Gay graduate invited to Pope Francis’s White House visit

A gay university graduate has been invited to join President Barack Obama at the White House when Pope Francis visits later this month.

23-year-old Aaron Ledesma has been blogging about reconciling his Catholic faith with his homosexuality for a few months, but his journey received a huge boost when the US government responded to a letter with a very special offer.

Speaking to the Milwaukee and Wisconsin Journal Sentinel, he said he “broke down crying” as soon as he got off the phone with the White House, adding that it was the Pope’s answer to a question about gay clergy in 2013 (“If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has goodwill, who am I to judge?”) that had struck a chord with him and encouraged him to go back to his Catholic roots. Francis also met with an LGBT leader in Paraguay earlier this year.

“When Pope Francis said that…I thought, you know, if every Catholic practiced that, I’d have nothing to fear. I’d have nothing to worry about,” Ledesma explained.

“I’m not perfect. I’m not right where I want to be. But I came to realise that life is too short to let other people dictate what your relationship with God is going to be.

“I realised if I’m going to live my life to the fullest, I need to stop worrying about what other people think about my faith and just focus on my faith.”

In his original note, he had shared his story and why the meeting was so important to him: “I just said it would be quite moving to see these two [Obama and Pope Francis] come together, both of whom had voiced support for the LGBT community.”

Writing on his blog, he promised to share photos and updates from the event on September 23, and revealed that he’s even had an email signed from Obama himself since the life-changing phone call.

A selfie with the Pope would go down a treat.