Pope Francis' path with LGBT+ people

Text published on the Folha de S. Paulo website (Brazil) on April 21, 2025. Freely translated by the volunteers of the Gionata project.

When it is reflected on the inheritance left by Pope Francis for the LGBTQIA+people, you can see the half -full or half empty glass. For some, it was the Pope who most approached the LGBTQIA+ people in the history of the Church. For others, he did less than he could, while remaining anchored to traditional doctrine.

The gesture that made the story

In 2013, during the flight from Rome to Brazil for his first international visit, a journalist asked him for the alleged "gay lobby" in the Vatican. Francesco replied with words that would travel around the world:
«If a person is gay, he accepts the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge it? It should not be marginalized. The [homosexual] trend is not the problem. They are our brothers. "

This sentence became a point of reference for the supporters of LGBTQIA+rights, opening a new space of dialogue in the Catholic Church.

Words of closeness

Over the years, Pope Francis has continued to use words and welcome gestures. In a meeting with a gay man who survived abuse by the clergy, he would have told him:
«God made you like this and loves you like this. Even the Pope loves you like this, and you must be happy to be what you are. "

In a message addressed to parents of LGBTQIA+people, he added:
"We must find a way to help those fathers and mothers accompany their sons and daughters."

The rights of homogenerating families

In the documentary Francesco, released in 2020, declared: "Homosexuals are children of God and have the right to a family."
This sentence was in response to the story of a man who wrote to the Pope by telling that he and his husband had three adoptive children, but they avoided going to mass for fear that children were refused.

In the same documentary, Francesco expressed his support for the legal recognition of homosexual couples:
«We must create a law on civil unions. So they will be legally protected. I am in favor. "

Openings and limits

However, Francesco has never changed the teaching of the Church according to which homosexual relations "are contrary to natural law" and "cannot be approved in any case". For some, this was a prudent choice not to break with the conservative wing of the Church. For others, a limit that has prevented a real change.

The sacramental marriage, for example, has remained reserved for heterosexual couples. Even in Argentina, his native land, where the egalitarian marriage has been legal since 2010, Bergoglio - then Archbishop of Buenos Aires - had opposed the law, calling it "a destructive claim against the Plan of God", suggesting instead a more moderate legal recognition, such as civil unions.

Contradictions and criticisms

Also as Pope, Francesco showed ambivalences: he welcomed transgender people at the hearing and the Vatican, in 2023, said that these people can receive baptism, as long as this does not cause "public scandal or confusion between the faithful". At the same time, he criticized the so -called "ideology of gender", stating that "he erases the differences and makes everything the same".

In 2013, the magazine The Advocate, a point of reference for the LGBTQ+community, appointed him "person of the year", noting that he was the first Pope to use the word "gay" instead of the most clinical and detached "homosexual".

But in 2024, Francesco was at the center of controversy when, during a private encounter with Italian bishops, he used the term "FRUCAGEGE" referring to the seminars. A few days later, he officially apologized.

A pope of our time

According to Jeferson Batista, PhD student at the University of Campinas, "from a doctrinal point of view, little has changed. LGBTQIA+ people remain second -class citizens in the church. But openings how the possibility of blessing homosexual couples are progress. Francesco will remain in history as the pope who has closer the people lgbtqia+ to Catholicism. "

Pope Francis was, for better or for worse, a man of his time. The debate on what he did and how much he could have done will continue to animate the future of the Catholic Church.

Original text: Pope Francisco if Alterou enters Defesa Dos Gays and Conservarism