As Pope Francis encouraged the LGBTQ Catholics to make our stories known

Text by Michael J. O'loughlin*, published on the Outreach website (United States) on April 21, 2025. Freely translated by the volunteers of the Gionata project

Pope Francis, who disappeared today at the age of 88, will be remembered for his efforts in making the Church a more welcoming place, especially for those who have not always felt an integral part of the institution. For LGBTQ Catholics, this will be particularly true. I saw it in my own life.
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This weekend, my family will meet to celebrate the baptism of our grandchild. in many Ways, our gathering will not be different from that of centuries of christian families who preceded us. we will pray. The Priest will rush the holy Water. the child will Probably cry. but in this particular ceremony, both my husband and i will witness the ritual as godfathers, a reality made Possible Only because pope francis encouraged my family and a parish priest to Imagine a more welcoming church for LGBTQ catholics and their families.
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This was a journey that lasted more than a decade, both for the Church and for me as a gay Catholic.
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About a year before the election of Pope Francis, I wrote an essay for America regarding the high number of Catholics who left the church. Today I am publicly identified as gay and Catholic, but then, especially in my writings, I was quite reserved. In that particular wise I expressed empathy towards other Catholics whose lives did not adapt perfectly to the ideals proposed by the Church, including women, skeptics and people in homosexual relationships.
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I did not explicitly declare that my struggles with the church were similar to those of other LGBTQs: not feeling fully welcomed in the parishes, wounded by bigoted comments by ecclesiastical leaders and fearful that the use in Catholic institutions was unsustainable. I explained that I was envious of how some LGBTQ Catholics simply moved away; I was blocked in a quagmire created by myself. I loved the church too much to leave, but as I became more comfortable with my sexual orientation, I did not feel like having a spiritual house inside.
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This began to change when Francesco was elected Pope. Perhaps starting from his now famous answer to a question of a journalist about gay men in the priesthood ("Who am I to judge?"), I perceived that Francesco was opening the door for me and others like me to imagine a life in the Church without compromising fundamental parts of our lives.

Other examples followed. Francesco urged the parents of LGBTQ children not to abandon them. He criticized Catholics too focused on sexual morality. He hugged transgender people. Subsequently, Francesco stated that LGBTQ people have the right to pastoral care and even opened the possibility that the priests blessing the same sex couples. He sent several notes of encouragement to us at Outreach.

For me, Pope Francis created the space to share my story honestly with my believing companions and with the wider world, a papal permit that I would not have imagined before his election.
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Last year, I gave an interview with Boston Spirit, a LGBTQ magazine, about my efforts to make the Church a more welcoming place. I honestly talked about some of my difficulties, but I also noticed the progress that I felt the Church had accomplished. In particular, I talked about the inspiration that I try by observing how some young LGBTQs feel more comfortable in staying in the church today.
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These two articles - my desolately opaque wise and the profile that presents my work in the Church - have a frame to my experience of Francesco's pontificate. I don't think it's a coincidence. Francesco helped me, and countless others, to fully embrace our double identities such as Catholics LGBTQ.

Francesco did little during his decade of kingdom to change the church in terms of legal pronouncements or theological innovations. There are various reasons for this, not least of which the fact that he tried to avoid scismes and unify an increasingly fragile global communion. It is not unlikely that, as an elderly Argentine priest, he believed in what the Church teaches on sexuality. But this apparently did not prevent him from moving the Church to act with mercy towards LGBTQ people.
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Two instances in which Francesco helped me imagine life in the Church remain vivid in my mind.
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The first arrived in 2015, when I was in Rome to report a global meeting of bishops on the Synod on the family called by Francesco. The bishops were considering a series of topics once taboo, including communion for divorced and remarried Catholics, and how parishes could welcome LGBTQ people.

One of the bishops I interviewed said that parents with homosexual children often felt abandoned by the Church, and that this pain could remove them from faith. I remember thinking: finally someone says it aloud.

During that trip, I met an American Jesuit priest for a coffee. He told me that Pope Francis had encouraged the Jesuits to listen, to let himself be hit by the reality of people, not to be in a hurry to judge. That style was clearly contrasting with the regulatory and dogmatic approach to which I was used to. He made me think: perhaps my experience can also be heard.

The second occasion in which Francesco deeply influenced my life came in 2021, When he received a letter from him. I was promoting my book Hidden Mercy (Hidden Mercy), which tells the stories of catholics LGBTQ and of the priests, religious and nuns who had accompanied them pastorally during the AIDS Epidemic. some of the protagonists of the book had suffered silence, others Punishment. everyone, however, had found a way to remain faithful To the gospel and love the people around.

I wrote to Pope Francis, telling him the project. With my great surprise, he replied. He said that the book told a "story of hidden mercy" and thanked for writing it. That letter was a blessing not only for me, but for all those whose stories were told in the book.

In a certain sense, with those few lines, Pope Francis confirmed that those stories - our stories - had a place in the Church. They were not "out of the fence". They were not marginal. They were part of the living and suffering fabric of the people of God.

Today, while the Church is preparing to give Francesco the last farewell, I feel a profound gratitude. Not because it has revolutionized the doctrine. Not because everything is resolved. But because he created a space. A space in which I could say: "I am Catholic. And I'm gay. And these two realities are not excluded. "

He opened a door. It is up to us to cross it, and build, inside that threshold, a house.

*Michael J. O'loughlin is a journalist and author of the book Hidden Mercy: AIDS, Catholics, and the Untold Stories of Compassion in The Face of Fear (hidden mercy: AIDS, Catholics and the stories never told of compassion in front of fear). He collaborates with various US media on issues of faith, Church and LGBTQ Rights.

Original text: How Pope Francis encouraged LGBTQ Catholics to share our stories