Footage filmed by the Associated Press over the weekend showed the men aboard a bus in a town south of Rome headed for the Vatican, where they shared a meal with His Holiness.

The AP reports: "The pontiff hosted the lunch for more than 1,000 poor people to mark the Catholic Church's World Day of the Poor."

The unorthodox meeting comes as the Vatican recently suggested priests could bless same-sex unions, and instructed that transsexuals could also receive baptisms.

"A transsexual… can receive baptism under the same conditions as other believers, if there are no situations in which there is a risk of generating public scandal or disorientation in the faithful," the Vatican's doctrinal office said in a letter responding to a Brazilian bishop's questions. It added "adolescents with transsexual problems" may also be baptized if they are "well-prepared and willing."

Earlier this month, the Vatican also sacked a bishop in Texas who contested the church's new policies on the LGBTQ community.