Pope Leo’s years-old restatement of Catholic social teaching has ‘alarmed LGBTQ+ Catholics,’ according to the Guardian.
Welcome back to Forgotten Fact Checks. This week, we look at the media reaction to Pope Leo’s past comments on the “homosexual lifestyle,” and cover more media misses.
The Media Learns About Catholicism
The Guardian can’t believe a pope would follow the teachings of the Catholic Church.
“Unearthed comments from new pope alarm LGBTQ+ Catholics,” the outlet reported.
“Previous negative remarks by Pope Leo XIV about ‘homosexual lifestyle’ at odds with papacy of Pope Francis,” a subheading read.
The Guardian reports that “After years of sympathetic and inclusive comments from Pope Francis, LGBTQ+ Catholics expressed concern . . . about hostile remarks made more than a decade ago by Father Robert Prevost, the new Pope Leo XIV.”
The remarks in question were made during a 2012 address to the world synod of bishops.
“Western mass media is extraordinarily effective in fostering within the general public enormous sympathy for beliefs and practices that are at odds with the Gospel — for example abortion, homosexual lifestyle, euthanasia,” he said at the time.
In fact, The Guardian effectively proved a point the now-pope made at the time; he said mass media has fostered so much “sympathy for anti-Christian lifestyles choices” that “when people hear the Christian message it often inevitably seems ideological and emotionally cruel.”
“Catholic pastors who preach against the legalization of abortion or the redefinition of marriage are portrayed as being ideologically driven, severe and uncaring,” he said.
The View co-host Sunny Hostin was on the same page as The Guardian, saying she is “concerned” for the LGBT community after seeing the pope’s comments from 13 years ago.
“I’m a devout Catholic,” Hostin said. “Look, I always think it’s exciting, to watch the conclave and look for the white smoke and the black smoke and just the ceremony of it and, you know, during these very trying times in our country, we certainly need spiritual leadership, because of some of the things that we’re experiencing. I’m a little concerned about this choice for the LGBTQ+ community.”
“I think that Pope Francis certainly made great changes in terms of embracing the LGBTQ+ community and extending blessings to the community, and I hope that this pope doesn’t roll back the-” she said before she was interrupted by her co-hosts who pointed out that the comments were made many years ago.
Pope Francis, who died last month at the age of 88, had softened the Vatican’s stance on same-sex unions, issuing guidance that allows priests to bless same-sex couples, in an effort to broaden “the classical understanding” of pastoral blessings.
As long as homosexual individuals don’t conflate a blessing with the ritual of marriage, “an exhaustive moral analysis should not be placed as a precondition for conferring” a blessing, the document says.
Still, marriage is an “exclusive, stable and indissoluble union between a man and a woman, naturally open to conceiving children,” Francis wrote in a 2023 letter. “For this reason, the Church avoids all kinds of rites or sacramentals that could contradict this conviction and imply that it is recognizing as a marriage something that is not.”
He did, however, insist upon demonstrating pastoral charity to all people.
“Defense of the objective truth is not the only expression of that charity, which is also made up of kindness, patience, understanding, tenderness, encouragement,” the pope said. “For that reason, pastoral prudence must adequately discern whether there are forms of blessing, requested by one or several people, that do not transmit a mistaken conception of marriage.”
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, meanwhile, had her own liberal agenda for the new pope.
Pelosi said she hopes the new pontiff will be outspoken in opposing President Trump’s mass deportations.
“This new pope is said to be acutely aware of conditions forcing migration, of the vulnerabilities of migrants,” MSNBC’s Chris Jansing said to Pelosi. “Do you think that at this moment, when so many people are looking to him, he could be impactful as a moral and ethical voice on that issue that we’re dealing with, when so many people are being deported or fear it?”
“I certainly hope so,” Pelosi replied.
Headline Fail of the Week
Vanity Fair has found an unlikely situation to add to the list of things for which MAGA is to blame: “Why Are Americans So Obsessed With Protein? Blame MAGA.”
The magazine says the “manosphere” has contributed to the “protein mania” that has been building over the last several decades.
President Trump, it goes on to add, is at the “helm” of the “manosphere,” thereby making MAGA responsible for Americans’ desire to get more protein in their diets.
Media Misses