"Bishop Says Denying Sexual Love For Same-Gender Couples 'Is Simply Wrong'"

"Near the end of 2025, an Italian bishop stated that people in same-gender relationships should not be denied the right to express their love for one another physically, reported Pink News.

Bishop Francesco Savino, of the diocese of Cassano all’Jonio, and who is also the vice president of the Italian bishops’ conference, gave an interview to Diritto di Cronaca, an online news outlet in which he said that same gender couples 'should not be denied the opportunity to be loved and to love, even on an intimate, sexual level, because denying them this, denying them their right, I repeat, is simply wrong.'

This is not the first time that Bishop Savino has spoken forcefully for LGBTQ+ equality in the church. In August of 2025, he gave an interview with Progetto Gionata, in advance of the LGBTQ+ Pilgrimage of Hope for the Jubilee Year, at which he presided over the group’s Eucharistic liturgy. In that interview, speaking of LGBTQ+ people, he said 'In the heart of the Gospel, no one is excluded.'...

In the same interview, he referred to the then-upcoming LGBTQ+ liturgy as 'a prophetic act...'

'The Eucharist. . .is a womb that welcomes, and not a fence that rejects; It is a house with always open doors, where the cornerstone is love without condition. It is in the encounter of the faces and in the sharing of the bread that the Church finds its original vocation: to be not a fortress for a few, but tends for everyone, capable of inhabiting the suburbs of the soul and history.'