A couple of days ago, we shard that Pope Francis reappointed a notorious pro-LGBTQ priest to major 5-year post. The lucky man was Jesuit priest James Martin, a very prominent American Roman Catholic known for having an outreach ministry for proud and open LGBTQ Catholics. In fact, it was just two months ago that Martin was urging the Roman Catholic Church to start celebrating PRIDE month.
Last year he wrote a Twitter thread explaining that “Pope Francis has done more for #LGBTQ people than any pope. But he does so step by step. Two years ago today I met with him to speak about LGBT Catholics, and he asked me to continue my ministry. Often, however, people don’t notice these small steps, which add up to a sea change in the Catholic Church’s approach to LGBTQ people.”
Accordingly, he offers 12 important steps the decrepit pontiff has has made since his election in 2013, excitedly salivating in the ways that Francis is moving the church closer and closer into full inclusion and acceptance of LBGTQ folk into the flock.
1. When asked about gay priests in 2013, Pope Francis uttered perhaps the five most famous words of his papacy: “Who am I to judge?” With those words, he also became the first pope to use the word “gay” in such a public setting.
2. During his pastoral visit to the United States in 2015, Pope Francis met with his former student, Yayo Grassi, who is gay, and Mr. Grassi’s same-sex partner.
3. In his 2016 apostolic exhortation “Amoris Laetitia” (“The Joy of Love”), Francis wrote that when ministering to LGBT people, we should “before all else” affirm their human dignity as well as the church’s desire to oppose violence against them.
4. In 2016, on an in-flight press conference returning from Azerbaijan, Pope Francis encouraged a ministry of “accompaniment” of LGBTQ people, saying that Jesus would never tell a gay person, “Go away from me because you are homosexual.”
5. On an in-flight press conference in 2018, returning from the World Meeting of Families in Ireland, the Holy Father said that LGBT children should never be kicked out of their families and encouraged families to love and accept them.
6. His 30-minute meeting with me in the Apostolic Palace in September 2019, was listed on his official public schedule and accompanied by photographs from the Vatican, a sign of his support for LGBTQ ministry overall.
7. In 2019, Vatican officials and rights group discussed decriminalizing homosexuality8. In 2020, while defending traditional church teaching on marriage as between a man and woman, Pope Francis nonetheless signaled his support for legal protections for civil unions in a documentary film.
9. Also last year, he offered his support for Sister Mónica Astorga, an Argentine sister who had worked with transgender people for 14 years, saying, “God, who did not go to seminary or study theology, will repay you abundantly.”
10. This March, he appointed Juan Carlos Cruz, an openly gay man and a clergy abuse survivor and advocate, to a high-level Vatican commission. In 2018, Mr. Cruz had earlier reported that Francis had told him “God made you this way.”
11. In June, he wrote a warm letter on the occasion of the Outreach LGBTQ Catholic Ministry webinar, and also promised his prayers for this “flock” of LGBTQ people.
12. In a conversation with Jesuits in Slovakia last month, he encouraged them to reach out pastorally to “homosexual couples,” not just LGBTQ individuals.
Martin writes:
“Taken together, we can see how Francis’s approach to LGBTQ people is one of pastoral accompaniment, moving slowly, avoiding the dramatic statements that some people may want and setting limits. His focus is always on encouraging the pastoral care of LGBTQ individuals, defending them against violence and supporting those who minister with them, in new ways that would have not been countenanced by his predecessors.
