Vatican says LGBTQ+ pilgrimage will return to Jubilee 2025 calendar
ROME – According to Vatican organizers of 2025 Jubilee Year, the on-again, off-again listing of a Sept. 6, 2025, pilgrimage for LGBTQ+ Catholics on the official calendar isn’t about attempting to squelch or censor anyone, but rather a bureaucratic matter of collecting the necessary information to register an event.
When it was first discovered some time ago that a pilgrimage for LGBTQ+ Catholics sponsored by a group called La Tenda di Gionata, or “Jonathan’s Tent,” an Italian group that ministers to gay and lesbian Catholics, had been listed on the jubilee calendar for Sept. 6, 2025, it caused some consternation among conservative and traditionalist groups.
When that registration then suddenly disappeared from the official calendar last week, it became a cause célèbre in the Italian media, generating charges that the Vatican had caved in to political pressure and cancelled the event.
In fact, the explanation for the event’s disappearance is seemingly more prosaic, according to Agnese Palmucci, a spokesperson for the Dicastery for Evangelization, the Vatican department responsible for Jubilee organization.
Over the weekend, Palmucci told Italian media outlets that in conversations with Father Pino Piva, an Italian Jesuit and an advisor to the Tenda di Gionata group, it became clear that some of the logistical information the dicastery usually requires to list an event was missing, so the Sept. 6 pilgrimage was temporarily removed.
As soon as that information has been submitted, Palmucci said, the LGBTQ+ pilgrimage will be returned to the calendar.
Some gay rights groups raised questions about that claim, noting for that many of the smaller jubilee events listed on the calendar even basic information is missing, such as the time of day or how to participate, yet those events have not been removed. Nonetheless, Palmucci insisted that the Tenda di Gionata pilgrimage will be re-inserted as soon as a few basic details are provided.
In general, she said, the Vatican itself is directly responsible only for the 35 “major events” of the Jubilee year, such as the openings of the holy doors and jubilees for groups such as deacons (Feb. 21-23), Eastern churches (May 12-14) and bishops (June 25).
Beyond that, the Dicastery for Evangelization is maintaining a calendar of other jubilee events, but those events, Palmucci said, are entirely the responsibility of the sponsoring organizations. Already on Sept. 6, for instance, in addition to the LGBTQ+ event, there are also diocesan pilgrimages for the dioceses of Ascoli Piceno and San Benedetto del Tronto-Ripatransone-Montalto.
Founded in 2018 at the suggestion of a priest from the Fermo diocese, the group La Tenda di Gionata is part of a series of organizations and movements in Italy seeking to provide pastoral and spiritual care for LGBTQ+ Christians. It’s based in the city of Florence and had 200 registered members in 2023.
Among other projects, the organization operates an on-line resource for LGBTQ+ Christians and their parents seeking a priest or a consecrated religious with whom they can enter into dialogue.
Piva, a Bologna-based priest close to the group, has been described as the “James Martin of Italy,” a reference to his fellow Jesuit Fr. James Martin, whose pastoral outreach and advocacy on behalf of LGBTQ+ Catholics has made him both celebrated and a lightning rod in church circles.