Pope Francis To Parents Of LGBT+ Children: “God Loves Your Children As They Are”
Pope Francis spoke to a group of LGBT+ parents telling them that “God loves your children as they are” and “the church loves your children as they are because they are children of God.”
The parents are members of an Italian association, Tenda di Gionata (“Jonathan’s Tent”), which welcomes and provides information and formation to LGBT+ Christians, their families and pastoral workers. The association was founded in 2018 by people inspired by a Catholic priest, the late Rev. David Esposito from the Diocese of Fermo in the Marches region of Italy.
Mara Grassi, vice president of the association, together with her husband Agostino Usai presented the pope with a booklet titled “Genitori Fortunati” (“Fortunate Parents”) that documented the experiences of these parents with the church, and their requests for acceptance despite all too often being considered “undesirable” by church communities, as ‘America Magazine’ reports.
Ms. Grassi said she told the pope that “our association aims to foster dialogue between the church and the families of L.G.B.T. [people].” Ms. Grassi confided to him, “We consider ourselves fortunate because we had to change the way that we had always looked at our children. We found a new way of looking that enabled us to see in them the beauty and love of God.”
According to her account of the conversation, she told Francis, “We wish to create a bridge to the church so that the church too can change its way of looking at our children, no longer excluding them but fully welcoming them.”
Pope Francis then reassured her, “The church does not exclude them because she loves them deeply.”
Ms. Grassi said she experienced “very strong emotions” in her encounter with Pope Francis.
She revealed that “for many years I was like a blind person. After I came to know that my son was homosexual, I suffered a lot because the rules of the church made me think that he was excluded from the love of God. Nobody helped me.”
She told the pope that she is the mother of a son who is gay and “who left the church because he did not feel accepted in his diversity.”
She said the pope responded assuring her and the other parents present that “God loves our children because they are all children of God.” And when she requested that the church, too, should change its ways so that no one feels excluded, Francis reassured them saying, “The church loves our children as they are.”
Read related myGwork articles here:
Pope Francis Compares Anti-Gay Politicians To Hitler
Pope Says There is No Place for Gay Men in the Clergy
Pope Francis: “Do Not Condemn LGBT+ Children”
Pope Francis tells gay man God loves him unconditionally
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