Leo: Let's Not Let 'Sexual Matters' Define the Church

Pope Leo is recalibrating what he thinks Catholics should be arguing about—and it's not sex. Wrapping up a four-country tour of Africa marked by his criticism of dictators and war, the first US-born pope told reporters that internal Church battles shouldn't center on sexual issues, including same-sex marriage, reports Reuters. "The unity or division of the Church should not revolve around sexual matters," he said. "I believe there are much greater and more important issues such as justice, equality... that would all take priority before that particular issue."

Leo backed a 2023 move by the late Pope Francis that lets priests offer informal, case-by-case blessings to same-sex couples, but he drew a line at going further, warning that additional steps risk "more disunity than unity." The Catholic Church still teaches that sex outside heterosexual marriage is sinful and calls on gay Catholics to embrace chastity, but some theologians say Leo is signaling a shift in emphasis, not doctrine. Supporters of LGBTQ Catholics welcomed the comments. Marianne Duddy-Burke of DignityUSA called them "a very significant and overdue reorientation of priorities," while Francis DeBernardo of New Ways Ministry noted that advocates have long argued issues like justice, equality, and freedom deserve greater moral weight.

Boston College ethicist Rev. James Keenan said Leo's remarks clarify that sexuality does not hold "singular priority" in Vatican thinking, framing them as a strategic choice to keep questions like dictatorships and war at the forefront. Writing at the Guardian, Bill McKibben sees Leo as using his pulpit, particularly in his rebuke of the war in Iran, to give rise to "a genuine and global theological debate. Led by Pope Leo but extending across Christian denominations, it's producing the sudden recognition that a kind of progressive Christianity long given over for dead seems to be stirring." (Leo on Monday welcomed the first female Archbishop of Canterbury, who would not be allowed to be ordained in the Catholic church.)