Pilgrimage Jubilee of LGBTQ Catholics: A Call to African Catholic Church Leaders to Look at the Peripheries

The Jubilee pilgrimage organized by La Tenda di Gionata last weekend, September 5th- 6th, in Rome became more than a spiritual gathering for LGBTQ Catholics and their families. It was a moment of renewed faith, collective prayer, and a public call for greater compassion from the Church, particularly from leaders in Africa, where resistance to LGBTQ inclusion remains strong.

On Friday, September 5, during a prayer vigil, Jesuit Father James Martin — one of the most prominent Catholic voices advocating for LGBTQ inclusion — addressed a crowd of hundreds. His message was clear: welcoming LGBTQ Catholics is not about ideology, but about fidelity to the Gospel’s call to mercy, compassion, and solidarity.

“Why do we work with LGBTQ Catholics and their loved ones?” Martin asked. His answer unfolded in three layers:

The secular reason: LGBTQ people are often victims of violence, harassment, and exclusion. “Any person of good will should want to help these brothers and sisters,” he said.

The Catholic social teaching reason: At the heart of the Church’s mission is solidarity with people at the margins. Pope Francis has repeatedly reminded Catholics that the Gospel lives at the peripheries.

The religious charisma reason: Martin drew on the legacy of saints such as Ignatius of Loyola, who called believers to “find God in all things,” and Francis Xavier, who baptized thousands once considered less than human, both present in the Church of Jesus in Rome where the vigil was taking place. “There is no one more excluded in our Church today than LGBTQ people,” Martin insisted.

But for him, the most decisive reason is rooted in Scripture itself. He illustrated his point with three Gospel stories where Jesus chose compassion for outsiders over the judgment of the crowd.

The first is the Roman centurion who asked Jesus to heal his servant. “A colonizer, a foreigner, the ultimate outsider — yet Jesus listened, healed, and praised his faith,” Martin reminded the assembly. “When I see the faith of my LGBTQ brothers, sisters, and siblings, I say: never have I found faith like this.”

The second is the Samaritan woman at the well, stigmatized for her irregular past and shunned by her community. Jesus not only spoke to her but entrusted her with the proclamation of the Good News. “That is how Jesus treats those on the margins,” Martin explained.

Finally, Martin recalled Zacchaeus, the tax collector in Jericho, too short to see Jesus amid the crowd. “How often the Church itself becomes that crowd, blocking those of little stature from seeing Christ,” he said. But Jesus sought Zacchaeus out, dining in his home despite the grumbling of onlookers. “Showing mercy to the marginalized always angers some people,” Martin concluded. “In the Gospel, there are only two places to stand: with Jesus and Zacchaeus, or with the grumblers.”

For those present the vigil was a moment of joy and healing. Yet it was also a plea for me: What if African bishops, often described as the strongest opponents of LGBTQ inclusion within the Catholic hierarchy, had been there to listen, to walk, and to pray with us?

I believe such encounters could open new paths for the Church in Africa. If African church leaders marched with us, this would be a year of jubilee for many LGBTQ Catholics on the continent. It could mark the beginning of real discernment, genuine accompaniment, and even advocacy against the criminalization of LGBTQ people.

Signs of openness exist. In 2023, Cardinal Peter Turkson of Ghana stated publicly that it was “time to understand homosexuality.” His words, though cautious, broke the silence that has long dominated the conversation. For many, the problem lies not in malice but in ignorance: Church leaders often rely on media caricatures of LGBTQ lives, filtered through images of pride parades or Western stereotypes, rather than listening to the lived experiences of LGBTQ Catholics in their parishes.

“Too often, the rejection is based on not knowing us,” said one African Catholic. “They judge from the outside — on how someone dresses or looks — instead of remembering that as Christians, we are called to love even when it makes us uncomfortable.”

This lack of first-hand contact is compounded by safety concerns. In many African countries, LGBTQ people cannot be visible in their communities, let alone in church life, without risking persecution or rejection. As a result, bishops and priests may feel that LGBTQ issues are distant or irrelevant. If the only images they see are those that feel foreign to their society, resistance is understandable. But it is not inevitable.

Moments like the pilgrimage in Rome, are not only to welcome LGBTQ Catholics themselves, but also to embrace their families and loved ones who seek spaces of dialogue and growth in faith. There are possibilities to live them also in the African contexts. The Gospel asks us to listen, to cherish, and to stand with those at the margins. That is where Jesus is found.

The Jubilee pilgrimage of LGBTQ Catholics, with its prayers, testimonies, and prophetic words, was a reminder that the Church’s mission is not abstract. It is about flesh-and-blood people of faith asking to be seen and loved as they are. For African church leaders, as for the entire Catholic Church, the challenge remains: to step out of fear, away from ignorance, and to look — with the eyes of Christ — toward the peripheries.