Pope Francis defended. Catholics LGBTQ hopes that the new Pope will end what he started.

as Good To choose a new Pope It starts this weekLGBTQ Catholics hopes that everyone was chosen to finish the integration that Pope Francis began more than 20 years ago.

Pope Francis, who died in 88 last month, was the first inch to publicly include the Catholic LGBTQ community. It did not change the doctrine, but it was not conversation by expressing support for legal civil unions, and meeting personally with LGBTQ groups and extending Barakat for individuals in unions of the same sex.

“Francis was really breathtaking of fresh air, and in the way he was telling the church leaders of approaching and associated with LGBTQ people,” said Francis Debardo, CEO of New Ways, a Catholic communication that teaches and calls for gay people.

Debardo said that the former popes before Francis carried the anti -gay views views. Under Francis, the papacy adopted a different tone towards the LGBTQ community.

Some clerics and Catholics within society hope Flavor – in Some leaders It seems that he shares the comprehensive views of Francis – will continue his work.

“Who am I to rule?”

Just four months after Francis became the Pope in 2013, he created controversy when, during a press conference in July, he answered the journalist’s question about gay clergy members. He said: “If someone is gay and searches for the Lord and has goodwill, then who is judging him?” Francis’s answer went against years of Catholic previous years.

These words, which were frequent around the world, Select a very different tone From the previous relationship that the Church was with gay clergy and members. His predecessors, John Paul II, and Bandicct, were much lower than gay people accepting. Benedict XIII published Modern official statement The condemnation of homosexuality in 1986.

Benedict wrote this thesis while Cardinal was still under the leadership of Pope John Paul II. John Paul supported a Pordek message, and he explicitly condemned the legal recognition of gay marriage. These feelings prevailed in 2003 when the Vatican Opposition Unions of the same sex.

In response to the strict Vatican stances, gorgeous people in particular protests during the 1987 visit of John Paul. During his journey, he stopped in multiple cities, but the resistance was more prominent during his period in his presence in San Francisco. San Francisco was reeling from the AIDS epidemic, and during the visit, the Pope was met with activists with signs of protest and participating in candlelight processions and prayer time, in the hope of the age of change.

In the Christian education of the Catholic Church, an official document that defines Catholic beliefs, the Church still sees homosexuals as “fundamental immoral and unlike natural law.” The text says that homosexual inclinations are “objective.”

Christina Tina, a professor at the Department of Theology at the University of Fordham, says that the language used in Christian education to describe homosexuality does not easily translate into daily life.

“You can read” “objective disorder”) as a technical term, but people read it as mainly evil and broken. ” “It is a technical term, but it certainly does not work carefully.”

With his general comments, Pope Francis began changing the narration. Francis called homosexuality a “human truth”, during a May 2024 interview With CBS News’ Norah O’Donnel. He personally met with the Catholic LGBTQ groups, including the new ministry of Debardo, and made it clear that transgender people can be baptized and act as a two.

The possibility of continuing progress

Traina sees the possibility of progress within the church despite the death of Pope Francis, because the positions between daily Catholics have changed.

“These things change on the ground and in practice, then change in the Vatican, and this is the last thing that changes,” said Trier.

Study 2020 From the Williams Institute at the University of California in Los Angeles, it was found that there are approximately 11.3 million adults in the United States, and about 5.3 million of them are religious, including about 1.3 million people of Roman Catholics.

Although 69 % From Americans support the same sex marriage, political figures such as Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic transformation, continue to pressure for traditional family values ​​and support laws that allow religious exemptions to protect LGBTQ. During his campaign for his seat in the US Senate in 2022, one of the laws he said would vote “no” in favor of Respect for the law of marriageAnd that provided federal protection to marry the same sex and marriage between races.

Teresa Thompson is a member of Catholic lesbians In the Church of St. Francis Kazavier in New York. Catholic lesbians were founded in 1995 and have more than 300 members.

Thompson, who grew up Catholicism, began to distance herself from religion during the college, which was by chance when she came out as an example. Although the departure from religion was not because of her sexual life, she felt as if she could not return to Catholicism. This began to shift when Francis adopted a more sympathetic tone of gay people, and Thompson discovered the societies she welcomed.

As Conclave approaches, Thompson hopes that the new Pope will continue the work that Francis started.

Tomson said: “I think there is a feeling of tension, not ascertaining what will happen,” Tomson said. “If we look at the Cardinan College structure, Francis appointed so much that it seems that it seems unlikely to come back, but also, who will say?”

Sister Jenin Gramic, co -founder of the Ministry Ways, believes that the next Pope will reflect Pope Francis Road Instead of retracting his legacy.

“My feeling is that Cardinal voters will elect a person (who will be followed) in the footsteps of Pope Francis,” Gramic said. “So if it is proven true, the changes made by Pope Francis will not be backward.”

In her talks with LGBTQ Catholics, Gramick says she senses a lot of hope in the future, and there is hope for the Pope who will go further than Francis.

“(LGBTQ) people are looking for more changes, and I think the basic change they are looking for is to change the teaching of sexual ethics of the Church,” Gramic said. “Christian education has not been changed yet.”

Watching the side in search of evidence

With the Conclave collection to start, Some Cardinals Who can be competitors are ready to continue the Francis legacy. As CBS News mentioned, it includes:

• Cardinal Peter Erdo, Bishop of Budapest, Hungary
• Kinshasa Archbishop,
• Cardinal Mario Grish, Secretary -General of Bishops
• Cardinal Petro Parolin, Minister of State at the Vatican
• Cardinal Perbatista Bizabala, Latin Patriarch in Jerusalem
• Cardinal Lewis postponed from the Philippines
• Cardinal Matteo Zoubi, Bishop of Bologna, Italy
• Cardinal Anders Errores, head of Stockholm’s bishops
• Cardinal Gerald Cyrine Lacroita from Quebec

Cardinal Grish has called for a more sympathetic language when talking about gay people and talked about the importance of comprehensiveness of all members, including gay people. New ways.

Cardinal Talat also spoke with mercy about the LGBTQ Catholics and was an ally of Francis. Cardinal Zoubi is another competitor that supports Francis’s embrace of the LGBTQ, according to the Ministry Ways.

“I vote for the Cardinal Takel to be the first Filipino door,” Tomson said. “I think in the character and ideas, it is very similar to Francis, and I was living in the Philippines, so I have a special place in my heart for the idea of ​​the Philippine Pope.”

Traina says she also hopes to be a person like Tagle, but notes that predicting the new Pope will be almost impossible.

“It is often difficult to know what (Cardinal) will do when they entered the papacy, because Francis was also a surprise,” said Trier. “Since we have a global college for the Paradox, the list of possibilities is now much longer.”

Although Thompson throws her personal support behind the Cardinal Tag, she urges voters to allocate their political motives while throwing their votes.

“I really hope this is a moment when leaders can practice what they preach,” Tomson said. “In the magnetic spirituality, there is a practice to make decisions through discrimination, (where are you) left … from your prior concepts (and) allowing the Holy Spirit to guide you … I would like to say please try to let the policy go and try to listen to how the Church wants to move forward really.”