Women's and LGTBI+ groups attend the Pope's mass with their demands

Madrid.- Women’s and LGTBI+ community groups attended this Sunday the massive mass that Pope Leo XIV presided over in Madrid’s Plaza Cibeles with a protest stance, to ask for their inclusion “as first-class Christians” within the Church or that they may receive sacraments such as marriage “without distinction”.

“We want a Church of equals, we do not want a Church of the powerful,” declared Teresa Casillas, a member of Women’s Revolt in the Church, to EFE.

More than twenty women members of this movement arrived with umbrellas, t-shirts, and purple scarves at one of the access points to the Eucharist, where they placed a purple banner on the asphalt that read ‘Until equality becomes a habit’.

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Casillas insisted that Jesus “did not found a Church”, but rather “experienced a community of equals”, while lamenting that the Pope, during the celebration of the Eucharist, is only surrounded by men “showing his power”, when many women also feel the priestly vocation.

Juani also belongs to this movement and to the association Christians of the LGTBI+ Christian Community of Madrid (Crismhom) and advocates for “the equality of all people, of the entire human race, and as the Pope says, of all humanity”.

Carrying a rainbow umbrella, Mónica Arca, a member of Crismhom, stated: “God has created us, He loves us, He wants us, and we can be believers and be LGBTI+ and express our love as a couple, not just in chastity”

She recounted that she was a missionary in Latin America for more than twenty years, but left the Christian community “due to life issues” that have nothing to do with her sexual orientation.

“We are all equal. God loves us without distinction, He created us just as we are, as we feel, live, and love, even if it may seem different from the norm,” stated Luis Enrique, a Colombian by origin who came from the Canary Islands (Atlantic) to be able to attend the Corpus Christi celebration with the Pope.

Luis Enrique, wearing a t-shirt that says ‘I am a gay Christian’, calls for “the total inclusion” of the LGTBI+ community “as first-class Christians like all the baptized.”