Pope Francis said laws criminalizing LGBT people were a sin and an injustice, because God loves and accompanies people with same-sex attraction.
The Vatican opposes the criminalization of homosexuality as practiced by a number of countries with the support of Catholic groups, the head of the Vatican’s doctrine office said on Monday.
Presenting a publication which reaffirmed the Vatican’s opposition to sex changes, gender theory and surrogate parenthood, Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez called laws punishing homosexuality “a big problem” and said, “Of course we are not in favor of criminalization.”
Fernandez, a liberal theologian whom Pope Francis appointed as head of the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith less than a year ago, told reporters it was “painful” to see some Catholics support anti-homosexuality laws.
In February 2023, returning from a trip to Africa where same-sex relationships are often taboo, Francis said laws criminalizing LGBT people were a sin and an injustice, because God loves and accompanies people with same-sex attraction.
“The criminalization of homosexuality is a problem that cannot be ignored,” the Pope said, citing unnamed statistics according to which 50 countries criminalize LGBT people “in one way or another” and about 10 others have laws including the death penalty.
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Under Francis, the Catholic Church has become more welcoming towards LGBT people. In December, Cardinal Fernandez’s office issued a landmark document allowing the blessing of same-sex couples, triggering substantial conservative backlash.
Nevertheless, the Church officially teaches that homosexual acts “are intrinsically disordered.”
Answering a question on whether such language may be amended, Cardinal Fernandez said, “it is true that it a very strong expression and that it needs a lot of explanation, perhaps we could find a clearer one.”
He said that the point of Catholic teaching was that homosexual acts cannot match “the immense beauty” of heterosexual unions, and the Church “could find more apt words to express” this.
1 of 8 | Rev. Elaine Saralegui, wearing a rainbow-colored clergy stole and her clerical collar, leads a service at the Metropolitan Community Church, an LGBTQ+ inclusive house of worship, in Matanzas, Cuba, Friday, Feb. 2, 2024. In recent years, the communist-run island barred anti-gay discrimination, and a 2022 government-backed “family law” — approved by popular vote — allowed same-sex couples the right to marry and adopt.
Proudly wearing a rainbow-colored clergy stole and a rainbow flag in her clerical collar, the Rev. Elaine Saralegui welcomed all to her LGBTQ+ inclusive church in the Cuban port city of Matanzas.
“We’re all invited. And no one can exclude us,” Saralegui told same-sex couples who held hands sitting on wooden pews in the Metropolitan Community Church where she had recently married her wife.
These words and this kind of gathering would have been unimaginable before in the largest country in the conservative and mostly Christian Caribbean, where anti-gay hostility is still widespread.
Cuba repressed gay people after its 1959 revolution led by Fidel Castro and sent many to labor camps. But in recent years, the communist-run island barred anti-gay discrimination, and a 2022 government-backed “family law” — approved by popular vote — allowed same-sex couples the right to marry and adopt.
Members of Cuba’s LGBTQ+ community say it marked a milestone that has allowed them to embrace their gender identity and worship more freely in a country that for decades after the revolution was officially atheist. Over the past quarter century, it has gradually become more tolerant of religions.
“It’s huge. There aren’t enough words to say what an opportunity it is to achieve the dream of so many,” said Maikol Añorga. He was with his husband, Vladimir Marin, near the altar, where at a Friday service they joined other congregants taking turns to lay offerings of white and pink wildflowers to thank God.
“It’s the opportunity for all people to be present here,” he said, “to gather and participate without regards to their gender, race or religion.”
The Catholic Church, in its doctrine, still rejects same-sex marriage and condemns any sexual relations between gay or lesbian partners as “intrinsically disordered.” Yet Pope Francis has done far more than any previous pope to make the church a more welcoming place for LGBTQ+ people.
In December, the pope formally approved letting Catholic priests bless same-sex couples, a policy shift that aimed at making the church more inclusive while maintaining its strict ban on gay marriage.
The family law in Cuba faced opposition from the country’s Catholic church as well as the growing number of evangelical churches that have mushroomed across the island.
Anti-LGBTQ+ rights demonstrations have faded since 2022. But back then, evangelical pastors spoke out from the pulpit, and handed out Bibles and pamphlets in the streets invoking God’s “original plan” for unions between men and women and calling gay relationships a sin.
Still, the measure was overwhelmingly approved by nearly 67% of voters. It came after a huge government campaign of nationwide informative meetings and extensive state media coverage amid food shortages and blackouts that have prompted thousands to immigrate to the United States during one of one of the worst economic crises to hit Cuba in decades.
At the time, President Miguel Díaz-Canel told Cubans in a video message that he was pleased about the wide support that the measure received despite tough economic challenges. He celebrated, tweeting: “Love is now the law.”
For years, the movement for LGBTQ+ rights has been proudly led by Cuba’s best-known advocate for gay rights: Mariela Castro, daughter of former President Raul Castro and niece of his brother Fidel.
“This just brings happiness. This just makes people feel truly worthy, respected, loved, considered – a true citizen with their rights and duties,” Castro told The Associated Press.
“I think we’ve taken a very valuable step forward.”
Long before same-sex couples were granted the right to marry, Castro was advocating for it, while training police on relations with the LGBTQ+ community and sponsoring symbolical ceremonies where Protestant clergy from the U.S. and Canada blessed unions as part of the annual Pride parade.
“It was a beautiful spiritual experience for me, and I believe for those people as well,” said Castro, who heads Cuba’s National Center for Sex Education and is a member of the National Assembly. “First, our campaign was: ‘Let love be the law.’ Now, love is the law, and we’re going to keep celebrating it.”
In 2010, her uncle, then- retired leader Fidel Castro admitted that he was wrong to discriminate against gay people. Asked about this, she said it helped mark a turning point in public attitude.
“I think he was honest. It was good and healthy for him to say this because it helped the rest who were still clinging to prejudices to understand that this kind of thought can change,” she said.
“Even in a revolutionary leader like him, there were prejudices that evolved, and he was able to understand it and help clear the way for change.”
In the early years after the 1959 revolution, homophobia in Cuba, she said, was no different than in the rest of the world. In the United States, homosexuality was deemed a mental disorder by psychiatric authorities, and gay sex was a crime in most states. Currently, Russia — a major supporter of Fidel Castro when it was the core of the communist Soviet Union — is bucking the worldwide trend of greater LGBTQ+ acceptance with a multi-pronged crackdown on LGBTQ+ activism.
The previous Cuban Family Code, dating back to 1975, stipulated that marriage was between a man and a woman – not between two people – which excluded lifelong partners from inheritance rights.
The new law goes further than marriage equality – which activists tried to include in the Constitution in 2019 without success – or the ability for gay couples to adopt or use surrogates. It also expanded rights for children, the elderly and women.
The first members of Saralegui’s congregation began gathering on a house terrace in Matanzas over a decade ago to sing and pray.
“The sky was our ceiling and when it rained, we’d all pack into a small room,” Saralegui said. In 2015, with support from the U.S.-based LGBTQ+ affirming Metropolitan Community Churches, they converted a house into their church, decked with wooden pews and a stained-glass cross that hangs above the altar. Underneath, a local Tibetan Buddhist group that meets here during the week stores its musical instruments in an example of interfaith partnership.
“This church is a family,” said Saralegui, who has a tattoo of the Jesus fish on one of her forearms and wears a Buddhist bracelet. “It’s a sacred space, not just because there’s a cross or an altar, but because it’s the most sacred space for these people to come to — it’s where they come to have a safe space.”
After receiving Communion, congregant Nico Salazar, 18, said he was glad to have found that safe space here after members of an evangelical church where he grew up attending asked him not to return when he embraced his gender identity.
“It’s the essence of the Bible: God is love, and other churches should emphasize that instead of repressing and harming others with a supposed sin,” said Salazar, who was born a woman and this year started hormone treatment.
“Sin and love are not the same,” said Salazar, who wore an earring in the shape of a cross.
— The PRRI poll found that the vast majority of those who are unaffiliated are content to stay that way. Just 9% of respondents say they’re looking for a religion that would be right for them.
Symbols of the three monotheistic religions
By Jason DeRose
People in the U.S. are leaving and switching faith traditions in large numbers. The idea of “religious churning” is very common in America, according to a new survey from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI).
It finds that around one-quarter (26%) of Americans now identify as religiously unaffiliated, a number that has risen over the last decade and is now the largest single religious group in the U.S. That’s similar to what other surveys and polls have also found, including Pew Research.
PRRI found that the number of those who describe themselves as “nothing in particular” has held steady since 2013, but those who identify as atheists have doubled (from 2% to 4%) and those who say they’re agnostic has more than doubled (from 2% to 5%).
This study looks at which faith traditions those unaffiliated people are coming from.
“Thirty-five percent were former Catholics, 35% were former mainline Protestants, only about 16% were former evangelicals,” says Melissa Deckman, PRRI’s chief executive officer. “And really not many of those Americans are, in fact, looking for an organized religion that would be right for them. We just found it was 9%.”
That these people are not looking for a religion has, Deckman says, implications for how and even whether houses of worship should try to attract new people.
Among other findings: The Catholic Church is losing more members than it’s gaining, though the numbers are slightly better for retention among Hispanic Catholics.
There is much lower religious churn among Black Protestants and among Jews who seem overall happy in their faith traditions and tend to stay there.
As for why people leave their religions, PRRI found that about two-thirds (67%) of people who leave a faith tradition say they did so because they simply stopped believing in that religion’s teachings.
And nearly half (47%) of respondents who left cited negative teaching about the treatment of LGBTQ people.
Those numbers were especially high with one group in particular.
“Religion’s negative teaching about LGBTQ people are driving younger Americans to leave church,” Deckman says. “We found that about 60% of Americans who are under the age of 30 who have left religion say they left because of their religious traditions teaching, which is a much higher rate than for older Americans.”
Hispanic Americans are also more likely to say they’ve left a religion over LGBTQ issues. Other reasons cited for leaving: clergy sexual abuse and over-involvement in politics.
The new PRRI report is based on a survey of more than 5,600 adults late last year.
About one-third of religiously unaffiliated Americans say they no longer identify with their childhood religion because the religion was bad for their mental health. That response was strongest among LGBTQ respondents.
The survey also asked about the prevalence of the so-called “prosperity Gospel.” It found that 31% of respondents agreed with the statement “God always rewards those who have good faith with good health, financial success, and fulfilling personal relationships.”
Black Americans tend to agree more with these theological beliefs than other racial or ethnic groups. And Republicans are more likely than independents and Democrats to hold such beliefs.
Pope Francis is facing growing dissent among members of the Catholic Church over recent decisions that opponents portray as contrary to traditional church doctrine.
The most controversial has been the publication of a document in December by a Vatican bishop, with the pope’s approval, mooting the “possibility of blessing couples in irregular situations and same-sex couples.” While the document stressed that it did not change the church’s stance on homosexuality, it brought a joint letter from Catholic clergy and scholars calling on others to disregard it.
Previously in his 11-year tenure as the head of the church, the pontiff has raised eyebrows by suggesting that even atheists could go to heaven and saying that he did not judge homosexuals, as well as taking a softer stance on abortion and remarriage.
Experts who spoke to Newsweek cast these tensions as an ideological clash between those in the church who wish to reform its message and those who want to conserve its traditional teachings, which reflects a broader culture war between liberal and conservative ideals.
Pope Francis has provoked controversy and growing dissent over some of his stances on church doctrine, including allowing same-sex couples to be blessed.
They said that rather than departing from the core principles of the faith, Francis was attempting to reach out to those who might not conform to a traditional view of family life to give them greater spiritual guidance without seeking to alter church doctrine.
While the dissent is expected to continue, Francis is unlikely to face calls for his removal, the experts said, and a split within the church is highly unlikely, owing to its historical structure.
“When Pope Francis first became pope, I’d say very early on he really distinguished himself from his immediate predecessors Benedict and John Paul II,” Michele Dillon, a sociologist and dean of the University of New Hampshire’s College of Liberal Arts who specializes in the Catholic Church, told Newsweek.
“He said that, really, the church needs to go and walk with people where…they’re at, and that the church needs to be pastoral,” she said.
Dillon said this approach was designed to “recognize the complexity of everybody’s lived reality” in the modern world, allowing the clergy to continue “working with them to keep them close to God, close to the church.”
In the open letter opposing the possibility of same-sex blessings, which was published in February, over a hundred Catholic thought leaders called on Francis to “urgently withdraw this unfortunate document, which is in contradiction with both Scripture and the universal and uninterrupted tradition of the Church.” They argued that this would be tantamount to condoning “objectively sinful” relationships.
The pope in turn accused the naysayers of “hypocrisy,” arguing that they were willing to let him bless someone who exploits people despite it also being considered a sin.
He also recently provoked criticism for suggesting Ukraine should be willing to negotiate a peace settlement with Russia, but Dillon said this was a political controversy rather than a religious one.
She interpreted Francis’ sentiments on the invasion as arising from “his commitment to [the] sanctity of life, basically that war is not a good thing and, being realistic, to what extent can the valiant efforts of the Ukrainians…actually defeat Russia.”
In particular, Dillon said, the sentiments came from an understanding of “how much the Ukrainians have suffered and continue to suffer.”
The other controversies surrounding Francis primarily concern the church’s teachings and could be viewed as an attempt to keep the church relevant in a changing world. While the number of Catholics worldwide has more than tripled in the past century, the proportion of Catholics compared with the total global population has decreased slightly in that time.
In August last year, the pontiff called out the “backwardness” of some Catholic conservatives in the United States, arguing that they had replaced faith with political ideology.
His opponents appear to accuse him of the same. Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas—a firebrand who has frequently railed against what he has described as “woke” values and has been critical of the pope—was among the loudest voices to oppose the idea of same-sex blessings.
He has previously said that “we must be first-century Christians in the 21st century” and that “corruption” had a “devastating stranglehold” on the church.
Strickland was removed from his diocese in November following an investigation earlier in the year. The Vatican has not disclosed why it chose to remove him. Strickland said he had “threatened some of the powers that be with the truth of the gospel.”
Darrell Bock, a senior research professor of New Testament studies at Dallas Theological Seminary, told Newsweek that Francis “represents a lean of the Catholic Church that tends to be more liberal and less traditional, and so some of the pushback is coming from the more traditional-oriented Catholics.”
Dillon said that the pope wanted to “find a way forward that can be inclusive rather than condemnatory.”
However, there is “a narrow segment—but it’s a loud segment—of very strongly conservative Catholics, including in the U.S….who really demand this [other] approach, even though the development of doctrine is something that is so essential to the Catholic Church,” she said.
Pope Francis appears alongside his cardinals to preside over the funeral of German cardinal Paul Josef Cordes on Monday in Vatican City.
Dillon described Catholic doctrine as a “living tradition” and said that Francis was seeking a discussion on how to interpret the religion’s teachings “in light of the realities of the time.” But others have argued that he has shown an intolerance for disagreement.
“So far, no doctrine has been changed,” she said. “He’s not talking about the core principles of the Catholic faith. He’s not talking about anything to do with the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus.”
Dillon argued that if Pope John Paul II—considered a more conservative pontiff—had been subjected to a similar form of public dissent by liberal bishops, “that would be seen as being heretical by the very same bishops who now seem to be calling out Pope Francis and exaggerating what it is he is doing.”
While Bock casts Francis’ softening of the church’s rhetoric on key issues as a bid to maintain relevance, Dillon argues it is more to appeal to Catholics who may have been overlooked by the church in the past.
“What you’re seeing is an attempt to be more modern, more sensitive to the position of the church that’s been marginalized in a modern world. I think that’s the main thing that we’re seeing,” Bock said. “He is less bound by tradition as historically the Catholic Church has been and is willing to think through handling things differently than the way they’ve been handled, and I think that’s part of what you’re seeing.”
Dillon said, “It’s not trying to be relevant because he’s looking for votes at an election, so it’s not the relevance of a cynic.”
She added that a lot of sociological work in the 1990s investigated why gay individuals wanted to remain Catholic despite being stigmatized by the church and found that they saw its theology and rituals as a “very important part of their identity.”
“Despite the challenges that a lot of people have living out the letter of church teaching in terms of some of these issues, there’s still, nonetheless, a hunger for the spirituality and the theology…that the Catholic Church, over centuries, offers them,” Dillon said. “I think the challenge is for church leaders to try to harness people’s longing.”
But if the dissent over Francis’ leadership continues to grow, those more conservative voices might start calling for him to be replaced.
Pope Francis gestures to pilgrims as he arrives in St. Peter’s Square for his weekly audience on Wednesday in Vatican City. The pontiff has rebuffed the idea of stepping down.
“I am not sure how much power exists to try and challenge a pope within the structure of the Catholic Church,” Bock said. “I think the pressure that comes is just the pressure that will come from the internal debates among the leaders in the Catholic Church, and there are very much two sides. His election reflects that.”
Dillon said that removing a pope was ultimately precluded for theological reasons. “Catholics believe in the Holy Spirit,” she said. “From this perspective, there is a reason why he is chosen to be pope.”
Even though internal politics was likely at play in his election, the conclave of cardinals that select a new Catholic leader is supposed to be guided by divine inspiration in their choice. “They don’t have the authority to override what might be seen as the work of the Holy Spirit,” Dillon said.
But if the dissent became pronounced enough, Francis’ position might be seen as untenable. Questions have already been raised about his health and the possibility of his abdicating on such grounds, as his predecessor did.
But in recently published excerpts of his autobiography, the pontiff said that he did not see “any conditions for renunciation” and disregarded criticism of his leadership. Bock said Francis would likely see stepping down “as an abandonment of what [he’s] trying to achieve.”
Much of the conservative dissent against the pope’s decisions appears to come from the U.S. Many of those who signed the open letter were American. While there has not been a significant split in the Catholic Church in hundreds of years, could there be another on the way?
“The Catholic Church, precisely, is not a schismatic church,” Dillon said, adding that it has always had diversity. “To me, the talk of schisms is really attention-grabbing, and, in my assessment, it’s very un-Catholic to even have that thought.”
Bock agreed, saying, “The Catholic Church is structured in a very traditional and historical way, and I just don’t see it getting to the point of an absolute break of any kind. What you’ll get is just that sound of protesting voices in the internal dialogue within the church. This has been going on for a long time.”
Sexuality among religious Latinos has long been a complex subject. While the place of same-sex marriage among major traditional religions has been contested over decades, a new survey shows that a number of religious Latino groups in the U.S., including Hispanic Catholics, support same-sex marriage and believe it should be allowed.
The study was conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute, or PRRI, throughout 2023. With more than 22,000 adults interviewed, the institute seeks to form a detailed profile of the demographic, religious and political characteristics of LGBTQ Americans.
The analysis measures Americans’ attitudes on LGTQ rights across all 50 states on three key politics: nondiscrimination protections, religiously based services refusals and same-sex marriage.
The study comes at a contrasting time for Latino religious followers.
On one hand, Latino evangelical support for Christian nationalism is on the rise, with about 55% of Hispanic Protestants saying they supported or sympathized with the movement in 2023, a 12% increase compared to the year prior, NBC News reports.
“I believe that God is going to do something very great with the Latino people in the United States,” Pastor Dionny Baez told his protestant congregation in Miami.
On the other hand, the share of Latinos who are religiously unaffiliated (describing themselves as atheist, agnostic or “nothing in particular”) now stands at 30%, up from 18% in 2013.
Pope Francis formally approved letting Catholic priests bless same-sex couples back in December.
But when it comes to sexuality, the Hispanic profile in relation to religion and sexuality becomes more nuanced, according to PRRI.
In the U.S., roughly one in ten Americans identified as part of the LGBTQ community. Of this number, one in five are Hispanic (20%) the second largest race in the country to identify as part of this community.
Despite these numbers, support for LGBTQ people varied widely depending on the religion.
The lowest levels of support for nondiscrimination protections are from Hispanic Protestants (61%), followed by white evangelical Protestants and Muslims (56%).
Hispanic Catholics generally support such laws, but they saw one of the most dramatic declines between 2022 and 2023, decreasing 8 points (from 83% to 75%).
When it comes to same-sex marriage, a similar pattern emerges. While strong majorities of Christian nationalism Rejecters and Skeptics are in favor of allowing gay and lesbian couples the right to marry legally, most of those who are sympathizers and adherents of the movement oppose it.
89% of Hispanic Christian nationalism Rejecters favor same-sex marriage, followed by 70% of Hispanic Christian nationalism Skeptics who think similarly.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, 55% of Hispanic Christian nationalism sympathizers oppose allowing same-sex marriage, compared to 75% of adherents who think the same.
Catholics have long opposed same-sex marriage, but lately there have been factions seeking to present a more open stance. One of them is spearheaded by none other than Pope Francis, who back in December formally approved letting Catholic priests bless same-sex couples under certain circumstances.
While the Pope stressed that blessings in question must not be tied to any specific Catholic celebration or religious service and should not be conferred at the same time as a civil union ceremony, he also requested for such blessings to not be denied, insisting that people seeking a relationship with God and looking for his mercy shouldn’t be hold up to an impossible standard to receive it.
“There is no intention to legitimize anything, but rather to open one’s life to God, to ask for his help to live better, and also to invoke the Holy Spirit so that the values of the Gospel may be lived with greater faithfulness,” he said.
