VATICAN CITY — The Holy See is demonstrating both acceptance and boundaries in its approach to ministering to LGBTQ+ Catholics during Pope Leo XIV’s leadership, showing welcoming gestures while maintaining traditional restrictions that began under Pope Francis’s 12-year tenure.
LGBTQ+ Catholic supporters celebrated this week after a Vatican working group published a document that included testimonials from two married gay Catholics who discussed their sexuality, religious beliefs, and the pain caused by the Catholic Church’s negative stance on homosexuality.
Furthermore, during a recent in-flight press conference, Leo emphasized that the church’s social justice, equality, and freedom teachings hold greater significance than its sexual morality doctrines, indicating he won’t make this issue a top priority.
However, during that same press briefing, Leo suggested he won’t extend beyond Francis’s position regarding the controversial topic of same-sex blessings. The Vatican has recently reaffirmed its opposition to local initiatives that deviate from the Holy See’s official position.
Rev. James Martin, an American Jesuit who has led the church’s LGBTQ+ community outreach efforts in the United States, views these developments as maintaining strong consistency with Francis’s approach.
“If the Catholic Church has begun to listen to LGBTQ Catholics as part of its methodology, the church has already moved forward in a significant way,” he recently stated.
However, these developments have drawn criticism from conservative voices, who emphasize official Catholic doctrine — which remained unchanged even during Francis’s leadership — declaring homosexual activity as “intrinsically disordered.”
The Vatican working group document summarized expert analysis of controversial issues that arose following Francis’s extensive reform initiative. The document carries no official authority and serves only as a summary of discussions. Leo’s intended actions regarding this report remain unclear.
The gay men’s testimonials, published in appendices on the Vatican’s synod website, included emotional stories of how one Portuguese man accepted his homosexuality and wed his partner. He also described faith struggles stemming from insensitive comments from a Catholic spiritual advisor and forced “conversion therapy,” the scientifically debunked practice of attempting to change LGBTQ+ individuals’ sexual orientation or gender identity through therapy.
The second testimony, from an American, criticized therapy sessions and counseling received from Courage, a Catholic pastoral organization that assists people with same-sex attraction in living celibately.
“My sexuality isn’t a perversion, disorder, or cross; it’s a gift from God,” the individual stated.
Courage issued a Friday statement condemning the negative portrayal of their work, asserting they have never participated in “reparative therapy.”
“Courage has suffered calumny and detraction before, but usually from secular outlets,” the organization stated. “It is a great sadness and an additional wound to our members to have this false and unjust depiction in a Vatican document.”
Martin noted the publication represented the first instance of an official Vatican document including “such detailed stories from LGBTQ Catholics. As such, it marks a significant step forward in the church’s relationship with the LGBTQ community.”
Bishop Joseph Strickland, whom Francis dismissed as Tyler, Texas bishop, called the report “deeply alarming” and claimed it contradicted church teachings about sexuality, sin, marriage, and morality. In a personal website post titled “An Emergency in the Church,” Strickland argued the church’s homosexuality teachings stem from God, not prejudice.
“To suggest that the sin does not consist in the same-sex relationship itself is not merely confusing language. It is a direct assault upon Catholic moral doctrine and upon the words of Scripture itself,” he stated.
The LGBTQ+ outreach issue is reaching a critical point in Germany, where Catholic bishops have established guidelines for priests conducting same-sex blessings that appear to exceed what Francis’s Vatican authorized in 2023.
That year, the Vatican’s doctrine office released a declaration called “Fiducia Supplicans” that permitted priests to offer spontaneous, non-liturgical blessings to same-sex couples, provided these blessings aren’t mistaken for wedding ceremonies. Church doctrine maintains that marriage represents a lifelong bond between one man and one woman.
The declaration triggered unprecedented, continent-wide opposition from African bishops and other conservatives, forcing the Vatican to clarify that such blessings must be brief, lasting “10 or 15 seconds,” and don’t bless the union itself but rather the individuals involved.
In April 2025, German bishops and a prominent lay organization released implementation guidelines for the declaration.
While emphasizing the spontaneous, non-liturgical character of the blessing, the guidelines specify they apply to relationships rather than individuals, and establish criteria for proper celebrations. The guidelines recommend, for instance, appropriate liturgical readings, “care in the preparation” of the event, and that attendees should provide “acclamation, prayer and song.”
Leo disclosed last month, while returning from Africa, that the Vatican had informed the Germans of its disagreement with their proposals. This week, the 2024 letter containing the Holy See’s position was published online.
The letter, signed by doctrine chief Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, stated the guidelines’ reference to acclamation resembled marriage ceremonies and “in this sense effectively legitimizes the status of these couples, contrary to what is stated” in the Vatican’s 2023 declaration.
Fernández’s letter objected that the German guidelines’ mention of location, aesthetics, and music in blessings suggested a liturgical ceremony that “contradicts” Vatican permissions.
The letter didn’t completely reject the German guidelines but provided Fernández’s “observations.”
Leo met Thursday with German Cardinal Reinhard Marx, who — despite Fernández’s letter — recently advised priests in his archdiocese to use the German guidelines as foundation for their pastoral ministry.
Cardinal Pietro Parolin stated Wednesday that discussions of sanctions against German priests using the guidelines were “premature” and confirmed ongoing dialogue with German bishops.
The goal is “never to have to resort to sanctions, that problems can be resolved peacefully, as should be the case in the church,” Parolin explained.
Martin emphasized that the Vatican had clearly stated its 2023 declaration restricted same-sex couple blessings to specific circumstances only.
“But the synod has also made it clear that it is inviting the church to listen, in a new way, to the experiences of LGBTQ Catholics. So, to me, there is no contradiction,” he told The Associated Press. “Both ‘Fiducia’ and the synod report are steps forward in the church’s ministry to LGBTQ people.”
Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, which advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics, commended Leo’s remarks about church teachings on sexual morality.
Returning from Africa, Leo was questioned about Marx’s adoption of the German guidelines and his plans to maintain church unity over the divisive same-sex blessing issue.
“It is very important to understand that the unity or division of the Church should not revolve around sexual matters,” Leo stated. “I believe there are much greater, more important issues, such as justice, equality, freedom of men and women, freedom of religion, that would all take priority before that particular issue.”
DeBernardo said it was “good to hear from the pope that he is making a decisive turn away from the church’s obsession with sexual matters.”
He also welcomed Leo’s “measured” remarks about the German same-sex guidelines.
“He did not condemn or even criticize German church leaders. He simply said there is disagreement, and that this is not a cause for disunity,” DeBernardo stated. “Both the new moral emphasis on social issues instead of sexuality, and the fostering of a more collegial church are good news for LGBTQ+ Catholics.”
