As cardinals meet to pick next pope, church remains divided on how accepting Catholic tradition should be
Francis was seen as more inclusive toward 2SLGBTQ+ community — even though he didn't change doctrine
Michael Sennett remembers the moment he sat across from a priest at a church in his hometown of Boston and started to deliver his confession.
Sennett had just turned 17 and had recently tried to kill himself.
After being discharged from hospital, the lifelong Catholic sought out a priest because he was struggling with coming out as transgender and how it fit with his deeply held faith.
"I said I thought being trans was sinful," he recounted to CBC News in an interview by Zoom.
"His response to that was: 'It's not [sinful]. You have to love yourself the way God loves you.'"
That conversation in 2012 not only uplifted Sennett, but also set him on a path to eventually minister to the 2SLGBTQ+ community. Last October, he and a few others met with Pope Francis, speaking for more than an hour.
Francis listened as they shared their experiences, Sennett said, and rubbed the cross that hung from his neck as they retold the darker moments of their journeys.
It was as if Francis was sharing their pain, he said. That kind of empathy is something Sennett hopes the next pope will embrace, too.
Papal vote
As cardinals head into the Sistine Chapel for the conclave on Wednesday to elect Francis's successor, they are surely considering how inclusive the hierarchical Catholic Church should be — and how it should navigate an increasingly divisive issue, not only among Catholics but in broader society at a time of growing political tension.
Throughout his 12-year pontificate, Francis championed the idea the church is a place that should welcome all. He frequently met people from the 2SLGTBQ+ community and as his wooden coffin was carried into the Santa Maria Maggiore basilica for burial, transgender activists were present on the steps leading up to church.
He was seen by some as an ally — but with limits.
Francis did not change the catechism of the Catholic Church, which still considers "homosexual practices" a sin and "intrinsically disordered." But the changes and statements he did make, such as approving the blessing of same-sex unions, were enough to spark criticism from more conservative religious leaders.
In 2023, German Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller called the guidance from the Vatican around blessings for same-sex couples "blasphemy."
Last week, in an interview with the Italian newspaper La Stampa, Müller, who was a student of Francis's predecessor, Benedict XVI, said that the next pope had to be "strong in doctrine," and "determined to counter ideological and power lobbies, including the gay one."
Increasingly divisive
At a time when advocacy groups have reported an increase in transphobic speech and some police organizations have reported a rise in hate crimes targeting sexual orientation and gender identity, Sennett believes the issue has the potential to drive a further wedge between progressive and conservative Catholics.
"I do see why Pope Francis did tread so lightly, but still so boldly," said Sennett, who now works in Newton, Mass., with the Catholic outreach group New Ways Ministry.
"I think LGBT issues, especially transgender awareness and acceptance in the Catholic Church, is very divisive."
Francis's actions contrasted to those of Benedict XVI, who signed a document in 2005 that said men who "present deep-seated homosexual tendencies" should not be priests.
Less than six months after Francis was made pope, he made headlines around the world when he proclaimed "Who am I to judge," when asked by a journalist about the sexual orientation of priests.
That brief statement led to Francis being proclaimed the person of the year by The Advocate, a U.S.-based publication focused on the 2SLGBTQ+ community.
When Italian journalist Marco Grieco, 37, heard Francis make that statement, he felt a sense of acceptance.
"[Francis] broke the taboo of a gay word," he said. "People came out of the closet … and they don't want to go back in for the next pope."
Grieco, who covers 2SLGBTQ+ issues and the Vatican, met Francis in 2022 and says his legacy is complicated. Grieco himself views it with a mix of promise and disappointment.
"His approach was a little ambiguous," Grieco said in an interview with CBC News in St. Peter's Square on April 22.
"He opened the door for the LGBT community inside the church ... but not so wide."
Tension in Catholic Church
In 2023, Francis called "gender ideology" a threat because it sought to erase the differences between the sexes.
While he allowed priests to bless same-sex unions, he was adamant that they could not be compared to a marriage between a man and a woman. In one of his books, entitled Life: My Story Through History, he wrote it was "unacceptable for churches to be subjected to pressure in this matter."
While Francis appointed the vast majority of the cardinals who will be voting in the conclave, Peter Baltutis, an associate professor of history and religious studies at St. Mary's University in Calgary, says there are competing theologies at play.
"It's often been said the Catholic Church is a big tent, and the tent is held together by its tension," he told CBC News in an interview by Zoom.
He said he sees the polarization in his classes, where some students wants to see the church take a more inclusive stance while others believe the outside world is imposing a "woke agenda" on the Catholic Church.
Baltutis, who also holds the Catholic Women's League endowed chair for Catholic studies at the university, describes the church as being akin to a slow-moving oil tanker that can only gradually change course.
He believes Francis's statements and actions on 2SLGBTQ+ issues were thrown out as trial balloons designed to start a conversation. Francis encouraged individual dioceses and churches to think and act at the grassroots level.
Baltutis said it was an approach that attempted to manage the divergent opinions. Those opinions could come out behind the closed doors of the Sistine Chapel, given that this conclave is the most geographically diverse one ever.
"The question around gay rights is really a prescient issue in the Western world, North America, Europe," said Baltutis.
"But in places where the church is growing, in the Global South, Africa, Latin America, Asia … there's a very different cultural understanding of these issues."
Baltutis doesn't expect the church will be changing any doctrine soon, but said these types of issues will be the elephant in the room for whomever the cardinals elect.
"In order for the church to be relevant in the year 2025, it needs to be thinking about and talking about addressing this," he said.
"If a pope were to sort of ... silence this issue, that would also speak volumes."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With files from Jason Ho and Reuters