Czech archdiocese cancels LGBTQ+ pilgrimage amid threats
August 15, 2026
The Archdiocese of Olomouc in the Czech Republic cancelled its second annual LGBTQ+ pilgrimage because of threats, a leading Czech news site reported.
The pilgrimage to the archbishop’s palace, planned in conjunction with the Diocese of Brno and the Diocese of Ostrava-Opava, was scheduled for September 19. The scheduled pilgrimage featured
- a talk by Father Cyril Havel, translator of Father James Martin’s Building a Bridge
- Mass
- “testimonies by parents of trans children will open the sensitive topic of acceptance and understanding in the family”
- a lecture on LGBTQ pastoral care by a theologian of the Old Catholic Church, which went into schism after the First Vatican Council
- a workshop by two male podcasters who, according to a Czech magazine report, contracted civil marriage last year in a Catholic church, in a ceremony led by a Protestant pastor, with a priest’s blessing
- a tour of the archbishop’s palace
The September 19 pilgrimage was cancelled because of “a wave of negative and even hateful reactions in the online space, because which it was not possible to guarantee the safety of the participants,” according to an archdiocesan statement.
Organizers quoted the words of Olomouc’s archbishop, Archbishop Josef Nuzík, the president of the Czech episcopal conference:
The pastoral care of believers with a minority orientation does not lead to a change in Church doctrine, but embodies the basic message of the Gospel—to welcome every person without exception, to pay attention to them and to be interested in their personal story.
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