A top Vatican official has denied claims that Pope Leo “snubbed” trans activists at the Jubilee Lunch for the Poor.

Forty-eight trans women attended the annual lunch with Leo XIV on Sunday (16 November), alongside about 1,300 other guests, including migrants, and homeless and disabled people. 

Unlike the previous two years, none of the transgender guests were placed on the top table for the lunch, which is seen as a symbol of outreach to marginalised communities. However, papal almoner cardinal Konrad Krajewski, who organised the event, rejected any suggestions of an intentional snub.

He told The Washington Post that places on the top table “were given to poor parishioners who had attended an earlier eucharist”. The trans activists arrived later and “sat elsewhere”, he added.

“The Church is open to everyone,” he said. “It’s not about [the pope] meaning to carry on this outreach. [The activists] came because they’re an integral part of the Church, that is all.”

Supporting the cardinal’s statement, activist Alessia Nobile said she had managed to hand the pope a letter on behalf of the trans community and he “simply smiled”.

Nobile has previously spoken about how her life changed under Pope Francis. After their first meeting in 2022, Francis became a mentor and friend, urging her to tell her story “so prejudice does not grow” and reminding her that “in the eyes of God, we are all His children”.

She says that he ensured she sat in the front row at papal audiences and wrote her a handwritten letter affirming God’s unconditional love, a gesture that Nobile described as “unrepeatable”.

Speaking about her invitation to the Lunch for the Poor, Nobile said that her hope was to ensure the inclusive spirit fostered under Pope Francis is not lost following his death. “I ask Leo not to go backwards on rights,” she told Italian media.

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