Members of LGBT+ Catholics Westminster shook hands with and had their picture taken with Francis by the Vatican photopaper in an “amazing” surprise encounter in 2019.
The group’s secretary recalled how the Pope had told them, in a brief meeting after a morning audience in St Peter’s Square, that it was “wonderful” to hear they were an officially recognised group.
Martin Pendergast, secretary of the group’s pastoral council, told the PA news agency: “It was just amazing. I mean, we couldn’t believe it was happening.
“It was a brief encounter but there was a warmth, and he shook hands with everybody.
“When I explained that we were an official ministry of the diocese he said ‘that’s wonderful, that’s wonderful’.”
Asked about the significance of the occasion, Mr Pendergast – an ordained priest who no longer carries out active ministry – said he believed it was the first time an LGBT group had met and been pictured with the Pope.
He said: “He’d met various individuals, always on a very, very private kind of basis, but the fact that this was a public occasion, and photographs were being taken by the Vatican photographer, and of course, when the photographs were made available, they went viral and provoked all sorts of reactions from right wing Catholics across the world.”
Six years earlier, in his first year as head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis was reported to have indicated he would not judge priests for their sexual orientation, saying: “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?”
The comment made headlines, standing in stark contrast to his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, who signed a document in 2005 that sa...
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