This talk has an ecumenical dimension as Renato, a Quaker theologian, observes the process that is taking place within the Catholic Church. Dividing his message into three parts, he begins by tracing his own road to becoming a biblical scholar, highlighting those moments that made his heart “burn”. Second, he celebrates a series of Catholic Rainbow scholars who have enlightened and enriched his academic work. Third, he focuses on two biblical passages, one in Isaiah 56 and the other in Acts 8:26-39. The latter text narrates the moment in which the apostle Philip approaches an Ethiopian eunuch to whom he explains a prophetic passage that he is unable to understand. Renato discusses this highly symbolic story, which to him is comparable to the current time of God, the Kairos moment, that the Catholic Church is experiencing. Offering a theological angle, and watching the Church process from the sidelines, he notices a people of pilgrims with sexual and gender diversity headed for the Promised Land. As they assert their sense of belonging to a Church that is only taking very timid steps forward, and energized by indignation and determination, they proclaim their faith in, and love for, the God of Jesus. In this way, Renato sees a striking parallel between the processes of inclusion narrated in the Bible and the joint journey of the Catholic Church and these “Pilgrims of Hope”, as they prepare to cross the holy doorstep to the Jubilee 2025.
Renato Lings participates in the prayer life of CRISMHOM. In addition, to this group he has offered numerous training sessions, including sharing his own testimony of encountering God and his passion for the Bible. He has worked as an interpreter at the European Parliament (Brussels & Strasbourg), as a teacher at the Latin American Biblical University (Costa Rica) and as a researcher at the Queen’s Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education (UK). In 2013 he published Love Lost in Translation: Homosexuality and the Bible. His second book in English was Holy Censorship or Mistranslation? Love, Gender and Sexuality in the Bible (2021). In 2022 he contributed an essay on the Book of Job to The Queer Bible Commentary. Second Edition. His latest work is a dictionary entitled Bible, gender and sexuality in 100 words (Abyad, 2025).