"I dream of being who I am." When the Catholic Church discovers that LGBT+ people are already inside
In the Catholic Church some issues enter through the front door; others remain in the churchyard for years, waiting for someone to decide whether it is prudent to let them sit. LGBT+ people often seem to belong to the second category. With a small detail: they are already in church. They pray, sing, read the Scriptures, teach catechism, serve in the parishes and, sometimes, even celebrate Mass.
It is from this reality, as evident as it is still difficult to name, that Don Luca Lunardon starts in the article "I dream of being who I am." Towards a "pastoral" approach to LGBT Christians, published in 2025 on The Journal of the Italian Clergy.
Lunardon is a priest of the diocese of Vicenza, specialized in moral theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University and professor of ethics of life and relationships at the ISSR of Vicenza. In his book, which was born from his licentiate thesis, The principle of pastoralism. Reception in moral theology and theological practice in the field of LGBT+ Christians (Studium, Rome 2025), develops the idea that pastoral care is not the department "caresses and understanding"of the Catholic church, to be opened when the doctrine has already finished its work. It is instead a place in which theology is also born from listening to people and what the Gospel is already operating in their lives.
In this article, however, he returns to the confusion of many priests and pastoral workers in the face of this reality because: «Many priests and pastoral workers perceive that they are not equipped to accompany their journeys of faith, and this often causes attitudes or silences that make these people feel out of place".
Not being prepared is understandable. Transforming unpreparedness into permanent silence is a little less so. Because even silence, especially when it comes from the Catholic Church, can become a closed door without anyone having had the courage to officially close it.
Lunardon describes well the border condition experienced by many lGBT+ christians Through the words of jonah, A young transgender man: «I risk finding myself marginal twice. In the LGBT community it is not easy to call yourself a believer. In these contexts, atheism, or even anticlericalism, very often prevails. But, in other respects, I also experience exclusion within my community. I feel like I'm no longer wanted".
It is the life of those who find themselves on a bridge: too much of a believer for some LGBT+ environments, too LGBT+ for certain Catholic environments. But precisely those who live on a bridge can connect banks that, from afar, willingly throw a few stones at each other.
The most interesting passage of the article, however, concerns the words we use. Lunardon proposes to go beyond even the terms "welcome" and "integration": «It would be appropriate to talk not about welcome or integration - terms that can express unidirectionality, or an inside/outside approach - but about recognition. It's about recognizing people who are already within our liturgical assemblies, our ecclesial groups, our presbyteries".
The difference is not small. Receive it can mean: this is my house, but today I'm good and I'll let you in too. Recognize instead it means realizing that the other person already lives there, perhaps before us, and even has the keys to the sacristy.
Lunardon does not hide the tensions present in the teaching of the Catholic Church: he reconstructs the evolution of documents on homosexuality, the pronouncements regarding transgender people, the weight of reparative theories and the particularly delicate situation of homosexual priests. It does so without throwing anathemas, but by showing the concrete effects that certain formulations have had on people's lives.
Regarding priestly training, he reports a particularly incisive reflection: celibacy cannot become «a kind of noble way to "park" one's sexuality, imagining that by having to be celibate they can be exempt from having to deal with this dimension of their lifeto".
Apt image: sexuality, however, is not a car. Even leaving it in a well-guarded ecclesiastical car park, sooner or later it will have to be dealt with again. Better to do it with freedom, competence and truth, instead of relying on the ever popular pastoral method of "let's not talk about it and see if it passes".
From here comes Lunardon's central proposal: «The meaning of pastoral care with – and not for – LGBT people is to place ourselves next to them to search together".
That "with" change the perspective. LGBT+ Christians are not passive recipients of attention, concessions, or how-tos. They are believers to walk with, pray with, and discern with. The Catholic Church is not only called to do something "for them", but to allow itself to be questioned and enriched by their experience of faith.
The article ends with a statement that perhaps contains all its meaning: «Only in this way, as reconciled priests and pastoral workers, can we position ourselves in an authentically pastoral way, ensuring that those who have a minority sexual orientation or gender identity live their experience of faith and salvation in community. By truly knowing who they are, everyone will be enriched by that part of the Gospel that resonates in their lives, and which otherwise could not be announced".
The title, "I dream of being who I am", expresses an apparently minimal and yet still revolutionary request: to be able to enter the Catholic Church without having to leave a part of oneself in the wardrobe.
Perhaps the first pastoral step is precisely this: to stop discussing only how to "welcome" LGBT+ people and finally begin to recognize the Gospel that they are already living and announcing.
* Luca Lunardon is a priest of the diocese of Vicenza and professor of theological ethics at the Higher Institute of Religious Sciences of Vicenza and the Pontifical Gregorian University. In the volume The principle of pastoralism, published in 2025, explored the relationship between moral theology, experience, and LGBT+ Christians.
In his most recent book, Encounters that transform. Theology of accompaniment and life practices (Marcianum Press, 2026), broadens its gaze to cohabiting couples, LGBT+ people and medically assisted procreation paths, showing how accompaniment is not the "caresses and understanding" department of the Catholic Church, but a place in which even theology can learn something from real lives.
To learn more:
Luca Lunardon, «I dream of being who I am». Towards a "pastoral" approach to LGBT Christians, article in The Journal of the Italian Clergy, n. 5, 2025, pp.368-380.
Luca Lunardon, The principle of pastoralism. Reception in moral theology and theological practice in the field of LGBT+ Christians, Studium, Rome 2025, 360 pages
Luca Lunardon, Encounters that transform. Theology of accompaniment and life practices, preface by Luciano Moia, afterword by Stella Morra, Marcianum Press, 2026, 248 pages
