Rome, Italy
AP
Pope Francis has met with a fourth group of transgender people who found shelter at a Rome church, the Vatican newspaper reported Thursday.
L’Osservatore Romano said the encounter took place Wednesday on the sidelines of Francis’ weekly general audience. The newspaper quoted Sister Genevieve Jeanningros and Rev Andrea Conocchia as saying the Pope’s welcome brought their guests hope.
Pope Francis arrives in the Paul VI hall on the occasion of the weekly general audience at the Vatican, Wednesday, on 10th August. PICTURE: AP Photo/Andrew Medichini.
The Blessed Immaculate Virgin community in the Torvaianica neighbourhood on Rome’s outskirts opened its doors to transgender people during the coronavirus pandemic.
Francis previously met with some of them on 27th April, 22nd June and 3rd August, the newspaper said.
“No-one should encounter injustice or be thrown away, everyone has dignity of being a child of God,” the paper quoted Sister Jeanningros as saying.
Francis has earned praise from some members of the LBGTQ community for his outreach. When asked in 2013 about a purportedly gay priest, he replied, “Who am I to judge?” He has met individually and in groups with transgender people over the course of his pontificate.
But he has strongly opposed “gender theory” and has not changed church teaching that holds that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered.” In 2021, he allowed publication of a Vatican document asserting that the Catholic Church cannot bless same-sex unions since “God cannot bless sin.”
Recently, Francis wrote a letter praising the initiative of a Jesuit-run ministry for LGBTQ Catholics, called Outreach. The online resource is run by Rev James Martin, author of Building a Bridge, a book about the need for the church to better welcome and minister to LGBTQ Catholics.
Francis praised a recent Outreach event at New York’s Jesuit Fordham University, and encouraged organisers “to keep working in the culture of encounter, which shortens the distances and enriches us with differences, in the same manner of Jesus, who made himself close to everyone.”
The first Jesuit pope of the Roman Catholic Church has spoken of his own ministry to gay and transgender people, insisting they are children of God, loved by God and deserving of accompaniment by the church.
