Vatican’s ‘Meeting of Families’ in Dublin will feature pro-LGBT+ presentation

This year’s World Meeting of Families is set to take place in Dublin, Ireland on August 21-26. The Vatican-backed festival will feature a presentation on LGBT+ families, welcoming same-sex couples and their children into the Catholic Church. This is the first time such a gesture has been extended to the LGBT+ community – the only other time LGBT+ issues have been discussed at the World Meeting was in 2015 when a gay man and his mother presented a talk on chastity.

The presentation will be delivered by Rev. James Martin, the Vatican’s Secretariat for Communications and author of Building a Bridge: How the Catholic Church and the LGBT Community Can Enter into a Relationship of Respect, Compassion, and Sensitivity.

Martin described the presentation as “immensely significant,” adding it showed “that LGBT Catholics and their parents are an important part of our church…The message from the Vatican to LGBT Catholics is this: you belong.”