“If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?”, By this phrase will be Francisco remembered among the LGTBIQ+community. It was in response to a journalist about the homosexual priests In 2013 but his rhetorical question remained in the air, allowing a reading of will to progress and, at the same time, to let him do without intervening. The statement went around the world. Was “A significant change in tone“The Human Rights Campaignthe largest organization in favor of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people in the United States.
“It has been A Pope of gestures and to recognize certain dignities”, Says to El Periódico Gema Segoviano, spokesman for the Spanish Federation LGTBIQ+.“ But he has failed to end The double moral of the Church”, He adds.
Some gestures have resulted in facts. “God made you like this and loves you,” he told a gay man who approached him in 2018. In the years that followed, He supported the legal protection of same -sex couples and criticized the laws that criminalize homosexuality. He called the Catholic bishops to change the mentality, and asked them to respond with “tenderness, please, as God has done it for each of us.”
Francisco’s has been a papacy defined by Inclusion gestures, even when the church doctrine remained unchangeddistinguishing between civil rights and doctrinal teaching. “Being homosexual is not a crime”Said in 2023, although he added that “It is sinbut first we distinguish between a sin and a crime. ”I didn’t want to cause scandals”, Laments Segovian.
Blessings of homosexual union
However, and despite internal resistance, Francisco introduced some rights recognition changes. In 2023, the Vatican published a statement that allowed Blessings for same -sex couples. However, he warned that It should not be confused or equated to marriage: such “blessings” could not resemble a marriage ceremony or be carried out next to a civil union. “Nothing is intended to legitimize anything,” said the document, “but to open life to God so that the values of the Gospel are lived with greater fidelity.” A hesitative step that, although for many Catholics it was a great step towards the Pastoral inclusion, left others with a bittersweet taste.
Francisco seemed to feel more comfortable commenting on secular legislation that changing the norms of the Catholic world. Publicly criticized the laws that criminalize homosexuality as “unfair”, unlike their predecessor Benedict XVI, who in 2008 refused to support a UN statement that requested the repeal of such laws. “Homosexual people have the right to form a family. They are children of God,” he said in a 2020 document. “What we have to have is a law of civil unions; so they will be legally covered”I commented.
Also in 2023, Francisco signed a document that allowed transgender people to be baptized and serve as sponsors and godmothersas well as witnesses at weddings. He then met with a group of transsexual and intersex Catholics for almost 90 minutes. “Just listening to the stories Of these people, the Church can fully hear the voice of the Holy Spirit, ”said sister Jeannine Gramick, who organized the meeting with New Ways Ministries, Defense and Justice Agency for Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Catholic Transsexuals.
Setbacks
The message It was even among the most conservative sectors of the Churchthat they were forced to open, at least to some extent. “Pope Francis’s commitment to people who identify themselves as LGBTIQ provided a clear testimony that All of the world must be treated with dignity, and each person must be loved, ”he says to this newspaper Mary Hasson, director of the so -called “person and identity project” of the Center for Ethics and Public Policies at Washington DC. However, this institution is defined as “against gender ideology” (exclusively accepting the biological genres assigned to birth, man and woman). “For the Catholic Church, the objective is not the “inclusion”, which is a secular value”, Continues Hasson.
And it is that the emphasis on Francisco’s mercy is reduced for some groups to Christian charity by the disadvantaged. “Pope Francis stressed the need to be charitable and respectful. But greater clarity and guidance are needed on how to accompany with love whose beliefs and lifestyle options contradict Catholic doctrine”, Says Hasson, in a sample that both progressive and conservative Catholics wanted more clarity of a Pope who walked between two waters.
Much to do
The truth is that Francisco’s papacy agreed with a world expansion wave of LGBTQ rightsand many believe he played a role in helping this community feel more comfortable in your faith. While the Church reflects on Francisco’s legacy after his death, the question is if the inclusive tone that defended beyond his papacy will remain.
And despite Francisco’s will to place people who had been on the margins in the center, which includes the LGTBIQ+community, the Pope fell short. “We are still on the margins. We would like to think that a window has been opened to the advances. There is a lot of work to do”, He concludes.
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