Gay man says pope told him, ‘God made you like this’

A gay man who survived abuse from a Catholic priest in Chile said Pope Francis told him that his sexual orientation “doesn’t matter” to him and that “God made you like this.”

Juan Carlos Cruz, who met with the pope in late April, relayed details of their conversation to the Spanish newspaper El Pais.

“Juan Carlos, that you are gay doesn’t matter,” Cruz said Francis told him, according to Catholic news site Crux. “God made you like this and loves you like this, and it doesn’t matter to me. The pope loves you like this. You have to be happy with who you are.”

Cruz said his sexuality came up in conversation because Chilean bishops had sought to use it to frame him as untrustworthy, a source of hurt he shared with the pope.

The Vatican, which does not comment on the pope’s private comments as a policy, declined to confirm or deny the remarks to multiple news outlets.

The remarks recalled Francis’ much-discussed comment on gay priests in 2013.

“If someone is gay, and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?” the pope told reporters at the time. “They shouldn’t be marginalized. The tendency (to be homosexual) is not the problem.”

Christopher Lamb, Vatican correspondent of London-based Catholic publication The Tablet, told The Guardian that the remarks now attributed to Francis go further, signaling a shift.

“It goes beyond ‘who am I to judge?’ to ‘you are loved by God,’ ” Lamb told the newspaper. “I don’t think he has changed church teaching, but he’s demonstrating an affirmation of gay Catholics.”

Additionally, a transgender man met with Pope Francis in 2015, according to the National Catholic Reporter.