Pope Francis meets group of transgender people taking shelter at Roman church

Pope Francis met with a group of transgender people taking shelter at a church in Rome on Wednesday, the Vatican newspaper reported.

The encounter, which happened on the sidelines of Francis’ weekly general audience, marked the fourth time Francis met trans people staying at the Blessed Immaculate Virgin community in Rome’s Torvaianica neighborhood, according to the L’Osservatore Romano newspaper.

The group has been staying at the parish because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Francis has previously welcomed other members of the group in April, June and August.

Pope Francis delivers his message during the weekly general audience at the Vatican, Wednesday, Aug. 10, 2022. (Andrew Medichini/)

According to the newspaper, Sister Genevieve Jeanningros and the parish priest, the Rev. Andrea Conocchia, said that Wednesday’s general audience could be summarized by the words “revolution and hope.”

“No one should encounter injustice or be thrown away, everyone has the dignity of being a child of God,” Jeanningros said.

In December, a high-ranked Vatican official apologized for bringing “pain to the entire LGBTQ community who once again felt left out,” after deleting a link to a video by an LGBTQ Catholic group from the Synod of Bishops’ website.

Earlier this year, the 85-year-old pontiff told the editor-at-large of a U.S. Christian magazine that “God is Father and he does not disown any of his children” — even those who are part of the LGBTQ community.

He was responding to the Rev. James Martin — a Jesuit priest who advocates for the inclusion of LGBTQ people in the Catholic church — about what the LGBTQ community should know about God, the church, and rejection.

But while Francis has signaled some degree of openness toward LGBTQ Catholics — when compared to his predecessors — he hasn’t changed church teachings that see homosexual acts as “intrinsically disordered.”

In March 2021, Francis allowed the publication of a Vatican document declaring that the Catholic Church wouldn’t bless same-sex unions because God “cannot bless sin.”

With News Wire Services