On
Easter Monday, the world received the news of
Pope Francis’s passing at the age of 88. The
news was a surprise after the pontiff’s
herculean battle with pneumonia and his
appearance at Easter Sunday Mass. Francis was
one of the most beloved popes of the Catholic
Church. He was called the People’s Pope.
However,
when it came to LGBTQ+ inclusion in the
Church, Francis left a complicated legacy, one
of dashed hopes and waiting for change.
“Many of us had high hopes
that some positive changes around LGBTQ+
teachings would come from the worldwide
Synod. That has not happened as of yet. We
are waiting for the report from the working
group charged with addressing controversial
issues,” stated Meli Barber, President of
DignityUSA.
“But the discussion of LGBTQ+
issues is now part of the mainstream of our
Church. LGBTQ+ Catholics, our family
members, friends, fellow Catholics, and
frontline ministers all spoke openly about
our lives, our gifts, the discrimination we
have faced, and the depth of our faith. This
cannot be erased.”
I
remembered his statement in 2013 when Francis
responded to a question about a possible “gay
lobby” in the Vatican. His answer set off
global shock waves. “When I meet a gay person,
I have to distinguish between their being gay
and being part of a lobby,” he said. “If they
accept the Lord and have goodwill, who am I to
judge them?”
The
pontiff’s public statement was then the most
LGBTQ+-affirming remark the world had ever
heard from the Catholic Church. The Advocate
named Pope Francis its 2013 Person of the
Year.
Pope
Francis commanded attention around the world
with his liberal-leaning pronouncements, but
the pontiff was a complicated, if not
confusing, figure to LGBTQ+ people. On the
surface, Francis displayed a pastoral
countenance to his papacy that extended to our
community. However, during Francis’s tenure as
pope, I came to depict him as the consummate
flip-flopper whose good intentions never fully
followed up with good actions. And in some
cases, the pontiff exhibited outright
hypocrisy.
For
example, Pope Francis approved blessings for
same-sex couples if the rituals don’t resemble
marriage. In October 2020, while being
interviewed for the documentary “Francesco”
about his life, Francis made a full-throated
endorsement of same-sex civil unions. Again,
setting off global shock waves.
“Homosexual people have the
right to be in a family. They are children
of God,” the pontiff said in the film. “You
can’t kick someone out of a family nor make
their life miserable for this. What we have
to have is a civil union law; that way, they
are legally covered.”
Francis’s
statement was a Hallelujah moment for many
LGBTQ+ Catholics. It optimistically suggested
a game-changer - having dogma-transforming
ramifications - for the Church in this 21st
century despite conservative priests still
hell-bent on continuing on an anti-modernity
track of his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI.
However,
marriage equality was out of the question
because Francis repeatedly criticized “gender
theory” as an “ideological project” that
“denies the natural difference between a man
and a woman.”
Marriage
between people of the same sex? “Marriage is a
historical word. It’s always between a man and
a woman in humanity, and not only within the
Church. We cannot change that. This is the
nature of things. This is how they are. Let’s
call them “civil unions,” Francis stated in
2017 to New Ways Ministry, a pro-LGBTQ
Catholic organization.
Francis
called for the decriminalization of
homosexuality, which LGBTQ+ advocates hailed
as a milestone that would help end harassment
and violence against us, as he also publicly
distinguished between homosexual acts as a sin
and not a crime.
Pope
Francis had a complicated relationship with
the transgender community. In the pontiff’s
2015 tome, “Pope Francis: This Economy Kills,”
Francis compares transgender people to nuclear
weapons as destroyers of God’s creation of
male and female. However, he also embraced a
transwomen community.
In
Torvaianica, Italy, a community of transwomen,
many who are sex workers, were welcomed and
seated as Pope Francis’s guests for lunch to
celebrate the Catholic Church’s World Day of
the Poor in 2023. This wasn’t their first time
lunching with the pontiff. They have received
the VIP seats to Pope Francis’s monthly
gatherings since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Also,
in 2023, the Vatican agreed to baptize
transgender Catholics and allow them to be
godparents. This was 180 degrees from 2000
when the Catholic Congregation for the
Doctrine of the Faith denounced the existence
of transgender people. Nothing in terms of
church doctrine changed, sadly. The Catholic
Church’s Church’s World Day of the Poor, with
the message “Do not turn your face away from
anyone who is poor,” was an example of the
Church at its best regarding welcoming
everyone. It allowed the faces of transgender
people not to be hidden.
The
Catholic Church still excludes the LGBTQ+
community from officially receiving any
sacraments. Since 2015, DignityUSA has
advocated for “sacramental equality” in the
Catholic Church. With COVID-19 death rates
hitting the LGBTQ+ community globally as hard
as other minority communities worldwide, one
would think the Church could put aside its
homophobia.
Pope
Francis was no doubt a humble man with a
sincere heart. He took the name Francis after
St. Francis of Assisi, the 13th-century
mystic, whose ministry, like Pope Francis
mirrored during his lifetime, was an
unwavering dedication to help the poor,
vulnerable, and marginal. Francis’s theology
of the preferential option for the poor, the
core tenet of Liberation Theology, and the
Biblical mandate in Matthew 25:31- 40 that
says to feed those who are hungry, homeless,
immigrants, etc., made it clear he saw and
knew the faces of the suffering.
But
he looked the other way when it came to his
LGBTQ+ worshippers. It was not enough for
Francis to say he embraced our community. He
also needed to do it.
May
Pope Francis rest in peace.
