The Jubilee, the Catholic Church and minorities

Reflections by Chiara D'Urbano* published on the website NEW TOWN on January 4, 2024

Il prossimo 6 settembre 2025 è stato programmato un pellegrinaggio giubilare per l’Associazione di credenti “La Tenda di Gionata” e associazioni affini. Una riflessione sulle critiche che questo evento ha sollevato e sulle speranze che apre

Having reserved a Jubilee pilgrimage – in the official calendar of Jubilee events it will benext September 6, 2025 – to the Association of LGBT+ believersLa Tenda di Gionata and similar associations, it is an act that has not gone unnoticed and many have turned up their noses.

Yet, it is a pilgrimage of believers first and foremost, believers who recognize themselves in the well-known acronym which brings together people withhomoaffective orientationistransgender, a pilgrimage also of families, mothers and fathers, and pastoral workers.

This does not amount to a propaganda act.

It will not be a procession of banners and ideas passing under the Holy Door to claim who knows what belonging, but people in flesh and blood, as individuals and as associations, whothey will bring their specific human and spiritual richness, asking for God's mercy and the grace to be able to grow in faith(which is the meaning of a Jubilee). Like other human groups, bearers of their own specificities, attitudes and charisms, whose pilgrimages this Jubilee has put on the agenda.

However, in this case there were many critical observations, both from those who appreciate the novelty of the Jubilee and from those who do not appreciate it at all.

We wonder whether it is necessary to identify a specific day focused on people with homoemotional orientation and non-conforming gender identity, becausethe risk is that the effect will be the opposite of the desired one. Rather thanencourage inclusion, creating a "specialty" is equivalent to branding and marginalizing, as if gays, lesbians and transgenders were separate slices of humanity. And indeed a bit of risk is undeniable. If these are brothers and sisters at home or next door, there should be no need to narrow down a group of people who are particularly involved next September.

In fact, however, young and old who recognize in themselvesan affective, emotional and romantic attraction(so theAmerican Psychological Associationdefines sexual orientation) towards people of the other sex, the same sex or both sexes, and all those who have a gender identity (i.e. who live their femininity or masculinity) that does not conform to their biological sex at birth,they are found on the cultural and sometimes religious margins of our ecclesial communities. And divisions are created around them between the "pros" and the "cons",as if there were a question of whether a minority has the right to be in the world.

But the prevailing criticisms touch on other issues.

What creates alarm is the fear that recognizing the existence of LGBT+ people (the acronym is not much, but it is concise and understandable), and thereforemaking their presence visible means approving, legitimizing or, worse, indicating homosexual and trans "models" as "models"., ending up in the current fashion circuit that would fuel these trends.

Also because it is mostly about "people strange", if not "sick, perverse, promiscuous, unbalanced, with something wrong". "They may be children of God, but they are not well, they make sense to me". "Now it's fashionable, if you're not gay or trans you're almost out of date”. Comments on the agenda that populate the exchanges within our ecclesial realities, unfortunately from those who have no knowledge of the people they are talking about.

The Church, our mother Church, does something as simple as it is precious: he is looking into the wealth of many men and women and tells them – this is how I see the pilgrimage – thatthere is no perversion in them, which are not the expression of a trend. Indeed, they certainly have something to say that has not been heard before, something new, something unprecedented, something profound that today finds a space for expression, and that is worth trying to listen to.

The fear of giving visibility to a pilgrimage of a human and social minority, as if it were a bad example that certainly should not be publicised, intercepts and engages ourfears of the unknown, of what is not known and therefore feared. Or that is known through "hearsay", which is equivalent to not knowing, and which is therefore loaded with clichés and cartoons not worthy of people who reflect, study, pray, delve deeper.

Sometimes we forget that the Jubilee days are times of meeting, of exchange, where together we ask for forgiveness and seek a blessing as strength to prepare ourselves to welcome the Grace of God. The Jubilee is not for the deserving, as a medal for valour, for on the contrary, it is for those who live with the desire to be welcomed, who experience the need to improve. Of those who do not presume on themselves, nor feel better than others.

Reserve a special day for women and men who experience being a human minority, and for those who promote the recognition and inclusion of LGBT+ peopleit's a way of saying: you are here, we see you, we want to get to know each other, we are not ashamed of you, emotion that as Christian communities we sometimes express towards brothers and sisters who do not match our standards (which standards then?).

If the Jubilee period allows us to even just stand in silence to support, to listen to stories, to get close, to overcome mistrust and gratuitous prejudices, it will have filled gestures and steps with meaning, which, otherwise, will be a mere ritual to "gain indulgences" .

* Chiara D'Urbano, psychologist and psychotherapist, he is an expert of the Courts of the Vicariate of Rome, collaborates in research and teaching with theInstitute of Higher Studies on Women(Pontifical Regina Apostolorum University). For years he has worked in the training and therapeutic accompaniment of individual and community vocational processes. He has numerous articles and publications to his credit including “Vocational paths and homosexuality” (New City, 2020)