“Ignatian spirituality has shown me God, Mother and Father, who loves me unconditionally just as I am.”

I would like to share a little of my story to witness the presence of God in my life.. In 2011 I began a process of spiritual and faith conversion within the Catholic Church. I was 27 years old and worked in a corporate bank, where the pressure to obtain financial profits was our daily bread. It was a good life, but more and more I had a feeling of inner emptiness. I questioned myself about my vocation as a human being: was I made to work in a company? Would I spend the rest of my life working under pressure? Was there another path for me?

These concerns led me to wonder if God was present in my life. He then lived in Zona Rosa. It was there, in the famous LGBT+ neighborhood of Mexico City, that I began to frequent a Catholic group of young adults.. By then I was already clear and accepted my homosexual orientation, although I had not shared it publicly.

The trip of your dreams, with RD

Providence put the Jesuit fathers on my path, with whom I have matured my life of faith and my spiritual formation.. With them I have learned to find God in everything created, in nature, in silence and mainly in myself and in others. Ignatian spirituality has shown me God, Mother and Father, who loves me unconditionally just as I am; It has involved me in the mystery of a God who invites me to sit at his table and who encourages me every day to participate in building his Kingdom, to which we are all invited, invited, invited.

I owe it to the Society of Jesus to have met other Catholic communities of gender diversity in various countries.visible sign of ecclesial communion. Despite how much their pastoral work with people like me is criticized, they have been the ones I have perceived as closest. For me, they are authentic shepherds with the “smell of sheep,” to use a nice expression of Pope Francis.

I am a witness to the great work that many priests, nuns, religious men and women, and lay people have done within the pastoral care of sexual diversity; They have accompanied and spread good news among the LGBT+ population, they have been the Cyreneans who support us in difficult times, but who are also happy for our lives and the good things that happen in them. In communion with a network of more than ten “rainbow communities” in Mexico, twenty in Latin America and many more in the world, I experience in our meetings brotherhood, faith and hope strengthened in the Spirit.

In much of the Church, the simple mention of pastorally caring for LGBT+ believers sparks controversy. Maybe it’s because they have a very distorted image of people like me.. For my part, I continue to participate in my community of Guadalajara, in Mexico, and collaborate with the team of the network of rainbow communities in Latin America. But mainly I continue to nourish my relationship with God, trusting, praying and contributing so that more LGBT believers are reconciled with the Church, and ultimately, with themselves.

Israel Gonzalo Vilchis

Director of social projects and spiritual companion