ROME – In a wide-ranging interview given for a new biography on him, Pope Leo XIV has said that his approach to LGBTQ Catholics will be similar to that of his predecessor: an attitude of welcome without changing church teaching.

“What I’m trying to say is what Francis said very clearly when he would say, “todos, todos, todos.” Everyone’s invited in, but I don’t invite a person in because they are or are not of any specific identity. I invite a person in because they are a son or daughter of God,” the pope said.

He made his remarks to Crux Senior Correspondent Elise Ann Allen in the second of two wide-ranging interviews for her new biography of him, León XIV: ciudadano del mundo, misionero del siglo XXI, or “Leo XIV: Citizen of the World, Missionary of the XXI Century,” published Thursday with Penguin Peru.

Pope Leo gave two separate interviews for the book, for a total of around three hours of conversation. The first took place July 10, in his summer residence at Castel Gandolfo, and the second was conducted July 30, in his apartment inside the Vatican’s Piazza Sant’Uffizio.

In the second of the two interviews, which forms the final chapter of the book, Leo said that currently. he doesn’t have a specific plan for engagement of the LGBTQ+ community, but stressed the importance of inclusion while also upholding the traditional family as based on a marriage between a man and a woman.

He called out what he said can be a western “obsession” with sexuality, saying a fellow cardinal from the global east during the Synod of Bishops on Synodality convened by Pope Francis had lamented that “the western world is fixated, obsessed with sexuality.”

“A person’s identity, for some people, is all about sexual identity, and for many people in other parts of the world, that’s not a primary issue in terms of how we should deal with one another,” Pope Leo said.

He admitted that this comment remains “on the back of my mind, because, as we’ve seen at the synod, any issue dealing with the LGBTQ questions is highly polarizing within the Church.”

Leo said he is “trying not to continue to polarize or promote polarization in the church,” but stated clearly that he is trying to promote the attitude adopted by Pope Francis that, “Everyone’s invited in, but I don’t invite a person in because they are or are not of any specific identity.”

 

 

“You’re all welcome, and let’s get to know one another and respect one another,” and eventually other specific issues will come up and be dealt with, he said.

Pope Leo noted that many people want the church to change its doctrine on the issue of homosexuality, but voiced his belief that, “we have to change attitudes before we even think about changing what the Church says about any given question.”

“I find it highly unlikely, certainly in the near future, that the church’s doctrine in terms of what the church teaches about sexuality, what the Church teaches about marriage, [will change],” he said.

Leo said he intends, “as did Pope Francis when he was pope,” to continue speaking about the value of the family as “being a man and a woman in solemn commitment, blessed in the sacrament of marriage.”

“Even to say that, I understand some people will take that badly,” he said, and criticized church groups in Northern Europe who he said are already organizing ritual blessings of “people who love one another” as a means of endorsing same-sex unions.

These actions, he said, go “specifically against the document that Pope Francis approved, Fiducia Supplicans, which basically says, of course we can bless all people, but it doesn’t look for a way of ritualizing some kind of blessing because that’s not what the Church teaches.”

“That doesn’t mean those people are bad people, but I think it’s very important to understand how to accept others who are different than we are, how to accept people who make choices in their life and to respect them,” he said.

Leo admitted that the LGBTQ+ issue becomes hot-button with calls to formally recognize same-sex marriage or approve of transgenderism.

“The individuals will be accepted and received,” he said, saying priests who regularly hear confessions will have heard from “all kinds of people” with “ all kinds of states of life and choices that are made” and will not judge, but that for the time being, “the Church’s teaching will continue as it is.”

Jesuit Father James Martin, Editor-at-large for America Magazine and an advocate for LGBTQ+ Catholics, praised Pope Leo’s approach to the issue as “very much along the lines of Pope Francis’s response, which I find very hopeful.”

“The Holy Father is for a church that welcomes “todos, todos, todos,” but is also careful about not challenging current church teaching on sexuality,” Martin said, noting that Pope Leo “is correct that LGBTQ people are still a highly polarizing issue in the Catholic Church.”

This was obvious in the treatment of the issue during the Synod of Bishops on Synodality, he said, saying what stood out to him about Leo’s remarks was the pontiff’s desire for people to get to know and respect one another.

When it comes to the LGBTQ+ community, this “is still a challenge in many parts of the church,” he said.

Martin also praised the pope’s use of the term “LGBT” and “LGBTQ,” calling it “a step forward,” considering many during the Rome-based synod discussions were adverse to using the term.

Based on Pope Leo’s remarks in Allen’s biography and on his own private conversation with the pontiff during a recent private meeting in Rome, Martin said his sense “is that Pope Leo’s approach to LGBTQ Catholics is a continuation of Pope Francis’s approach, which is all to the good.”

Pope Leo in his response to a question about the LGBTQ+ issue, in addition to insisting on an attitude of welcome and respect while not changing church teaching, said that “what they call the traditional family” must be supported.

“The family is father, mother, and children. I think that the role of the family in society, which has at times suffered in recent decades, once again has to be recognized, strengthened,” he said, wondering aloud whether the polarization dividing modern society is due in part to the fact that many grew up in a poor family dynamic.

Families are the first place where individuals learn how to love and respect one another, and how to live with and tolerate others who think differently while also forming “bonds of communion,” the pope said.

“That’s the family. If we take away that basic building block it becomes very difficult to learn that in other ways,” he said.

Leo said he believes strongly that he is who he is today because he had “ a wonderful relationship with my father and my mother. They had a very happy married life for over 40 years.”

“Even today people comment on this, even with my brothers. We’re still very close, even though one is far on one end politically, we’re in different places,” he said, saying his strong and healthy family life growing up “has been an extremely important factor of who I am and how I’m even able to be who I am right now.”

Follow Elise Ann Allen on X: @eliseannallen