Connect with us

The Vatican

Pope Francis dies at 88

Vatican’s tone on LGBTQ+, intersex issues softened under papacy

Published

15 hours ago

on

Pope Francis (Photo by palinchak via Bigstock)

Pope Francis died on Monday at his official residence at the Vatican. He was 88.

Cardinal Kevin Farrell, the Vatican camerlengo, said Francis passed away at Casa Santa Marta at 7:35 a.m. local time (1:35 a.m. ET.)

“His entire life was dedicated to the service of the Lord and of his church,” said Farrell. “He taught us to live the values of the Gospel with fidelity, courage, and universal love, especially in favor of the poorest and most marginalized. With immense gratitude for his example as a true disciple of the Lord Jesus, we commend the soul of Pope Francis to the infinite merciful love of the one and triune God.”

Francis, a Jesuit who was previously known as Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was born in Buenos Aires to Italian immigrant parents in 1936. He became archbishop of the Argentine capital in 1998.

The Buenos Aires Metropolitan Cathedral in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on April 3, 2025. (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

Pope John Paul II in 2001 appointed him cardinal. The College of Cardinals in 2013 elected Francis to succeed Pope Benedict XVI after he resigned.

Francis vehemently opposed Argentina’s marriage equality law that then-President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner signed in 2010. Francis as pope backed civil unions for gays and lesbians and in 2023 said priests can bless same-sex couples.

Francis in 2023 said laws that criminalize homosexuality are “unjust.” He appointed Robert McElroy, an LGBTQ+-friendly cardinal from San Diego, as the new archbishop of Washington.

The pontiff in 2015 met with a group of gay, transgender, and HIV-positive prisoners in the Italian city of Naples. A Vatican charity in 2020 gave money to a group of trans sex workers in Italy who were struggling to survive during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Francis last October met with a group of trans and intersex Catholics and LGBTQ+ allies at the Vatican. GLAAD President Sarah Kate Ellis and Juan Carlos Cruz, a gay Chilean man who is a clergy sex abuse survivor, are among those who also met with Francis during his papacy.

Church teachings on homosexuality and gender identity, however, did not change under his papacy.

“From the early months of his papacy when he uttered the now-iconic ‘Who am I to judge?’ in response to a question about accepting gay priests, through numerous affirming pastoral messages to individual LGBTQ+ people, to his support for civil unions, and his condemnation of criminalization laws, Pope Francis has changed the church irreversibly by allowing people to see how their Catholic faith requires acceptance and equality,” said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, a Mount Rainier, Md., based LGBTQ+ Catholic advocacy organization, in a statement.

DignityUSA Executive Director Marianne Duddy-Burke met Francis in 2023.

The group in a statement acknowledged the pontiff’s “legacy on LGBTQ+ issues is complicated,” noting “even with the recognition of so many positive words and actions, church teachings and even some recent Vatican documents remain problematic.” DignityUSA President Meli Barber nevertheless praised Francis.

“We also recognize that Pope Francis has raised awareness of LGBTQ+ issues in our church in truly unprecedented ways,” said Barber. “He spoke about us using our own terms and made a point of being seen meeting with LGBTQ+ people frequently. This sent a message of recognition and inclusion we never experienced from the Vatican before.”

Pope’s legacy is ‘mixed’

Activists in Argentina and around the world also mourned Francis.

“We mourn his death and embrace the people who are suffering today because of his passing,” LGBT Federation of Argentina President María Rachid told the Washington Blade.

Dindi Tan, national president of LGBT Pilipinas in the Philippines, on her Facebook page wrote Francis “was unafraid to challenge age-old dogmas and to ‘rattle’ the cage.” Pedro Julio Serrano, president of the Puerto Rico LGBTQ+ Federation, said Francis was an “ally of equity, humanity and dignity of LGBTQ+ people, not only during his pontificate, but throughout his life.”

Peter Tatchell, a long-time LGBTQ+ activist from the U.K. who is director of the Peter Tatchell Foundation, in a statement acknowledged Francis’s “more compassionate tone towards sexual minorities” that includes blessings for same-sex couples. Tatchell, nevertheless, pointed out the Vatican under Francis’s papacy continued to oppose marriage equality and trans rights.

“The Catholic Church remains a force for discrimination and suffering,” said Tatchell. “Under his leadership, the Vatican continued to oppose same-sex marriage and trans rights. Catholic bishops lobbied against the decriminalization of homosexuality in many parts of the world. The Vatican still upholds the homophobic edicts of the Catechism, which denounces the sexual expression of same-sex love as a ‘grave depravity’ and ‘intrinsically disordered.’ Francis’s legacy is, therefore, a mixed one — offering some progress but leaving deep-rooted inequalities largely intact.”

Vance met with Francis on Easter Sunday

Francis earlier this year spent more than a month in a Rome hospital after he developed double pneumonia.

A mural in Rosario, Argentina, on April 10, 2025, that reads, “We are praying for you Francis.” (Washington Blade photo by Michael K. Lavers)

He met with Vice President JD Vance at the Vatican on Easter Sunday, hours before his death.

The pope had previously criticized the Trump-Vance administration over its immigration policies.

“I just learned of the passing of Pope Francis,” said Vance on X after the Vatican announced Francis’s death. “My heart goes out to the millions of Christians all over the world who loved him.”

Argentine President Javier Milei, who previously criticized Francis, mourned him in a statement he posted to X. Milei also announced Argentina will observe seven days of mourning.

“It is with profound sorrow that I learned this sad morning that Pope Francis, Jorge Bergoglio, passed away today and is now resting in peace,” said Milei. “Despite differences that seem minor today, having been able to know him in his goodness and wisdom was a true honor for me.”

“As president, as an Argentine, and, fundamentally, as a man of faith, I bid farewell to the Holy Father and stand with all of us who meet today with this sad news,” he added.

Related Topics:
Advertisement
FUND LGBTQ JOURNALISM
SIGN UP FOR E-BLAST

The Vatican

Vatican approves Italian guidelines for gay priests

Seminary candidates cannot be denied because of sexual orientation, must remain celibate

Published

3 months ago

on

January 13, 2025

By

Pope Francis (Photo by palinchak via Bigstock)

The Vatican has approved new guidelines that opens the door for gay men in Italy to become priests.

The New York Times on Jan. 10 reported the Vatican approved the guidelines the Italian Bishop’s Conference adopted last November.

The guidelines specifically stipulate seminaries cannot reject applicants simply because of their sexual orientation, as long as they remain celibate. They will remain in place for what the Times described as a “3-year trial period.”

“This development is a big step forward,” said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, a Maryland-based LGBTQ+ Catholic organization, in a press release. “It clarifies previous ambiguous statements about gay seminary candidates, which viewed them with suspicion. This ambiguity caused lots of fear and discrimination in the church, way beyond the arena of seminary admissions.”

“This new clarification treats gay candidates in the same way that heterosexual candidates are treated,” added DeBernardo. “That type of equal treatment is what the church should be aiming for in regards to all LGBTQ+ issues.”

The Vatican in 2016 reaffirmed gay men becoming priests.

“The church, while profoundly respecting the persons in question, cannot admit to the seminary or to holy orders those who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called ‘gay culture,’” reads a document the Vatican’s Congregation for the Clergy released that Pope Francis approved.

The document essentially reaffirmed the Vatican’s 2005 position on the issue. (Benedict XVI was pope at the time.)

The Vatican’s tone towards LGBTQ+ and intersex issues has softened since Francis became pope in 2013.

Francis publicly backs civil unions for same-sex couples, and has described laws that criminalize homosexuality as “unjust.” Francis in 2023 said priests can bless same-sex couples.

The pontiff earlier this month named Cardinal Robert McElroy of San Diego, who DeBernardo notes has made “strong positive statements regarding LGBTQ+ issues,” as the new archbishop of Washington. President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Brian Burch, the president and co-founder of CatholicVote, an anti-LGBTQ+ Catholic group, to become the next U.S. ambassador to the Vatican.

Francis during a 2023 interview with an Argentine newspaper described gender ideology as “one of the most dangerous ideological colonizations” in the world because “it blurs differences and the value of men and women.” A declaration the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith released last March with Francis’s approval condemned gender-affirming surgeries and “gender theory.”

Continue Reading

The Vatican

LGBTQ+ pilgrimage to take place during Catholic Church’s 2025 Jubilee

Event not ‘sponsored or organized by’ the Vatican

Published

4 months ago

on

December 17, 2024

By

Pope Francis. A group of LGBTQ Christians in Italy has said the Vatican has approved its request to make a pilgrimage during the Catholic Church’s 2025 Jubilee. (Photo by palinchak via Bigstock)

A group of LGBTQ+ Christians in Italy has said the Vatican has approved its request to make a pilgrimage during the Catholic Church’s 2025 Jubilee.

The National Catholic Register on Dec. 11 reported La Tenda di Gionata (Jonathan’s Tent) — an Italian Christian group that helps “LGBT people and their families feel welcome in their church” — asked members to “save the date” of Sept. 6, 2025, and invited “all associations and groups dedicated to supporting LGBT+ individuals and their families to join us as we officially cross the Holy Door of the Jubilee at St. Peter’s Basilica” at 3 p.m.

The National Catholic Register notes the pilgrims have also been invited to a Mass at the Jesuit Church of the Gesù that Msgr. Francesco Savino, vice president of the Italian Episcopal Conference, will celebrate.

Church Jubilees take place every 25 years.

Jubilee 2025 officially begins on Christmas Eve.

Jubilee spokesperson Agnese Palmucci confirmed to the National Catholic Register that La Tenda di Gionata’s proposed pilgrimage has been “included in the general calendar as a pilgrimage, along with all the other pilgrimages that other dioceses will make,” but noted it is “not a Jubilee event sponsored or organized by us.” 

“It is a pilgrimage organized by this association which, like the other dioceses, bodies and associations, will make the pilgrimage as they wish,” said Palmucci.

Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, a Maryland-based LGBTQ+ Catholic organization, on Dec. 10 noted he traveled to Rome in 2000, the last Jubilee year, and spoke at the first WorldPride that took place that summer.

“One of the things I remember most about that time was the anger expressed by the Vatican and the pope himself that World Pride was taking place in Rome during the Jubilee year,” wrote DeBernardo on New Ways Ministry’s website. “Perhaps particularly galling to John Paul II was that the pride event was taking place in the first week of July, which was the same week that pilgrims from the pope’s native Poland were scheduled to flood the city. And indeed, everywhere you looked you saw people with bright red neckerchiefs, a symbol of Polish heritage.”

DeBenardo noted the “mood in” Rome “was incredibly tense.”

“Vatican anti-gay rhetoric had fueled anti-gay sentiment beyond the Catholic Church, and many right-wing Italian political groups were denouncing World Pride, which was to culminate in a march from the Porta San Paolo to the Colosseum,” he wrote. “Anti-gay messages were plastered all over the city buildings. One message in particular remains strong in my memory: ‘Gay al Colosseo? Sì, con i leoni.’ (Translation: ‘Gays at the Colosseum? Yes, with lions.’)”

DeBenardo wrote the inclusion of an LGBTQ+ pilgrimage during the 2025 Jubilee “touched my heart.”

“While 2025’s event may seem like a small step, when compared with how the Vatican reacted to the presence of gay people in Rome during 2000, we can see what a sea change has taken place in terms of responding to LGBTQ+ people,” he said.

The Vatican’s tone towards LGBTQ+ and intersex issues has softened since Pope Francis assumed the papacy in 2013.

Francis publicly backs civil unions for same-sex couples, and has described laws that criminalize homosexuality as “unjust.” 

He met with two African LGBTQ activists — Clare Byarugaba of Chapter Four Uganda and Rightify Ghana Director Ebenezer Peegah — at the Vatican on Aug. 14. Sister Jeannine Gramick, one of the co-founders of New Ways Ministry, organized a meeting between Francis and a group of transgender and intersex Catholics and LGBTQ+ allies that took place at the pontiff’s official residence on Oct. 12.

Francis during a 2023 interview with an Argentine newspaper described gender ideology as “one of the most dangerous ideological colonizations” in the world because “it blurs differences and the value of men and women.” A declaration the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith released in March with Francis’s approval condemned gender-affirming surgeries and “gender theory.”

Continue Reading

Popular