Pope Francis had a message for parents of LGBTQ+ youth during an unannounced meeting held at the Vatican earlier this week: “God loves your children as they are.”
On Wednesday, Francis met with an estimated 40 members of the Italian organization Tenda di Gionata, or “Jonathan’s Tent,” which describes itself as a support group for families of LGBTQ+ people. The organization’s president, Mara Grassi, reportedly presented the Catholic leader with a booklet detailing the rejection that many of their families had faced at the hands of the church.
Grassi, whose eldest son is gay, explained to Francis why the group entitled the document “Genitori Fortunati,” which translates to “Fortunate Parents.”
“We consider ourselves fortunate because we had to change the way that we had always looked at our children,” she said, in an account of the conversation printed in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica. “We found a new way of looking that enabled us to see in them the beauty and love of God.”
“We wish to create a bridge to the church so that the church too can change its way of looking at our children, no longer excluding them but fully welcoming them,” she added.
Francis, who has been lauded for his more tolerant approach to LGBTQ+ inclusion following predecessor Pope Benedict, responded to Grassi with a statement of love and embrace. “The church does not exclude them because she loves them deeply,” he reportedly said.
Grassi would later tell La Repubblica that she felt “very strong emotions” hearing Francis’ words of support after struggling to find a place for her family in a religion which historically has condemned homosexuality as “sinful.” After attending a vigil in support of LGBTQ+ people at a northern Italian church several years ago, only then did she find a community that would accept her son for who he is.
“[F]or many years, I was like a blind person,” Grassi explained. “After I came to know that my son was homosexual, I suffered a lot because the rules of the church made me think that he was excluded from the love of God. Nobody helped me.”
The meeting was the latest instance of Francis breaking with the Catholic Church’s more dogmatic traditions on LGBTQ+ rhetoric. Shortly after assuming the papacy in 2013, Francis was famously asked by a reporter about the presence of gay priests in the church and responded, “Who am I to judge?” He went on to say that LGBTQ+ people should not ”marginalized because of this but that they must be integrated into society.”
Elsewhere, Francis has claimed that Catholics should apologize to LGBTQ+ people for centuries of discrimination and told a gay man in 2018: “God loves you like that and made you like that.” He also compared homophobic politicians to Hitler.
But in leading the church to a path of greater LGBTQ+ inclusion, Francis has made several notable and grave stumbles, particularly on trans issues. He has referred to “gender theory” as a moral “evil,” for example, and compared transitioning to the threat of nuclear war. Muddying his views on trans inclusion, though: He wrote a letter of support in August to a nun who built a shelter for trans women in Argentina.
“God will repay you,” he reportedly told her.
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