Pope Francis’
reported comments to a gay man that “God made you like this,” and the pontiff ’s affirming words are embraced by the LGBT community as another sign of Francis’ desire to make gay people feel welcome and loved in the Catholic Church.
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis’ reported comments to a gay man that “God made you like this” have been embraced by the LGBT community as another sign of Francis’ desire to make gay people feel welcome and loved in the Catholic Church.
Juan Carlos Cruz, the main whistleblower in Chile’s clerical sex abuse and cover-up scandal, said Monday he spoke to Francis about his homosexuality during their recent meeting at the Vatican. The pope invited Cruz and other victims of a Chilean predator priest to discuss their cases last month.
Cruz said he told Francis how Chile’s bishops used his sexual orientation as a weapon to try to discredit him, and of the pain the personal attacks had caused him.
“He said, ‘Look Juan Carlos, the pope loves you this way. God made you like this and he loves you,’ ” Cruz told The Associated Press.
The Vatican declined to confirm or deny the remarks in keeping with its policy not to comment on the pope’s private conversations. Church teaching says gays should be respected, loved and not discriminated against, but considers homosexual activity “intrinsically disordered.” Francis, though, has sought to make the church more welcoming to gays, most famously with his 2013 comment “Who am I to judge?”
As a result, some commentators downplayed the significance of the comments to Cruz, saying they merely were in line with Francis’ pastoral-minded attitude and not in any way a challenge to current doctrine.
Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, which advocates for equality for LGBT Catholics, said the pope’s comments were “tremendous” and would do a lot of good.
“It would do a lot better if he would make these statements publicly, because LGBT people need to hear that message from religious leaders, from Catholic leaders,” he said.
The Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit whose book “Building a Bridge” called for the church to find new pastoral ways of ministering to gays, noted that the pope’s comments were in a private conversation, not a public pronouncement. But Martin said they were nevertheless significant.
“The pope is saying what every reputable biologist and psychologist will tell you, which is that people do not choose their sexual orientation,” Martin said in a telephone interview.