from Liam Stack of The New York Times
4/21/2025
Pope Francis made headlines early in his pontificate when he responded to a reporter’s question about gay priests with a phrase that became shorthand for his pastoral style: “Who am I to judge?”
On Monday after his death, Francis’ admirers remembered him for his openness to members of the LGBTQ community, for his support for those who provided them with ministry and spiritual guidance and for the ways that he changed the church’s tone — if not always its doctrine — on LGBTQ issues.
“What he did for the Community is more than all of his predecessors combined,” said the Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit writer.
“Just acknowledging them, recognizing them, accompanying them, advocating for them, listening to them. He was the first pope to ever use the word 'gay' publicly, and he met regularly with transgender Catholics, even toward the end of his life. No pope has ever done that,” Martin said.
Sexuality was one of many issues in which Catholic conservatives disagreed with Pope Francis, and it contributed to the emergence of an influential and well-organized conservative opposition to his papacy in the United States.
But in other countries, especially those where homosexuality is more widely stigmatized, some saw Francis’ accepting attitude as a breath of fresh air.
But Francis’ change in tone did not reflect a deeper reconsideration of church doctrine, and his record on those issues included perhaps as many traditional retrenchments as it did pastoral leaps forward.
He allowed priests to bless gay couples, but he also reaffirmed church teaching that marriage could only be between a man and a woman.
He used a slur for gay men when he complained about the number of gay seminarians to a group of 250 bishops in Rome, then apologized when the incident was reported in the news media.
He then repeated the church’s instruction that men with “deep-seated homosexual tendencies” should not enter the priesthood.
