Pope Francis and LGBTQ topics

Pope Francis (born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, December 17, 1936; died April 21, 2025) was the 266th pope of the Roman Catholic Church, serving from his election on March 13, 2013 until his death. His papacy was marked by a more conciliatory pastoral tone toward LGBTQ people than that of his immediate predecessors, while formally maintaining traditional Catholic doctrine on sexual morality and marriage. During his tenure he produced several historically significant firsts, including becoming the first pope to call for the worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality and the first to approve a Vatican document permitting any form of blessing for same-sex couples. At the same time, his record was contested: LGBTQ Catholic advocates generally welcomed his pastoral gestures while criticizing the pace and limits of institutional change, while conservative critics argued that his tone created harmful ambiguity.

Pre-papal positions

Before his election as pope, as Archbishop of Buenos Aires Jorge Mario Bergoglio led public opposition to Argentina's bill on same-sex marriage, which was approved by the Argentine Senate on July 15, 2010. A letter he wrote during that campaign was later described by an episcopal source as a strategic error and criticized for its language, with some commentators characterizing it as "medieval" and "obscurantist." His willingness in that period to use sharp rhetoric against marriage equality legislation stood in contrast to the more careful, pastoral register he would adopt after becoming pope.^[1]

"Who am I to judge?" (2013)

On July 28, 2013, three months after his election, Francis held an informal press conference on the papal flight returning to Rome from World Youth Day in Rio de Janeiro. Asked by a journalist about a priest with reported same-sex attraction and about a "gay lobby" in the Vatican, Francis distinguished between a person being gay and the formation of a lobby, and said: "If someone is gay and is searching for the Lord and has good will, then who am I to judge him?"^[2:1]

The remark was widely reported internationally and became one of the most cited statements of his papacy. LGBTQ Catholic advocates noted that Francis had used the word "gay" — a term originating from within the community — rather than the more clinical "homosexual" preferred by earlier Vatican communications.^[1] Years later, in a book-length interview published in 2016, The Name of God Is Mercy, Francis explained that he had been paraphrasing the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which states that gay people should be treated with respect and not marginalized.

The full context of the remark is important. In the same press conference, Francis affirmed that he was "a son of the Church" and held the Church's positions on sexual morality. The quote was directed at the specific pastoral question of how to treat a gay priest who sought God, not at the Church's broader doctrinal teaching on homosexual acts, which Francis did not revise.^[2]

Pastoral gestures and meetings

Throughout his papacy, Francis engaged in a pattern of private and public pastoral outreach to LGBTQ individuals. In 2013, he was named Person of the Year by The Advocate, an American LGBTQ magazine. In 2015, he joined prison inmates for lunch in Naples, including those housed in a ward for gay, transgender, and HIV-positive prisoners.^[1]

In April 2018, Francis met privately with three survivors of abuse by Chilean Catholic priest Fernando Karadima. One survivor, Juan Carlos Cruz, subsequently reported that Francis had told him that God made him gay and loves him as he is. According to Cruz, his sexuality had been raised because it had been used in the press to discredit his abuse testimony.^[1:1]

In 2021, Francis sent a handwritten note to Jesuit priest Father James Martin, who ran a ministry for LGBTQ Catholics, affirming that ministry and writing that priests should practice "closeness, compassion and tenderness" in imitation of God. In July of the same year, Francis personally arranged through the papal almoner for a group of Italian parishioners, including transgender women, to receive COVID-19 vaccines at the Vatican.^[1]

In January 2022, Francis advised parents of gay children to support them and not hide behind an attitude of condemnation during his weekly Vatican audience.^[3:1]

Doctrinal positions maintained

Despite his pastoral outreach, Francis did not alter the Catholic Church's foundational doctrinal positions on sexuality or marriage. Catholic teaching, unchanged throughout his papacy, holds that homosexual acts are "intrinsically disordered," that marriage is exclusively the union of a man and a woman, and that the homosexual orientation, while not sinful in itself, represents an "objective disorder."

In March 2021, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) — with Francis's approval — issued a responsum ad dubium stating that the Church does not have the "power to give the blessing to unions of persons of the same sex," on the grounds that God cannot bless sin.^[3] This document was received with criticism by LGBTQ Catholic communities, who viewed it as a retreat from Francis's more welcoming pastoral tone.

Francis also consistently opposed what he called "gender theory," describing it at various points as an "ugly ideology of our times" and an instance of "ideological colonisation."^[1] He characterized children's education on gender-affirming practices in similarly critical terms.

In 2018, Francis was reported to have told Italian bishops to exercise caution about admitting gay men to seminaries, though the Vatican did not confirm the reported remarks.^[1]

Call to decriminalize homosexuality (2023)

On January 24, 2023, Francis gave an extensive interview to the Associated Press at his Vatican residence. He declared that laws criminalizing homosexuality are "unjust" and called on Catholic bishops who support such laws to undergo "a process of conversion."^[4:1] The remarks were described by gay rights advocates and several Catholic commentators as the first such statement ever made by a pope. At the time, approximately 67 countries criminalized consensual same-sex activity, with 11 allowing or imposing the death penalty for violations.^[4]

In the same interview, Francis referred to homosexuality in terms of "sin," prompting confusion in media coverage. Several outlets reported this as the pope calling homosexuality itself a sin, which is not consistent with Catholic teaching. Francis subsequently wrote a letter to Father James Martin on January 27, 2023, published by Martin's LGBTQ Catholic ministry Outreach, to clarify: he stated that his reference to sin was to Catholic moral teaching that all sexual acts outside marriage are sinful — not to homosexual orientation as such.^[5:1]

Fiducia Supplicans (2023)

Fiducia Supplicans (Latin: "Supplicating Trust") was a declaration issued on December 18, 2023 by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and approved with Francis's signature. It permitted Catholic priests to offer informal, non-liturgical pastoral blessings to same-sex couples, as well as to other couples in "irregular" situations — including civilly married couples where one party had a prior Catholic marriage without annulment. The declaration stated that such blessings could take place without any ritualization and without implying approval of the union or any change to the Church's doctrine that marriage is between a man and a woman.^[6:1]

The declaration provoked significant controversy within and beyond the Catholic Church. Numerous African bishops' conferences publicly distanced themselves from it, and Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Church suspended theological dialogue with the Vatican in response, citing a perceived change of position on homosexuality.^[7] Conservative cardinals and bishops in other regions also issued critical statements.

In January 2024, the DDF issued a further press release clarifying that Fiducia Supplicans authorizes the blessing of persons, not of same-sex unions themselves, and that local bishops retain discretion over implementation depending on local context and sensitivities.^[7:1]

Analysis

This section represents Agpedia's editorial synthesis of the documented record and should be read as such.

Francis's approach across his papacy consistently maintained a distinction between pastoral openness — how the Church treats LGBTQ individuals in practice — and doctrinal content — what the Church teaches about sexuality and marriage. He did not change Catholic doctrine in either domain, but repeatedly signaled that the Church's pastoral manner should be one of welcome, accompaniment, and non-condemnation rather than exclusion.

This approach produced genuine institutional firsts: no previous pope had called homosexuality "not a crime," used the word "gay" in a sympathetic pastoral register, or approved a Vatican document permitting any form of blessing for same-sex couples. At the same time, the limits of change were real. The 2021 DDF responsum blocking blessings of same-sex unions, the consistent opposition to gender theory, and the unchanged Catechism language on homosexual acts all remained in place.

Francis's legacy in this area was accordingly received differently by different audiences. LGBTQ Catholic advocates, represented by groups such as New Ways Ministry and Outreach, generally saw his papacy as a meaningful shift in pastoral culture that created more welcoming conditions in Catholic communities, even absent doctrinal reform. Conservative Catholic commentators frequently argued that his pastoral gestures created ambiguity harmful to the faithful and potentially at odds with Church teaching. Both readings are represented in the documented record, and the tension between them remained unresolved at the time of his death in April 2025.