Pope Francis held line on gender ideology, had welcoming posture to LGBT community

The late Pope Francis sought to make the Catholic Church more welcoming to transgender and LGBTQ people, often causing stir among traditional conservative Catholics, even as he remained a staunch critic of what he called "dangerous" gender ideology.

While he maintained traditional Catholic teachings on gender and sexuality in official documents, the pontiff's actions often told a different, ambiguous story.

"Being homosexual isn’t a crime," Francis once said to The Associated Press in 2023. It was the first time a pope addressed the legal side of homosexual laws around the world, and LGBTQ activists praised him for it.

POPE FRANCIS DINES WITH TRANSGENDER WOMEN FOR VATICAN LUNCHEON

Pope Francis has a short and friendly conversation with Laura Esquivel, a 56-year-old transgender Paraguayan, at a March 27, 2024, audience in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican. (Stefano Pitrelli/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Francis also called the criminalization of homosexuality "unjust," adding that some Catholic bishops in other countries may be proponents of outlawing it for cultural reasons.

"These bishops have to have a process of conversion," he said. "Tenderness, please, as God has for each one of us."

Also in 2023, the controversial Vatican document Fiducia Supplicans — a declaration by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) — issued guidance for priests to bless same-sex couples. The blessings are meant for individuals, not the union itself, according to Pope Francis.

The document states that "one should neither provide for nor promote a ritual for the blessings of couples in an irregular situation."

"At the same time, one should not prevent or prohibit the Church’s closeness to people in every situation in which they might seek God’s help through a simple blessing," it reads.

POPE FRANCIS: 'GENDER IDEOLOGY' IS ONE OF THE 'MOST DANGEROUS IDEOLOGICAL COLONIZATIONS'

Pope Francis greets cardinals as he unexpectedly appears during the Palm Sunday Mass in Saint Peter's Square at the Vatican on April 13. (Yara Nardi/Reuters)

Francis further raised concerns among conservatives when, in 2023, the Vatican ruled transgender people can be baptized and become godparents, provided their participation would not cause "confusion" or scandal.

In March of that year, Pope Francis hosted a group of transgender women — many of whom are sex workers or migrants from Latin America — to a Vatican luncheon for the Catholic Church's "World Day of the Poor."

The pontiff and the transgender women formed a close relationship after the pope came to their aid during the COVID-19 pandemic, when they were unable to work. They met monthly for VIP visits with the pope and received medicine, money and shampoo any day, according to The Associated Press. 

POPE FRANCIS WARNS CHURCH CANNOT BECOME ‘PROGRESSIVE’ OR ‘CONSERVATIVE’ ‘POLITICAL PARTY’

Pope Francis tours St. Peter's Square in his popemobile after bestowing the Urbi et Orbi (Latin for "to the city and to the world") blessing at the end of the Easter mass presided over by Cardinal Angelo Comastri in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican on Sunday. (Andrew Medichini/AP)

Meanwhile, Pope Francis called gender ideology "one of the most dangerous ideological colonizations" in a March 2023 interview with Argentinian newspaper La Nación.

"All humanity is the tension of differences. It is to grow through the tension of differences," the pope said. "The question of gender is diluting the differences and making the world the same, all dull, all alike, and that is contrary to the human vocation."

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The pontiff at the time attributed the increase in gender fluidity to well-meaning people who "do not distinguish what is respect for sexual diversity or diverse sexual preferences from what is already an anthropology of gender, which is extremely dangerous because it eliminates differences, and that erases humanity, the richness of humanity, both personal, cultural, and social, the diversities and the tensions between differences."

Fox News Digital's Timothy H.J. Nerozzi contributed to this report.