In late June, the organizers pledged to march past the Colosseum in Rome on July 8 despite pleas from the Vatican and the city government.

Imma Battaglia, one of the organizers, said: “More than 200,000 people will march with heads high and follow a route which will lead us to the Colosseum.” The huge amphitheater is revered by Christians as a symbol of all the locations where Christians were martyred by the Roman Empire 1,500 to 2,000 years ago. Battaglia said the Colosseum was also a symbol of life and human dignity.

The Vatican objected to the scheduling of the World Gay Pride festival in Rome during the Jubilee Year 2000, especially since several major Jubilee events were planned at the same time as the festival. Catholic leaders feared homoerotic and anti-Catholic displays—usual fare for such gay pride events—would confront Jubilee pilgrims in Rome during the first week of July.

Italian politicians from across the spectrum objected to the idea, including Prime Minister Giuliano Amato who called the parade “inappropriate.” Rome Mayor Francesco Rutelli, who initially supported the event, even approving a large subsidy, abruptly changed his stance after the range of opposition surfaced. He also asked the event organizers not to plan their parade to pass by the Colosseum on July 8, but they refused that request.

“Half of the demonstrations and rallies in Rome are neither authorized nor banned, so the parade could be held even without authorization,” said one of the organizers. Battaglia said members of the European and Italian parliaments would lead the parade and would try to break through police cordons if they try to block them from the Colosseum. In any case, there were no cordons for the parade of about 70,000—by far the largest crowd at any of the scheduled events and far below the expectations of up to 500,000.

Writing in the official Vatican newspaper in the days before the event, Father Gino Concetti suggested that the Church must welcome people who suffer from homosexual tendencies—as she welcomes everyone—but that demonstrations such as the World Gay Pride rally “do not help us toward a better understanding of the problem and the human tragedies” associated with homosexuality.

Father Concetti, the Dominican theologian who writes regularly on moral issues for L’Osservatore Romano, lamented that homosexuals have often been the victims of “behavior which is more the fruit of prejudice than of evangelical inspiration.” All Christians, he said, should seek for “comprehension and respect” of homosexual persons—as of all others. The Church, he said, must “struggle against prejudice and scorn,” and homosexual persons should “feel that they are full members of their parish,” and be guided by “the same call to holiness as all other men and women.”

However, Father Concetti—who is also the theologian of the pontifical household—said that the World Gay Pride rally “is quite another thing,” because it is a manifestation of “gay ideology.” While it is true that homosexuals should be treated with respect, he explained, it is not true that homosexual actions should be considered normal or healthy.

Father Concetti particularly objected to the drive for legal recognition of same-sex unions, arguing that “a stable, lasting monogamous marriage between a man and a woman is the only one which allows a love which is a true communion,” as opposed to an “individualistic conception” which makes no room for God.

The Dominican writer saw a danger that gay activists could lead others to define their very existence by their sexual preference, so that they are “imprisoned in their sexuality.” The net result, he said, could unfortunately be a new rise in prejudice against the homosexual minority.

As the rally began, a controversial French bishop revealed that Pope John Paul II had intervened to dissuade him from addressing a special conference at the event. But Bishop Jacques Gaillot did not let the Pope’s request prevent him from speaking to the press about it.

Bishop Gaillot—who was removed from the Diocese of Evreux, France, in 1995 because of his unorthodox public stands—was scheduled to speak on “homosexuality and religion” as part of the World Gay Pride event. But after a phone call from Bishop Louis-Marie Bille, the president of the French bishops’ conference, Bishop Gaillot cancelled his appearance.

“I was told that the Pope asked me not to speak, and I want to obey,” Bishop Gaillot told the Italian daily La Repubblica. “I am not a rebel or a revolutionary; I am a bishop, with a spirit of peace and hope.”

However, the bishop told another Italian daily, Il Messaggero, “That doesn’t meant that I can’t speak to journalists.” He went on to say that the Church must accept homosexuals, and that “change” is “inevitable” in the Church’s relations with homosexuals. He said that the Gay Pride event, like the Jubilee observance, should prod Church leaders to ask new questions about the pastoral approach to homosexual activity.

Continuing his press tour in a conversation with Corriere della Sera, Bishop Gaillot said that he knew “many serious and committed homosexuals, and I see no reason to prevent them from taking responsibility within the Church at the highest levels.”

Bishop Gaillot said that practicing homosexuals who are active Catholics are “suffering terribly.” And he added that the Church “should ask pardon of homosexuals, because over the course of history she has been very hard and sometimes pitiless toward them.”

Meanwhile, Catholic pilgrims and homosexual activists appeared to have few confrontations as the homosexual event and Jubilee 2000 intersected.

Thousands of pilgrims were in Rome, mainly around the Vatican and the three other basilicas of the city, as usual during this Holy Year, including tens of thousands of Poles celebrating a special Jubilee day with Pope John Paul II. There were also thousands of homosexual activists participating in conferences and rallies throughout the city, but concentrated mainly in the Trastevere neighborhood across the Tiber from the Vatican.

According to Massimo Mei, a spokesman for World Pride, the group hoped to respect the rights of religious pilgrims to have access to Rome’s spiritual centers. “Rome is a big city, and we can both share it,” said Mei. “There’s no need for conflict.” Officials at Giubileo 2000, the organizing group for the Jubilee—despite their strenuous efforts to have World Pride moved away from Rome during the Jubilee Year—also said they hoped to avoid confrontations.

Many journalists said that at most times one had to actively search to find groupings of homosexuals during Gay Pride, outside of the large rallies and marches.

Near the end of the rally, on Sunday, July 9, the Holy Father broke from his usual practice of his regular audience to express his “bitterness” over the fact that the Gay Pride rally had been held in Rome during the Jubilee Year.

“In the name of the Church of Rome, I cannot fail to express my bitterness for the affront caused to the Grand Jubilee of the Year 2000, and for the offense against Christian values in a city so dear to the Catholics of the entire world,” the Pontiff said.

Speaking to pilgrims in St. Peter’s Square, from the window of the papal apartment, the Holy Father recalled the teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church that “homosexual acts are contrary to the natural law.” He was careful to draw a distinction between those who experience homosexual temptations and those who demand public acceptance of homosexual acts and same-sex unions. The Church condemns any form of unjust discrimination against people afflicted with homosexual tendencies, he insisted.

However, the Pope continued, “The Church cannot hide the truth, because she would then be failing in her fidelity to the Creator God, and failing to help people discern good from bad.”

Meanwhile, US Vice President Al Gore told the New York-based Catholic League for Civil and Religious Rights that he refused to renounce his support for World Pride because he urges “tolerance” of homosexuals.

On June 1, Catholic League president William Donohue sent a letter to Gore, the Democratic Party presidential nominee, asking him to rescind his support for World Pride and push for it to be moved or postponed so it did not conflict with Jubilee 2000 celebrations. Donohue maintained in his letter that the venue and timing of the event were chosen to offend the Church.

Gore responded in a July 3 letter by saying he respected the Catholic group for its work against intolerance, but added: “This is one issue where I will be unable to help.” He said, “I believe that the larger issue is one of tolerance. Just as I will stand by you whenever you are working to fight intolerance on religious grounds, I also believe we need to be tolerant when it comes to sexual orientation as well.”

Donohue said in reply, “My letter to the vice president was occasioned by the expressed intolerance of Roman Catholicism by the leaders of the World Gay Pride march, and he writes back saying ‘the larger issue here is one of tolerance’ for sexual orientation! This is precisely the kind of spin that is deeply insulting.” He added, “So wedded is Gore to the politics of the radical gay agenda that he never bothered to comment on what Imma Battaglia, the principal organizer of the event, said of the Pope; in the news release that accompanied my letter to Gore, Battaglia was quoted as saying, ‘[expletive] you’ to the Pope.”

Donohue continued, “Gore’s letter demonstrates how selective his commitment to tolerance really is. If only his professed interest in combating gay bashing were matched by his interest in combating Catholic bashing, then there would be no issue.”

Italian daily La Repubblica speculated that the unnamed priest was Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, whose efforts to save thousands of Jews and Allied soldiers was made into the film The Scarlet and the Black starring Gregory Peck. The newspaper said the documents—part of a collection of 400,000 World War II British and US intelligence reports declassified at the end of June—indicate the priest “wittingly or unwittingly” provided information to the Nazis, including the supposed date and place of the Allied landing at Anzio and “was not the hero who saved Jews, partisans, and Allied prisoners, but a German spy.”

The newspaper also claimed that Cardinal Ildefonso Schuster, then the Archbishop of Milan, arranged for the transfer of large sums of money from Rome to Milan on the Nazis’ behalf. The Vatican has not commented on the reports.

The letter composed by the IPPF’s European network at its annual meeting in Rome urged the Church to change its age-old teachings on sexual and reproductive issues. “The opinion and actions of the Holy See in regard to sexual and reproductive health and rights are seen by many as a kind of war, a war that contributes to the suffering and deaths of millions of innocent people, a war not conducted with guns and fire but with condemnation and psychological terror,” it said.

In contrast, the Church has consistently taught that it is abortion and contraception that both directly cause the deaths of millions of unborn children and create a “culture of death” that contribute to greater violence in society.

IPPF’s letter was written partly in response to the Holy See’s activity at a recent special session of the United Nations General Assembly reviewing the 1995 Beijing Women’s Conference earlier this month, in which the Vatican and various Muslim and Catholic countries blocked attempts to force all countries to legalize abortion and contraception.