Father Martin: "As Pope Francis has changed the life of many LGBTQ people and mine too"

Reflections of the Jesuit of James Martin published on the site Outreach (United States) on April 21, 2025.
Freely translated by the volunteers of the Gionata project

It often does not happen to be able to precisely identify the moments when one's life changes. For me, one of these was the vision of a documentary on the trapist monk Thomas Merton, who led me to leave the corporate world to enter the Jesuits in 1988. Another decisive moment took place in the Vatican, in September 2019.

I was in Rome for my first meeting with the dicastery for communication, as a consultor, a recent appointment by Pope Francis who had surprised me (and not only me). Until then, I had had contacts with the Holy Father through notes and emails, and I thought that would be the limit of our communication.

After all - and it is not false humility - I am not a cardinal, a bishop, a provincial superior, a university president or something "official" in the church. I knew, thanks to notes - and, with my surprise, to a phone call - for his part, who had appreciated some of my books, but there are many Catholic authors who fall into that category.

A friend of the Pope asked me if I wanted to meet him during my visit, and obviously I said yes. He contacted Pope Francis, who replied that he wanted to meet me. So, after the Pope had met the staff of the Dicastery, I lined up to tighten his hand, together with 300 other people.

When I introduced myself, he said words, in Spanish, who changed my life: "Ah! I would like to have a hearing with you!"My Spaniard is scarce, so I simply exclaimed:"¡Yo también!"A Vatican photographer immortalized that moment.

A week later, we were in his library of the Apostolic Palace, together with a translator. The appointment was listed in his official calendar and a Vatican photographer was present, which meant that the Pope wanted our meeting to be known, a gesture that moved me deeply, since in that period I was facing some public protests after the publication of a book on LGBTQ Catholics.

Even if the previous night I had slept little, I was not at all nervous. The calm, kind and sunny behavior of Pope Francis immediately put me at ease. A cardinal had suggested that, since the Pope had invited me, I should have started the conversation asking him what he wanted to talk. When I did, he smiled, he leaned on the chair, opened his arms and said: "What do you want to talk about?"Outreach

You will probably not surprise you to know that I wanted to talk about the LGBTQ Catholics, a group I dedicate myself to my ministry; I also assumed that this was the reason why the Pope wanted to meet me.

Pope Francis has done more for the LGBTQ people of all his predecessors put together. This does not want to be a negative observation towards, for example, of St. John Paul II or Benedict XVI, both holy men. But perhaps, thanks to his experience with LGBTQ people as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, or perhaps because more people had come out in the last ten years, or perhaps because he was, deeply, a shepherd who wanted to reach "todos, todos, todos"(Everyone, everyone), Francesco has revolutionized the Church approach to LGBTQ people.

Some could laugh or say, as often happens, "It's not enough! " And it is true that some of the reforms that many LGBTQ people wanted - how to change the reference of the catechism to homosexuality as "disorder" and even approve the marriage between people of the same sex - did not occur during the pontificate of Francis. But it is important to consider what he did, that it could hardly have been imagined before his settlement.

To begin with, Francesco was the first Pope to publicly use the word "gay". His five most famous words, "Who am i to judge?", They referred to a question asked him on the gay priests. He publicly opposed the criminalization of homosexuality and, when he was asked by Outreach what would say to the bishops who continue to support this position, he simply said they were wrong. He has appointed an openly gay man as a Vatican Consultor. He encouraged priests to bless pairs of the same sex and allowed priests to baptize transgender people, provided that this did not cause "public scandal or confusion between the faithful".

Pope Francis also wrote letters to Outreach and he sent greeting messages to our annual conferences. In a letter, he said God "does not deny any of his children”. He met Transgender people and told a gay man:"God made you like this and loves you like that”. He told a group of Italian parents of LGBTQ children who"the Church does not exclude [LGBTQ children] because he loves them deeply".

He also supported my pastoral ministry. he Appointed me consultor of the Dicastery for communication. He Met me in a private audience.

Original text: James Martin, SJ: How Francis changed the lives of countless Lgbtq people—and mine