How Are Theologians Evaluating Pope Francis' LGBTQ+ Impact?

Commentaries about Pope Francis’ impact on LGBTQ+ issues in the church continue to roll in. Today’s post will focus on some reflections by Catholic theologians looking at the pope’s record.

Father Bryan Massingale

Father Bryan Massingale, an openly gay priest and theology professor at Fordham University, told USA Today that Pope Francis “will be known as one of the most consequential popes in Catholic history.” Massingale opined that “I find it hard to believe the next pope will radically change the trajectory of where Francis has brought the church in terms of LGBTQ issues.” He also ackowledged that Francis’ work on LGBTQ+ issues was only the beginning of the Catholic Church’s development in this area:

“This pope has gone further than any other pope in Catholic history and has opened the door for evolution. The church is a worldwide institution, and while there are things obvious to us in the U.S. and in Europe, other parts of the world have to grow in their own way. He wanted to keep the world walking together.”

In the same USAToday article (which was an update of one published in March),

Elizabeth Sweeny Block

, a theologian at St. Louis University stated that while the late pope did a lot of good on LGBTQ+ issues, he also had some negative statements in his record:

“He has condemned so-called ‘gender ideology’ repeatedly – a deeply problematic and derogatory phrase and one without clear definition,” Block said, adding that while Francis has integrated more science into his papacy – for instance, in Laudate Deum, his 2023 encyclical on the environment – he hasn’t shown the same engagement on gender questions.

“People who are members of the LGBTQ community are understandably still waiting for more concrete changes in the church on the ground.”

Natalia Imperatori-Lee

Natalia Imperatori-Lee, a Manhattan University religious studies professor, told CNN that Francis’ approach offered a new style of leadership for the Catholic Church:

“For a long time, Catholics were only known for their don’ts — don’t be gay, don’t have an abortion, don’t get a divorce,” she says. “Francis unlocked a different kind of Catholicism in the public square. He was somebody who appealed to non-Catholics and Catholics. He was just a decent person.”

Francis’ legacy will outlive him, Imperatori-Lee predicted, and his new style will affect future generations of the church. “This is where Francis is going to shine,” she said.

In assessing how Pope Francis tried to reshape the church, Massimo Faggioli, an ecclesiologist at Villanova University, Pennsylvania, offered the following perspective in an article in Commonweal magazine:

“Francis’s ecclesiology and doctrinal policy were the product of his reception of Vatican II—as both a Jesuit priest and a Latin American. He brought about a dialectic view of the relationship between movement and institution, between doctrine and pastoral care. He carried the message of human fraternity and care for the environment at a time when world politics went in the opposite direction, and also worked to de-escalate the so-called “culture wars” around issues of sexual morality that have roiled the United States. His emphasis on mercy over doctrine was well received by some Catholics but not by those who believed that Vatican II had already tipped the balance far too much toward the former.

Francis deployed a kind of strategic ambiguity when it came to doctrinal issues, allowing the old order to carry on alongside clear messages about the need for a new pastoral praxis. This was evident, for example, on the issue of LGBTQ Catholics—one of the pastoral reforms that was implemented but that remains on shaky doctrinal and catechetical ground. In other cases, like that of the role of women in the Church, Francis’s ambiguity reflected a real impasse between his genuine understanding of the need to open new paths and a sensibility (and language) heavily shaped by his formation. He was more prone to talking about ‘woman’ than to listening to women.”

Massimo Faggioli

In a separate article for the National Catholic Reporter, Faggioli listed Francis’ LGBTQ+ outreach as part of the “3 major contributions [that] stand out in Pope Francis’ legacy to global Catholic Church.” The scholar explained:

“The third major legacy is at the magisterial level. The first Jesuit pope and the first Latin American pope invested, and from the very beginning, a stunningly high amount of his political capital in signaling the priority of the pastoral dimension in church teachings, even on the most divisive issues for Catholicism in the Western hemisphere.

“From the ‘Who am I to judge?’ of July 2013 to the 2023 blessings decree on the gay question, to the 2014-15 Synod of Bishops on the family, and to the 2016 apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia giving an opening to divorced and remarried Catholics, Francis has privileged the need to show a ‘big tent’ idea of the Catholic Church. For some people, this came at the expense of doctrinal continuity and/or clarity.

“Surely, Francis has done all this while keeping distance from academic theology and Catholic intellectuals, privileging other kinds of interlocutors both within the church and outside. Francis has done all this in fidelity to the letter and the spirit of the Second Vatican Council, aware of the limits of the council’s documents and the theology supporting them half a century later. . . .

“. . . .But Francis has continued the trajectories of Vatican II — looking for a new balance between law and love, institution and movement, ressourcement and aggiornamento. Advocates of the LGBTQ cause have much to thank him for: Francis is something like the patron saint of the cause for a more welcoming church (emphasis added).For the same reason, other Catholics will try to forget this pontificate as soon as possible — and will try to revert and reverse what has been done on that issue.”

Mary Hunt

Mary Hunt, a feminist theologian and director of the Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics, and Ritual (WATER), wrote at Religion Dispatches that Francis’ more progressive agenda could not be achieved in an institution that still does not practice what Francis called “the dignity of every human being, without exception.”

“Francis proved that the most important role for a pope is as a symbol of unity, not a figure of authority. The Pope is not the Church. During the five weeks that Francis was in the hospital, the wheels of the Vatican continued to turn. Local churches continued to function. And, disgracefully, many Catholic women, LGBTQIA+ people, and those abused by clergy continued to be marginalized.

“Church policy — against women’s equality, in opposition to same-sex love and transgender identity, and unenforced on clergy perpetrators — contradicts basic values of equity and justice by excluding and alienating millions of Catholics. No wonder Francis’ agenda remains unfinished with so many who would help now shunted aside.”

“He could have conversations that just weren’t possible under John Paul II and Benedict XVI. As the years of his papacy went on, he seemed to get more open, both to gays and lesbians, but also to the trans community. This is a level of openness that was unthinkable before Pope Francis. It’s been a revolution of compassion, a revolution of welcome, and it’s changed the church. It’s changed the church’s relationship to the LGBTQ community.

“. . .“He was willing to spend time with people and accept them as they are. I believe he grew from that, and I believe the church grew from that as well. And that’s where the church needs to continue growing. It’s a ministry of listening to, a ministry of openness. It’s a ministry of being willing to learn.”

—Francis DeBernardo, New Ways Ministry, April 28, 2025

To review all of Pope Francis’ statements and actions, positive and negative, concerning LGBTQ+ issues, check out New Ways Ministry’s online resource: The Many Faces of Pope Francis: A Timeline of His LGBTQ Record

Previous Responses to Pope Francis’ Passing:

Bondings 2.0: New Ways Ministry: ‘Pope Francis Was a Gift to LGBTQ+ People‘

Bondings 2.0:Pope Francis’ Easter Passing Invites Us to Meet Christ on the Way to Galilee

Bondings 2.0: Catholic LGBTQ+ Leaders React to the Death of Pope Francis

Bondings 2.0: How Pope Francis Affected Me as an LGBTQ+ Person

Bondings 2.0: People from the Pews Respond in Different Ways to Pope’s LGBTQ+ Legacy

How Are Theologians Evaluating Pope Francis’ LGBTQ+ Impact?

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