Gay man in Italy banned from teaching at Church summer camp

The young adult was supposed to have run the camp in Cesena in the northern region of Emilia-Romagna before a photograph of him kissing another male was shown to the priest, reported the local daily Corriere Romagna.

He was informed he would no longer be allowed to teach but could keep a supervisory role, an offer the young man refused. As he could not be replaced in time, the camp will not be able to open this summer.

"The rules are clear. We can't give the children at a summer camp the feeling that having a homosexual instructor is normal," a member of the priest's staff told the newspaper.

The affair drew condemnation from the mayor of Cesena and a national gay rights group.

"I thought the Middle Ages were over and unacceptable manifestations of discrimination like this were foreign to our city. Obviously, I was wrong," wrote Mayor Enzo Lattuca on his Facebook page.

LGBTQ rights group Arcigay denounced the decision as "a story of hate and violence", condemning the priest for outing the young man.

"A very young man has been outed and publicly punished by the parish for his sexual orientation," wrote Gabriele Piazzoni, Arcigay's secretary general, in a statement.

In a statement published later Wednesday, the diocese of Cesena-Sarsina said it was "an open and welcoming home to everyone."

"The issue is very sensitive and what happened is not about judging individuals or discriminating against rights," it said, adding that the Catholic Church was currently "questioning how to reach out to people who feel excluded from the community due to their affection and sexuality.".

"It's a question that remains open and on which even the Church of Cesena-Sarsina is working," it added.

The Catholic Church considers homosexual acts to be "contrary to natural law" and a sin.

Church teaching, however, calls for homosexuals to be welcomed with "respect, compassion and sensitivity", and there are no rules explicitly forbidding them from looking after children.

Pope Francis -- while not calling into question the foundations of Catholic doctrine -- has since his election in 2013 been more welcoming of LGBTQ communities than his predecessors.

"Every person is a child of God. The Church cannot close the door on anyone," he declared in a documentary broadcast in early April on the Disney+ platform.

Earlier in January, he said those who criminalise homosexuality are "wrong", specifying that being homosexual is "not a crime", but a "sin".

However, the Argentine pontiff does not deviate from Catholic teaching on marriage, defined as the union between a man and a woman for the purpose of procreation.