Pope Leo XIV signals no new ground for LGBTQ+ Catholics

Pope Leo XIV signaled Thursday that he supports the Vatican’s existing position allowing informal blessings for same-sex couples, while rejecting efforts to formalize those blessings in ways that resemble marriage rites.

In his first direct public comments on the issue, the first U.S.-born pope said the Vatican had already warned German bishops not to go beyond what Pope Francis permitted in 2023, when Francis approved spontaneous pastoral blessings for same-sex couples but stopped short of endorsing any liturgical rite resembling marriage.

According to a report by National Catholic Reporter, Leo made the remarks during an airborne news conference on Thursday following an 11-day tour of North and Central Africa.

A reporter aboard the papal plane asked Leo his thoughts about the 2023 decision by Cardinal Reinhard Marx of Munich-Freising to issue a guide for blessings of people in his diocese who engaged in relationships outside of the Catholic rite of sacramental marriage, which includes same-sex couples.

Related: Pope Leo XIV will continue Francis's acceptance of LGBTQ+ Catholics

The pope said officials at the Vatican spoke to the German bishops to make clear their disagreement with the formalized blessing of same-sex couples "beyond what was specifically, if you will, allowed for by Pope Francis in saying that all people receive blessings," said Pope Leo.

"Homosexuals have a right to be a part of the family," Pope Francis said in 2020. "They’re children of God and have a right to a family. Nobody should be thrown out, or be made miserable because of it."

In 2021, five months after those remarks made international headlines, the Vatican clarified official church policy on same-sex blessings.

The Vatican declared it did not have the power to bless same-sex unions. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the church’s office on matters of orthodoxy, said that while LGBTQ+ people are welcome in the church, same-sex unions do not reflect church teaching on marriage and therefore cannot receive a formal blessing.

Related: Pope Leo says blessing same-sex weddings is 'not what the Church teaches'

The office wrote that “it is not licit to impart a blessing on relationships, or partnerships, even stable, that involve sexual activity outside of marriage.” Because the church defines marriage as between “a man and a woman,” same-sex unions were excluded under that policy.

In 2023, however, Francis approved a new Vatican document making clear that priests may offer informal, spontaneous blessings to “couples in irregular situations and same-sex couples,” while still prohibiting any formal ceremony resembling the Catholic sacrament of matrimony.

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"First of all, I think it's very important that the unity or division of the church should not revolve around sexual matters," Leo told reporters in English on Thursday. "We tend to think that when the church is talking about morality that the only issue of morality is sexual. And in reality I believe there are greater and more important issues such as justice, equality, freedom of men and women, freedom of religion that would all take priority before that particular issue."

"To go beyond that today, I think that the topic can cause more disunity than unity," Leo said. "We should look for ways to build our unity on Jesus Christ and what Jesus Christ teaches."