Vatican: LGBT pilgrimage could be ‘reinstated’ to Jubilee events calendar

After mixed messages on a controversial pilgrimage, a Vatican spokesperson aims to clarify.

After mixed messages on a controversial pilgrimage, a Vatican official said Thursday that a planned LGBT pilgrimage was removed from a Vatican Jubilee Year calendar temporarily, and could soon be returned.

Credit: Unsplash.

The statement came after a Vatican spokesperson told The Pillar earlier this week that the pilgrimage had never been included on the online calendar, despite evidence to the contrary.

—
“The Tent of Jonathan pilgrimage was in the general calendar of Jubilee events, where all pilgrimages and events proposed by dioceses or associations are included,” Agnese Palmucci, of the Vatican’s Jubilee press office told The Pillar Dec. 12.

“It was taken off the calendar a few days ago solely because the [pilgrimage’s] organisers had not yet provided the [Jubilee’s] organisation with the numbers of those [attending the pilgrimage] and detailed information about the event. This information is required for inclusion in the general calendar. The event will be reinstated as soon as the organisers provide the necessary details,” she explained.

Palmucci’s remarks were the latest in a series of Vatican messages about the pilgrimage, which made headlines in media outlets last week, because it was organized for people who identify as LGBT, and had seemed to garner support from the Italian bishops’ conference.

After the Vatican included the event in a calendar of pilgrimages and Jubilee events organized by third parties, the pilgrimage garnered attention, and mostly criticism, from commentators and on social media.

Some news outlets framed the pilgrimage as one of the many Vatican-sponsored thematic jubilee events, such as the Jubilee of Young People or the Jubilee for the Elderly — rather than as an event organized by a non-Vatican organization, taking place during the Jubilee Year, but not a part of its official programming.

Earlier this week, soon after an explainer on the issue was published by The Pillar, the pilgrimage was removed from the Jubilee Year’s calendar.

A spokesperson at the Dicastery for Evangelization told The Pillar on Wednesday that the event had not appeared on any Jubilee Year calendar, despite evidence to the contrary.

Before that, Archbishop Rino Fisichell said earlier this month that the event “is in the calendar, like many other events” — referring to the general Jubilee events calendar maintained by his office.

Palmucci contacted The Pillar Thursday to say that the event’s removal from that calendar had to do with unavailable details for the event, and that the pilgrimage could soon be placed back on the online calendar.

The spokesperson emphasized that the Dicastery for Evangelization’s Section for Fundamental Questions of Evangelization in the World did not endorse the pilgrimage, but merely announced it on the calendar.

“The Section (...) is only directly responsible for the 35 major Jubilee events and not for the minor pilgrimages of the requesting dioceses and associations. All other events and pilgrimages, which are announced in the general Jubilee calendar, are therefore entirely the responsibility of the dioceses and individual proposing associations,” she told The Pillar.

“These pilgrimages are also attended by individual pilgrims who choose to set out at the proposal of the proposing Dioceses and associations, or otherwise organised,” she concluded.

The planned pilgrimage is organized by the LGBT organization Tenda di Gionata — Jonathan’s Tent — with support from the Italian bishops’ conference and the Society of Jesus. It is catered to LGBT pilgrims and will be held on September 5 and 6, 2025.

Tenda di Gionata was founded in Italy in 2018 as a volunteer project to become “more and more sanctuaries of welcome and support for LGBT people and every person affected by discrimination” and to make known “the journey that LGBT Christians (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) take every day in their communities.”

The project has faced criticism for its approach, as it uses controversial pastoral resources, such as articles that claim that the Bible does not condemn homosexual acts.