Careful optimism among liberals about New Pope’s views on gay Catholics

Pope Leo XIV rose to the papacy on Thursday with few public records about LGBTQ issues, a characteristic concern of his predecessor, Pope Francis, as well as a source of deep conflict between liberal and conservative Catholics.

Nevertheless, proponents of greater inclusion for gay and transgender people in the church said they were careful optimistic, even if they may not know much about the man who will now lead the 1.4 billion Catholics in the world. Until today, few people believed An American pope was a possibility.

“We are here to google everything we can about the new Pope,” said Francis Debernardo, who runs new ways, a group-based group that promotes LGBTQ recording in the church. “I think he’s the best we could have hoped for.”

The Reverend James Martin, a Jesuit writer and Well -known inquiry of Outreach For LGBTQ Catholics said that he was “stunned” that was an American, but that he “looked forward to the selection” of the new Pope, which he had met social in the past.

“I know he is a sober, friendly, modest, reserved man, hardworking, decisive, not afraid to speak his thoughts,” said Father Martin in a statement. “It’s a great choice.”

Pope Francis was praised by admirers for his openness for members of the LGBTQ community, his support for those who have given them of ministry and spiritual guidance, and for the ways in which he changed the tone of the church – Not always the doctrine – About issues of gender and sexuality.

Pope Leo has spent Most of his career In the countryside of Peru and has never attracted great attention to his positions on those issues. But reports that in the past he had made comments that were critical of gays and transgender people had something nervously left in the LGBTQ community who read the tea leaves on Thursday.

Mr Debernardo said he thought that LGBTQ Catholics had to take a “wait -and -see approach” for Pope Leo, who, according to him, had never really appeared on the radar of his organization in her years of accurately following the positions of church leaders.

Yet he said it was worrying that Leo had made unfriendly comments in the past, Including a 2012 speech In which he criticized the positive representation of the ‘homosexual lifestyle’ in the Western media, of which he said he “sympathetically promoted beliefs and practices that are at odds with the gospel.”

But Mr Debernardo said that the world is now different than in 2012, when opposition remained widespread against many elements of gay rights. President Barack Obama, for example, announced that year that he had changed his position To support the marriage of the same sex. “A lot can change in 13 years,” Mr Debernardo said.

“When Francis was chosen, it immediately came out that he had resisted in fairly strong terms in Argentina,” said Mr Debernardo. “So when it comes to the comments, Pope Leo has made about the ‘homosexual lifestyle’, we hope that in the intervening 13 years that he might have opened more about these issues.”

During that time, Pope Leo moved from a rural area in North Perpu to the heart of Rome, where he supervised a Vatican office that helped Pope Franciscus veterinarian and appointed a considerable number of bishops who are seen as support for LGBTQ inclusion in the church. He is also a resident of Chicago who is Known to be close with Cardinal Blase Cupich from Chicago, who consider many as one of the most open -minded cardinals in the American church.

Those instructions are incorrect to a strong approval of a position, Mr Debernardo acknowledged.

“If I predict something, I would predict that he would not clamp on LGBTQ acceptance, but he will probably not support the way Francis did,” he said. “I don’t think this will be an active part of the Leo agenda.”

Brian Flanagan, a Catholic theologian in the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs at the University of Georgetown, said that Leo “doesn’t seem like a pope to turn back those things.”

Mr. Flanagan said that the early remarks of the new pope were mostly encouraging because of their embrace of synodalityA way to manage the church that Francis prefers, and which includes input from lay people.

“For me, synodality is really important because it creates a structure so that the entire Catholic Church can hear the voices of LGBTQ Catholics,” he said. “I hope that this offers space for the Catholic Church to keep a conversation about how sexuality and gender may be more complicated than we thought they were.”

Michael Sennett, a master’s student in pastoral care at Fordham University, was part of a delegation of transgender and intersex people who traveled to Rome last October for an audience with Pope Francis. Mr. Sennett said that on Thursday he was deeply struck by the emotional greeting of the new pope of the crowd in the Vatican.

“The way Pope Leo was so moved today when he stood on that balcony and delivered a message of love and unity – it reminded me so much of the spirit I felt when I was in Rome to meet Pope Francis,” he said. “I think the church stays in good hands.”

Pope Leo’s choice of his papal name also seems to indicate that he will continue the pastoral approach of Francis, who devoted his papacy to reaching people in the margin of society, Father Martin said.

The name of the new Pope seemed to be A tribute to Pope Leo XIIIThe 19th-century Pontiff who laid the foundation for Catholic social leather, who emphasizes the well-being of the sick and the poor.

But as much as the name can indicate an interest in social justice, it can also indicate a focus on the issues that are important for people in poor or war -torn countries where gay rights are not high on the agenda, Mr Debernardo said.

There is an irony, he said, in the idea that the first American pope can also be a pope who is less concerned with the American cultural war issues.

“For so many bishops around the world, their most important concerns are things such as refugees and hunger, and LGBTQ issues are simply not an urgent care for their people,” he said.