The bishop of Málaga, José Antonio Satué, sent a message of support to the XV Meeting of LGTBIQ+ Christians in Chipiona (Cádiz), held from October 9 to 11 under the motto “Todos, todas, todes.” In it, he told the participants that “you have much to contribute to the Church and, at the same time, you can be enriched in it.” This was reported by the magazine Vida Nueva in a chronicle published on Thursday, October 15, according to which the bishop did not attend in person but sent some words to the assembly. The chronicle does not specify whether the message was written or recorded. The meeting ended with the unanimous approval of an agreement to promote a national network of Christian groups linked to sexual diversity.
According to the same magazine, Satué reminded those present that “we are all daughters and sons of God” and that “every person deserves to be heard, welcomed, and recognized in their dignity.” He also acknowledged the wounds inflicted on LGTBIQ+ people within Church settings and asked that they not be trivialized. The message, as reported, contains no reference to the Church’s teaching on sexuality or to the call to chastity.
The meeting was held at the San José House of Spirituality, run by the Franciscans, and was organized by PADIS Canarias, the Pastoral for Sexual Diversity in the Canary Islands, whose president, Miguel Ángel Sosa González, opened the proceedings. It brought together more than a hundred people from various parts of Spain and some participants from Portugal, Italy, and Switzerland. The motto is an adaptation of the “todos, todos, todos” pronounced by Francis at World Youth Day in Lisbon. The priest from Burgos, Eloy Bueno de la Fuente, spoke on synodality as a constitutive dimension of the Church, and the religious sister of the Daughters of Jesus, María Luisa Berzosa, spoke in a recorded intervention from Rome. The closing Mass, at the feet of Our Lady of Regla, was presided over by Cristóbal Rodríguez Hernández, a priest of the diocese of San Cristóbal de La Laguna.
The participants worked in groups, using a method that several media outlets describe as inspired by the synodal process, on welcome, accompaniment, pastoral care, formation, and networking. Among the conclusions, according to the cited chronicle, is the call for a pastoral approach “with” LGTBIQ+ people and not “for” them, more formation, and safe spaces. The network, which already has a preparatory group, will also extend to Portugal, and the contributions of the groups will be compiled in a document that, according to one of the participants cited by Religión Digital, should be ready by the end of the year and reach all the bishops. The same outlet states that some Spanish bishops sent messages of support, without naming them. The next edition is scheduled for October 8–10, 2027, again in Chipiona.
Satué, bishop of Teruel and Albarracín until Leo XIV transferred him to Málaga in 2025, is also pontifical delegate for the Institute of the Incarnate Word. This is not the first time he has spoken on this matter. In February, in an interview with Málaga Hoy, he stated that the blessing of people in a same-sex relationship “is a step forward” and that marriage “for us will always be, I believe, between a man and a woman.”
In September 2025, the Madrid-based association Crismhom (Christians of Madrid LGTBI+H) publicly thanked, in a statement, the gestures of Satué and Cardinal José Cobo toward the collective. The text recalled that, after the Mass marking the beginning of his ministry in Málaga, Satué had told journalists, regarding the LGTBI collective, that “there is no doubt that everything possible must be done so that the Church and religions as a whole do not add more reasons for suffering, but rather help to welcome people as they are, each one, as Francis said, with their life on their back.” The association presented the declaration Fiducia Supplicans as “a response to the need to see our love as worthy of being blessed by God” and thanked the bishops for keeping in mind their mission as “doorkeepers,” “those who open the door and not those who close it, those who open their arms to welcome and not those who impose a ‘conversion’ in which one renounces the ‘rainbow gift.’”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church distinguishes between persons with homosexual tendencies, whom it calls to be welcomed with respect and without unjust discrimination, and homosexual acts, which it describes as intrinsically disordered and which can in no case receive approval. The message of the bishop of Málaga to Chipiona remained within the first part of that teaching.
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