A member of a UK-based gay Catholic group said to be the first to have met the Pope in Rome has recalled his “warmth” and hailed the “radical transformation” in welcoming everyone into the Church.
Members of LGBT+ Catholics Westminster shook hands with and had their picture taken with Francis by the Vatican photopaper in an “amazing” surprise encounter in 2019.
The group’s secretary recalled how the Pope had told them, in a brief meeting after a morning audience in St Peter’s Square, that it was “wonderful” to hear they were an officially recognised group.
Martin Pendergast, secretary of the group’s pastoral council, told the PA news agency: “It was just amazing. I mean, we couldn’t believe it was happening.
“It was a brief encounter but there was a warmth, and he shook hands with everybody.
“When I explained that we were an official ministry of the diocese he said ‘that’s wonderful, that’s wonderful’.”
Asked about the significance of the occasion, Mr Pendergast – an ordained priest who no longer carries out active ministry – said he believed it was the first time an LGBT group had met and been pictured with the Pope.
He said: “He’d met various individuals, always on a very, very private kind of basis, but the fact that this was a public occasion, and photographs were being taken by the Vatican photographer, and of course, when the photographs were made available, they went viral and provoked all sorts of reactions from right wing Catholics across the world.”
Six years earlier, in his first year as head of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis was reported to have indicated he would not judge priests for their sexual orientation, saying: “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?”
The comment made headlines, standing in stark contrast to his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, who signed a document in 2005 that said men with deep-rooted homosexual tendencies should not be priests.
Mr Pendergast said Francis’ remark showed a change in attitude.
He said: “I certainly remember the statement.
“The ‘who am I to judge?’ really was the first time that a pope had even used the g-word. So he was the first Pope to actually use the word gay.
“So even the way he speaks has been a radical transformation, and some would say, a bit of a revolution as well, compared with some of his predecessors.”
He was a Pope focused on meeting people and engaging with them, rather than being too “bothered about the theories, the doctrines, the teachings”, Mr Pendergast said.
His approach was a “grassroots” one, to “meet people and then to think about where the doctrine, where the theology, might be beginning to change or develop”, he added.
In December 2023, the Pope formally approved allowing priests to bless same-sex couples, as long as such blessings do not give the impression of a marriage ceremony, reversing a 2021 policy by the Vatican’s doctrine office, which barred such blessings on the grounds that God “does not and cannot bless sin”.
Following a backlash from those opposed to the decision, Francis spoke of solitude being the price to pay in the face of disagreement.
Asked during a television interview if he felt alone afterwards, Francis replied: “You take a decision and solitude is a price you have to pay.”
He added: “Sometimes decisions are not accepted. But in most cases, when you don’t accept a decision, it’s because you don’t understand.”
He warned the danger is that when people who do not understand something refuse to enter into a “brotherly discussion” and instead harden their hearts, resist and “make ugly conclusions”.
He added: “This has happened with these last decisions about blessing everyone. The Lord blesses everyone.”
Mr Pendergast said the Pope had “trodden fairly carefully” when it came to change in the Church but encouraged a more welcoming attitude.
He said: “I think he’s trodden fairly carefully, emphasising not so much a change in teaching documents, but emphasising the pastoral practice, the pastoral welcome, the pastoral attitude, has to be much more generous.”
He added that he had had “a number of priests” making contact to ask for resources to do blessings for same-sex couples.
“So it’s had an impact that a lot of priests now feel that they can do it without feeling that they’re going to be condemned or thrown out of the priesthood as a result,” he said.
“So there’s been this kind of change of atmosphere in that regard.”
Last year, an apology was issued on Francis’ behalf over the use of language seen as homophobic after a remark said to have been made behind closed doors to Italian bishops was widely reported by Italian media.
The Pope was said to have used the term “frociaggine”, considered derogatory, when answering no to a question on whether gay men should be admitted to seminaries to train for the priesthood.
At the time a Vatican spokesman said: “The Pope never intended to offend or express himself in homophobic terms, and he extends his apologies to those who were offended by the use of a term that was reported by others.”
