The Great Pilgrimage of Hope

The Jubilee theme “Pilgrims of Hope” offers many avenues to explore. A provocatively entitled book by English Dominican Timothy Radcliffe, who was made a cardinal in recognition of the retreats he led during the recent Synod, asks the question: “What is the point of being a Christian?”

He answered by identifying “hope” as the key characteristic that should define how we as Christians lead our lives and what we should be bringing to the world around us.

As we enter 2025, we have so many reasons to lose hope — conflicts in the Middle East, Africa and Eastern Europe; polarisation in politics; greedy individuals who use political power and commercial might to dominate others; and a planet whose cries for attention we keep ignoring. In this great year of Jubilee, we need to ask ourselves: As Pilgrims of Hope, what hope we can bring to some aspect of our world?

The assumption is that, given the chance, the Church should be bringing hope rather than despair. And the work of people of faith in responding to the needs of refugees, the poor, the sick and the neglected are great examples of this. But sometimes as Christians, and as a Church, we are not sources of hope.

I had the unexpected privilege recently of attending ILGA, a conference of LGBTQI+ activists from around the world held in Cape Town. (I will use that cumbersome acronym because it is what the community increasingly use of themselves and it would be disrespectful to do otherwise). There were 1400 people from 120 countries, each with an extraordinary story to tell. What is it like to live as a gay man in Russia, a lesbian in Uganda, a trans-woman in Fiji or an intersex person in Argentina?

Stories of suffering

Some of the personal histories that were shared were horrendous: tales of family rejection, harassment, imprisonment, torture, beatings, forced medical examinations and surgical procedures. People have lost their jobs, their homes, their place in society and their own families because of who they are and who they love.

Yet, it struck me that they were Pilgrims of Hope. They were not in Cape Town to complain about what they had experienced, but rather to work together to discuss ways in which the world could be better for them and members of their community. That, I trust, is what will also draw Catholic pilgrims to Rome and to other Jubilee centres in 2025: What hope do we have and what hope can we share with others?

The irony was that, for almost every person I spoke to, their own community of faith — frequently Christian, and often Catholic — had been anything but a place of hope. Where they should have expected to find love and compassion, they had instead been met with silence, marginalisation, excommunication, and even oppression and violence. And if members of their own families had tried to be accepting, they in turn had been rejected by members of their community.

God doesn’t reject

However, even if rejected by their churches, mosques and temples, so many of the people I spoke to did not feel rejected by their Creator. “The God who made me, made me like this,” was a frequent response, “and I thank God.” But this was not a glib reply, rather it was something that for many had only come after years of spiritual struggle and un-learning some of the bad theology that had been imposed on them.

A surprising number participated in the interfaith event that started the proceedings. Here people were able to share frankly about their spiritual journeys — we are all pilgrims — and I was struck by the depth of reflection and deep longing for God that so many expressed. I hope that we would find the same in an average Sunday congregation.

These were people who were asking profound questions, praying intently, drawing on the rituals and practices of their faith traditions, and sharing their Scriptures. When faced with stone walls and cold shoulders, they had sought new ways of exploring their faith. And occasionally people had found moments of light in the darkness: better informed religious leaders with whom they could share their journey without fear of judgment.

In countries where opportunistic politicians readily use LGBTQI+ people as scapegoats for wider social ills, finding a priest or a pastor or an imam willing to be an ally can be a lifeline. That is literally the case when academic studies show that 27% of LGBTQI+ people in South Africa have attempted suicide in the last year.

Voices for the voiceless

Our history as a Church is full of leaders — sometimes ordained, sometimes not — who have seen the opportunity to stand alongside those who are on the margins. We might think of St Teresa with those dying on the streets of Kolkata; St John Paul II fighting for Christians under communist regimes long before he was pope; St Oscar Romero being a voice for the voiceless in the face of Church-backed right-wing regimes in Latin America.

In our own country, we have the struggle examples of Archbishops Hurley and Tutu. Being an Anglican, Tutu had a wife and children, and his daughter Mpho followed in his footsteps in being ordained a priest.

She spoke at the conference about her pain in being told, by the church that her father had once led, that she could no longer operate as an Anglican priest because she had married the woman she loved. She asked: “How can God be anti-racist, anti-colonial, anti-patriarchal, and yet support the exclusion of people because of their sexual expression?”

Mpho pointed out that God bothers to make not just each person but even each snowflake unique. “This is a universe so wildly and wonderfully beautiful and diverse. Why do we then tolerate the pinched joylessness of a religion which is not conservative but rather preservative?” In this, she was echoing words from her own esteemed father: “We are different precisely in order to realise our need of one another.”

The LGBTQI+ people I met are Pilgrims of Hope. They hold on to that hope despite centuries of oppression; they even hold on to hope when glimmers of light (from the Synodal discussions in Rome, or the recent Anglican vote in South Africa on same sex blessings) are snatched from them.

The Jubilee logo

I cannot help but look at the Jubilee Year logo from a new angle. It shows a tempestuous sea — the waves around us are not letting up — and the focus is on the cross. As Christians, Christ is always our hope, even when others would take him from us. Clinging to that cross — or marching towards it — are a group of people (of no defined gender) in a range of colours. This could remind us of the Rainbow Nation of South Africa, or the Rainbow flag of the LGBTQI+ movement.

We are pilgrims together, we face the storms of conflict together, and we journey together towards Christ. Whether a priest, bishop or cardinal, or a regular Catholic in the pews, each one of us can choose whether to see and hear our fellow pilgrims and reach out a hand of hope, or to abandon them to drown.