Episcopal St. Paul’s Within the Walls opens its doors to LGBTQ+ Catholic pilgrims in Rome

Hundreds of LGBTQ+ Catholics gather outside the Church of Gesù after they attended a Mass on Sept. 6 for the Jubilee Year in Rome. Photo: Sipa via Associated Press

[Episcopal News Service – Rome, Italy] Marianne Duddy-Burke rested in the shade outside St. Paul’s Within the Walls on Sept. 6 after a historic day for LGBTQ+ Catholics.

Twenty-five years earlier, Duddy-Burke, the executive director of the Catholic full-inclusion organization DignityUSA, had traveled to Rome for Holy Year, or jubilee, a once-every-25-years time of spiritual renewal, reconciliation and forgiveness for Roman Catholics. Back then, as she and members of her group tried to attend jubilee Mass, security turned some of them away, while others slipped through. This time, however, she and her wife, Becky Duddy-Burke, a former Roman Catholic nun, attended Mass and together walked through the doors of St. Peter’s Basilica.

Duddy-Burke was among some 250 LGBTQ+ Roman Catholic leaders representing about 1,400 LGBTQ+ Catholic pilgrims and their families from over 20 countries who gathered at the Episcopal church on Via Nazionale, following the first-ever recognized LGBTQ+ jubilee pilgrimage.

To get listed on the Vatican calendar in one jubilee cycle “is a real testament to the queer people and families around the world telling their stories of faith and living the Gospel,” she said.

Millions of Roman Catholics make jubilee pilgrimages to Rome, the seat of the Roman Catholic Church. On Sept. 5, LGBTQ+ pilgrims attended a prayer vigil inside Church of Gesù, the Jesuits’ mother church, and on Sept. 6, following a Mass, the LGBTQ+ pilgrims walked through the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica.

The global LGBTQ+ Catholic leaders had struggled to find a church in the center of Rome where they could gather for discussion and prayer following the day’s events, and so they turned to St. Paul’s, Larry Littman, the church’s senior warden, told ENS.

St. Paul’s, as an Episcopal church, is the only “officially” fully inclusive church in the central city, and it is becoming the ecumenical gathering place for LGBTQ+ Christians in Rome, Littman said. For example, in June 2024, the church made history when it was the first to march in the city’s Pride parade. This year, the Episcopalians marched alongside LGBTQ+ Catholics, Methodists, Baptists, evangelicals and Christians from other denominations, with St. Paul’s serving as a hub before the parade.

The idea that St. Paul’s might open its doors to the pilgrims followed a conversation after the Pride parade, Alessandro Ferraccioli, a former Catholic who is now a St. Paul’s member serving on the vestry, told ENS.

The Roman Catholic Church does not condone homosexuality or same-sex marriage, though it doesn’t consider homosexual orientation a sin or a crime. And the church’s last leader, Pope Francis, worked to normalize acceptance of LGBTQ+ Catholics.

The Global Network of Rainbow Catholics, which provides pastoral care and works for justice, inclusion, dignity and equality for LGBTQ+ Catholics and their families, both within the church and society, organized the jubilee pilgrimage in association with the association Jonathan’s Tent, an Italian LGBTQ+ Catholic organization; DignityUSA; Outreach, an LGBTQ Catholic ministry; and others.

For the Roman Catholic Church to recognize the LGBTQ+ jubilee pilgrims, Ferraccioli said, “was a big deal,” and for St. Paul’s to open its doors as a meeting place “met the needs of a lot of Christian people.”

As they sat side by side outside St. Paul’s, Marianne and Becky Duddy-Burke, who’ve been together for 27 years, talked of how they’d first met: at an Episcopal church in Boston, Massachusetts, that agreed to host DignityUSA when no one else would. It would later be the Episcopal church where they celebrated their sacramental marriage.

“I carry with me all the people who didn’t live to see this day,” she said.

-Lynette Wilson is a reporter and managing editor of Episcopal News Service. She can be reached at lwilson@episcopalchurch.org.