 |
| Image: Facebook |
Each year the Vatican holds a lunch for the poor, and in 2023 Pope Francis invited transgender women to the event. In 2023 and 2024, two of the women were chosen to sit at the pope's table.
What, queer Catholics and their supporters wondered, would the new pontiff do in 2025? On LGBTQ matters, Pope Leo XIV has so far played it close to the vest. Or vestment.
At the lunch yesterday, some 1,300 people dined on lasagna and chicken cutlets. The guests were migrants, disabled folks, homeless people—and 48 transgender women. They made the cut. However, none ate with the pope.
Vatican observers dissected the lunch as though they were Hedda Hopper at the Brown Derby.
"That he’d mingle, that he [sat] close to [us], that’s a good sign, right?" said a trans woman who attended. A liberal priest who ministers to transgender women said they weren't able to meet the pontiff, but they were seated "very, very close to the pope."
Success as measured in terms of feet and inches. This is Europe, so make that meters and centimeters.
Another trans woman admitted to some disappointment that none were included at the pope's table. "But we still received a sense that the church is not going to close the door that it opened," she said.
Who can say? If, in 2026, the transgender women are again invited but need binoculars to see the pope, we'll know the door is closing. Likewise if they're served one olive and an arugula leaf.
