Pope Francis, the head of the Catholic Church from 2013 to 2025, adopted a significantly more accommodating tone on LGBTQ topics than his predecessors. In July 2013, his televised "Who am I to judge?" statement was widely reported in the international press, becoming one of his most famous statements on LGBTQ people. In other public statements, Francis emphasised the need to accept, welcome, and accompany LGBTQ people, including LGBTQ children, and denounced laws criminalising homosexuality. While he reiterated traditional Catholic teaching that marriage is between a man and a woman, he had supported same-sex civil unions as legal protections for same-sex couples. Under his pontificate, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith confirmed that transgender people can be baptised, and allowed the blessing of same-sex couples in the document . Francis privately met many LGBTQ people and activists. In 2013, Francis was named as Person of the Year by The Advocate, an American LGBTQ magazine.
He described gender theory and children's education on gender-affirming surgery as "ideological colonisation". In September 2015, Francis came under media scrutiny for meeting Kim Davis, a county clerk who was imprisoned for refusing to issue marriage licences for same-sex couples, and in August 2018, Francis was criticised for suggesting that gay children seek psychiatric treatment. Prior to his election as Pope and adoption of the name Francis, as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Mario Bergoglio led public opposition to the parliamentary bill on legalising same-sex marriage in Argentina, which was approved by the Argentine Senate on 15 July 2010. A letter he wrote in that campaign was criticised for using "medieval" and "obscurantist" language, and was later admitted by an episcopal source to be a strategic error that contributed to the bill's success.
Public statements on LGBTQ topics
"Who am I to judge?" On 28 July 2013, at a televised press conference on a return flight from World Youth Day in Brazil, speaking on theories of a gay lobby in the Vatican, Francis said:
Francis' comments were widely reported in the popular press, becoming one of his most famous statements on LGBTQ people. Welcoming the comments, LGBTQ group Gay Catholic Voice Ireland said "that this is the first time a pope has used the word 'gay', a word originating from within the LGBTQ community, rather than 'homosexual', a word originating from the medical profession". Another LGBTQ group, Equally Blessed, called it "some of the most encouraging words a pontiff has ever spoken about gay and lesbian people".
In a televised interview on LaSexta in March 2019, Francis replied when asked on the soundbite: "Tendencies are not sin. If you have a tendency to anger, it's not a sin. Now, if you are angry and hurt people, the sin is there".
On welcoming LGBTQ people In a series of interviews with Jesuit priest Antonio Spadaro in August 2013, Francis said that the Church did not want to condemn homosexual persons to social exclusion. He said that endorsing the existence of gay people with love is to "enter into the mystery of the human being", and advocated accompanying people as God does:
On 2 October 2016, during an in-flight press conference while returning from his visit to Georgia and Azerbaijan, Francis said: "Individuals have to be accompanied, as Jesus accompanies them. When a person who has this condition [of homosexual tendencies] comes before Jesus, Jesus certainly does not say: 'Go away because you are homosexual'." Francis discussed his invitation to meet a transgender Spanish man and his wife as an example of how LGBTQ people can be welcomed, accompanied, and integrated into the Church.
In May 2022, in response to a series of questions from Outreach, a Catholic LGBTQ organisation, Francis said that God "does not disown any of his children". Francis advised LGBTQ people to read the Acts of the Apostles to "find the image of the living Church", and suggested that LGBTQ Catholics suffered not "rejection of the church" but rejection by "people in the church".
Criminalisation of homosexuality In January 2023, in an interview with the Associated Press, Francis called the criminalisation of homosexuality "unjust", calling on the Catholic Church to work towards its abolition by "distinguish[ing] between a sin and crime". He called on bishops supporting such laws to "have a process of conversion".
In February 2023, during an in-flight press conference, Francis called laws criminalising homosexuality a sin: "This is not right. Persons with homosexual tendencies are children of God. God loves them. God accompanies them ... condemning a person like this is a sin. Criminalising people with homosexual tendencies is an injustice." Following a request for clarification by Jesuit priest James Martin, Francis replied in a letter that "every sexual act outside of marriage is a sin", but "criminalisation is neither good nor just" and "I would tell whoever wants to criminalise homosexuality that they are wrong".
LGBTQ children In an interview with La Nación in December 2014, following the Synod on the Family, Francis said that "the synod addressed the family and the homosexual persons in relation to their families, because we come across this reality all the time in the confessional ... We have to find a way to help that father or that mother to stand by their [homosexual] son or daughter".
On 26 August 2018, on a return flight from his visit to Ireland, Francis observed: "There have always been homosexuals and persons with homosexual tendencies. Always." He said that parents should neither deny nor disown their homosexual children:
During the same conference, Francis suggested that gay children could seek psychiatric treatment, saying: "When [a homosexual trait] shows itself from childhood, there is a lot that can be done through psychiatry, to see how things are. It is something else if it shows itself after twenty years." The mention of psychiatry was criticised by LGBTQ organisations, including the LSVD. The reference was not included in the Vatican's published transcript of the conference. A Vatican spokesperson said that the reference was removed "so as not to distort the Pope's train of thought", and that Francis mentioned psychiatry "to highlight an example of 'things that can be done' [but] didn't mean to say that [homosexuality] was a 'mental illness'". Asked about his comments in a televised interview on LaSexta in March 2019, Francis said that he was recommending "parents start[ing] to see strange things" to have their child evaluated by a professional, because "it could be that [the child] is not homosexual", but the media had misreported and distorted his comments. When asked if it was a "rarity" for parents to have a gay child, Francis said: "In theory, no."
In Francesco (2020), Francis said: "Homosexuals have a right to be a part of the family. They're children of God ... Nobody should be thrown out, or be made miserable because of it."
LGBTQ topics in pastoral ministry In his August 2013 interviews with Spadaro, Francis said that the Catholic Church "cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods":
On 3 January 2014, La Civiltà Cattolica, a Jesuit magazine, published a transcript of Francis' comments at a closed-door meeting with 120 superiors-general of worldwide religious orders on 29 November 2013. Francis emphasised the importance of education in the Church's ministry to children brought up in a multiplicity of household arrangements, and said:
Public statements on same-sex relationships
As Archbishop of Buenos Aires
As Archbishop of Buenos Aires, Jorge Mario Bergoglio led public opposition to the parliamentary bill on legalising same-sex marriage in Argentina, which was approved by the Argentine Senate on 15 July 2010. At the time of Francis' election in 2013, Sergio Rubin, his authorised biographer, reported that Bergoglio urged his fellow Argentine bishops to endorse same-sex civil unions, as a compromise to calls for same-sex marriage. Other bishops rejected his proposal, committing the Argentine church to opposing the legislation. It was the only vote Bergoglio lost in his six years as president of the Episcopal Conference of Argentina. Rubin's account was denied by Miguel Woites, director of a news outlet linked to the archdiocese, and corroborated by other Argentine Catholic journalists. Others with whom Bergoglio had met privately attested to his openness to same-sex civil unions. In the feature-length documentary Francesco (2020), Francis confirmed Rubin's account, saying that he "stood up" for legislation protecting gay couples in civil relationships.
In a letter to Carmelite nuns published by the Archdiocese of Buenos Aires, Bergoglio called the bill on same-sex marriage "an attempt to destroy God's plan", authored by "the father of lies who seeks to confuse and deceive the children of God". Critics, including Nicolás Alessio, a priest defrocked for supporting the legislation, and Marcelo Fuentes, a senator, called the letter "medieval" and "obscurantist". The letter was interpreted to have solidified support for the bill, and was later admitted to be a strategic error by an episcopal source.
In conversation with Abraham Skorka in their coauthored book On Heaven and Earth (2010), Bergoglio described same-sex marriage as "a weakening of the institution of marriage, an institution that has existed for thousands of years and is 'forged according to nature and anthropology'". Bergoglio also said that there would be "affected children" by same-sex couples with adoption rights: "Every person needs a male father and a female mother that can help them shape their identity."
Same-sex civil unions In January 2014, following the publication of Francis' comments in his meeting with superiors-general in November 2013, Italian media reported that Francis expressed support for same-sex civil unions, intervening in legislative efforts to recognise same-sex unions in Italy. In the transcript, Francis mentioned a girl who felt rejected by her mother's lesbian partner, but could mean either a girlfriend or fiancée in Italian. The Holy See Press Office denied any interpretation of Francis' comments as supporting same-sex civil unions. In March 2014, the press office again denied media reports that Francis signalled his support for same sex civil-unions following an interview with Corriere della Sera, in which Francis said that civil unions responded to "different situations of cohabitation", but reaffirmed the Church's teaching that marriage is between a man and a woman.
In his apostolic exhortation Amoris laetitia (2016), Francis reflected that "de facto or same-sex unions ... may not simply be equated with marriage. No union that is temporary or closed to the transmission of life can ensure the future of society."