

This was seen in the recent Argentine census in which almost 60 thousand people did not identify with the two traditional sexes and were able to express it thanks to the latest laws of our country on the subject.

Francesco’s dilemma

For the Catholic Church, the practice of homosexuality and its variants is prohibited, it is a grave sin. In four articles of the Catechism it is stated that homosexuality it is “an objective disorder”.

The only way out is mandatory chastity. It is a total closure that is impossible to maintain in absolute terms in modern societies, especially in democratic ones.

The Pope formally accepts this formula because he has no other choice. Approving the opposite would trigger a crisis with schismatic characteristics that Jorge Bergoglio cannot face. You have to move forward with subtle differentiations. The German Church has spoken out in favor of lifting the ban and a good group of priests bless same-sex unions in German churches.

era of change

In calling for a new World Meeting of Families, many questions are raised related to questions of sexual orientation.

Times change. Let’s take a look at Robert’s case.

Roberto Stevanato is 75 years old and a very Catholic man like the rest of his family. In Venice he has been fighting for twenty years against homotransphobia (hatred for homosexuals) in civil societies and especially in the Catholic Church. When he turned 55, his son Francesco confessed to him that he was gay. Father and son went to their church separately, seeking understanding and counsel.

Francis, now 39, told the priest he was homosexual. The boy attended parish groups, was and is a great believer. As soon as he finished speaking, the parish priest expelled him from the parish and the following Sunday he refused communion. The priest maximized punishment and scandal ruthlessly applying the norms of the Catechism.

Roberto says that “as soon as our crying son told us what was happening to my wife, we realized that something had to be done”. The Stevanato family, like so many others with this problem, had been crushed between love for children and dogma.

The story was revealed to Italian public opinion twenty years later by Alice D’Este in Courier of the Veneto.

Roberto and the rest of the family decided to fight “because Francesco’s conditions have not changed anything for us, he is our son and we will continue to love him whatever his love choice”.

Testimonials

The objective that binds the Venetian family to the World Meeting of Families has another motto for the Stevanatos: “In the Catholic Church, people must be truly welcomed as they are”.

With other Catholic parents with homosexual children they organized themselves in groups and the parish of Santa María Auxiliadora, for the first time in the diocese of Venice, received them in a meeting to exchange experiences of life and prayer.

Times have changed in twenty years and the group is called “All children of God”. They carry out an intense activity in their parishes. “We feel the distance between the institutions but things are improving”, says Roberto.

There are also faithful in the group, such as a 61-year-old man who, between sobs, confided to them that he too was gay and that never had the courage to tell him to his parents before they died. Roberto told the case of a lad that everyone knew and that he attended group meetings until one day he committed suicide.

rainbow families

The Venetian network of “rainbow” families, as they are called, has spread throughout Italy in groups that call themselves “Tre Volte Parenti”. who fight against the lack of communication with the hierarchies “and with real life”.

The Patriarch of Venice “knows everything about us” and encourages them because “ours is not a battle against institutions but against pain”.

Now comes the World Meeting of Families and these issues will also be on the table in Rome and in dioceses around the world.

It is not yet known whether “rainbow” families will be officially admitted. But the Pope recently encouraged them by stating that “God’s style is neighborhood, mercy and tenderness”.

Unlike the previous nine editions of the Meeting, this time there will be no lectures with an academic structure, but rather a moment of meeting, listening and debate among the operators of the pastoral care of the family and of marriage, as explained in the Vatican.

Two thousand delegates are expected in the Vatican, chosen by the Episcopal Conferences, by the Synods of the Eastern Churches and by international ecclesial realities.

There will be 170 delegations from 120 countriescomposed mostly of families who will represent three quarters of the delegates, together with priests and bishops responsible for family pastoral care in the Episcopal Conferences.

Vatican correspondent

CB