Pope visits a once-troubled neighborhood in Lisbon to draw attention to the church's charitable side

LISBON, Portugal -- LISBON, Portugal (AP) — Pope Francis visited a once-troubled and crime-plagued neighborhood in Portugal's capital on Friday to draw attention to the charitable side of the Catholic Church and to press his case for a church that goes to the peripheries and welcomes everyone.

Francis continued his busy schedule in Portugal, hearing confessions of some young people who were in Lisbon for World Youth Day, the big Catholic festival, and then having a festive pasta and steak lunch with others. Later Friday, he was presiding over the solemn Way of the Cross procession recreating Christ’s crucifixion.

Francis visited a community center in the city's Serafina neighborhood, which sits beneath a giant 18th-century aqueduct that is a symbol of the bounty of the bounty that gold from Portugal’s Brazilian colony once afforded the country.

Two decades ago, drug and crime problems dogged the neighborhood, but Serafina has tried to put that past behind it, thanks in part to efforts by church charity groups, including one that was created to provide an alternative to parents considering abortions or who otherwise couldn't care for their children.

Speaking off the cuff to young people and the charity organizers, Francis said true service must be done with concrete gestures that make an impact. He said he couldn’t come to Lisbon to celebrate World Youth Day without visiting the center because “this is also youth, in the sense that you generate new life continually.”

“With your conduct, your commitment and getting your hands dirty by touching the reality and misery of others, you are giving inspiration and generating life,” he said.

Francis has long said that true service and charity has to hurt, and that it’s not enough just to give a beggar a coin on the street. He has championed the charitable side of the Catholic Church, including boosting the Vatican’s efforts by providing showers and medical care to area homeless people while also sending regular truckloads of aid to Ukraine and other places wracked by conflict or natural disasters.

Pedro Duarte, who works at the St. Vincent de Paul social center in Serafina, said Francis' visit was important because he was backing his words with action.

“It is so important that the pope not only said that one should go to the peripheries, but that he actually came to the periphery,” he said outside the center where other community members had gathered to cheer Francis as he came and left.

In Lisbon, Francis has also emphasized the inclusive message of the church that he has championed throughout his 10-year papacy, telling the World Youth Day opening ceremony on Thursday that “in the church, there is room for everyone.” He led the crowd of a half-million people in a chant of “todos, todos, todos” or “everyone, everyone, everyone” to make his point.

That message of inclusivity has resonated in particular with LGBTQ+ Catholics, who have long felt ostracized by a church that considers homosexual activity “intrinsically disordered.” Francis, though, has offered a message of welcome to LGBTQ+ Catholics, starting from his very first World Youth Day in 2013, when he famously said “Who am I to judge,” when asked about a purportedly gay priest.

Dignity USA, a group of LGBTQ+ Catholics, has a delegation in Lisbon and said overall the reception was positive, with a few moments of tension.

“We’ve been able to trade our rainbow pens, our rainbow prayer cards,” member Sam Barnes said Friday.

There was an incident in which protesters tried to disrupt an LGBTQ+ Mass, but it went ahead after police were called in, said one of the participants, who gave her name as Victoria and said she was a transgender Catholic.

“It’s important that everyone, independent of their sexuality, can have their faith and their relation with God,” Victoria said, adding that despite such incidents she has felt very accepted in Lisbon.

The Mass had been organized by the Centro Arcoiris, an offshoot of a much larger Portuguese LGBTQ+ Catholic group called Sopro. They set up a “Rainbow Center” to welcome LGBTQ+ pilgrims to World Youth Day, outside the official organization.

In another incident captured on social media and broadcast on Portuguese television, two World Youth Day participants told a transgender participant to put away her flag.

In an interview published Friday by the Spanish Catholic magazine Vida Nueva, Francis referred to his frequent meetings with members of the transgender community and his message of welcome.

“The first time a group of transsexuals came to the Vatican and saw me, they left weeping, saying I had given them my hand, a kiss, as if I had done something exceptional,” Francis was quoted as saying. “But they're children of God!”

The Rev. James Martin, an American Jesuit who runs an outreach program for LGBTQ+ Catholics, said he had dined in Lisbon with the Arcoiris group the night before the Mass was disrupted. He said they had been looking forward to the liturgy, which he did not attend.

Recalling that the incident occurred on the same day as Francis' “todos, todos, todos” comment, Martin tweeted: “LGBTQ people are part of todos.”

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A previous version of this story was corrected to show that the Way of the Cross procession closes the pope's schedule on Friday, not the festival.

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