LISBON, Portugal -- In one of the most iconic moments coming out of World Youth Day, Pope Francis called on the hundreds of thousands gathered before him to yell back at him that the Catholic Church is for "todos, todos, todos" -- everyone, everyone, everyone.
"The Lord is clear," the pope insisted on Sunday. "The sick, the elderly, the young, old, ugly, beautiful, good and bad."
Taking questions from reporters aboard his flight back to Rome after a five-day trip to Portugal, the pope was asked how he could reconcile his "todos" message with the fact that LGBTQ+ people are excluded from the sacraments. The pope answered the Church has laws, but is still a place for everyone.
Pia Held, who travelled from Germany, was among those fighting for better treatment of LGBTQ+ people within the church, bringing a rainbow flag to the massive evening prayer service held on Saturday in Lisbon's Parque Tejo.
"Some people come up to me and hug me and say thank you for representing this," she said, describing other pilgrims' reactions to the flag. "And then other times you get people praying for you, because it's sin or making faces, crossing their heart because they think it's evil."
Held described an incident during which another pilgrim grabbed ahold of her flag and broke it into pieces, bringing her to tears.
"The attack wasn't towards me, but towards this group of people," she said, explaining she's not gay herself. "And now I feel like I gotta step in and make it my fight. My faith tells me that everyone is loved, everyone is welcome."
Held says the Pope's "todos" message really resonated with her.
She "felt like that spoke directly to me. I felt so alone, and then when he said the church is for everyone, I felt like yes, I was right. What I did, and what I keep doing is exactly what we are supposed to do as Christians," she said.
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“And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Cor. 6:11).
“Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God” (1 Thessalonians 2:3).
