Vatican sending new signals of openness but limitations in outreach to LGBTQ+ Catholics
The Vatican is sending new signals about how it intends to minister to LGBTQ+ Catholics in the Pope Leo XIV era, with signs of openness and limitations after Pope Francis ushered in a notable welcome during his 12-year pontificate.
Catholic LGBTQ+ advocates cheered this week when a Vatican working group released a report featuring the testimony of two gay, married Catholics who spoke openly about their sexuality, faith and how the Catholic Church’s negative teaching on homosexuality had hurt them. Additionally, Leo made clear during a recent airborne news conference that he believed the church’s teachings on social justice, equality and freedom were far more important than its teaching on sexual morality, suggesting he doesn’t intend to prioritise the issue.
At that same news conference, though, Leo indicated he will go no further than Francis on the contentious matter of same-sex blessings. The Vatican has recently renewed its opposition to any local efforts to deviate from the Holy See stance.
For the Rev James Martin, an American Jesuit who has spearheaded the church’s outreach to the LGBTQ+ community in the US, the developments signal strong continuity with Francis. “If the Catholic Church has begun to listen to LGBTQ Catholics as part of its methodology, the church has already moved forward in a significant way,” he wrote recently. But the signals have prompted criticism from conservatives, who have stressed official Catholic teaching — unchanged during even Francis’ pontificate - that says homosexual activity is “intrinsically disordered”.
The Vatican working group report summarised the work of experts studying controversial topics that emerged after Francis’ yearslong reform effort. The report has no binding value and is merely a synthesis of deliberations. It’s not clear what, if anything, Leo will do with it. The testimony of the gay men, contained in annexes published on the Vatican’s synod website, featured moving accounts of how one, from Portugal, came to terms with his homosexuality and married his husband.
The man also recounted how he sometimes struggled with his faith because of insensitive remarks from a Catholic spiritual director and forced “conversion therapy,” the scientifically discredited practice of using therapy to “convert” LGBTQ+ people to heterosexuality or traditional gender expectations.
The other testimony, from an American, criticised the therapy he went through and counselling he received from a Catholic pastoral group, Courage, that seeks to help people with same-sex attraction live chastely.
“My sexuality isn’t a perversion, disorder, or cross; it’s a gift from God,” the person wrote. Courage, in a statement Friday, decried the negative depiction of its work, saying it has never been involved in “reparative therapy”. “Courage has suffered calumny and detraction before, but usually from secular outlets,” the group said. “It is a great sadness and an additional wound to our members to have this false and unjust depiction in a Vatican document.”
Martin said the publication marked the first time that an official Vatican report “has included such detailed stories from LGBTQ Catholics. As such, it marks a significant step forward in the church’s relationship with the LGBTQ community.” Bishop Joseph Strickland, whom Francis removed as bishop of Tyler, Texas, said the report was “deeply alarming” and contradicted church teaching about sexuality, sin, marriage and morality.
In a post on his personal website entitled “An Emergency in the Church,” Strickland said the church’s teaching on homosexuality didn’t come from prejudice but from God.
