Transgender people can be baptised into the Catholic Church and be godparents and witnesses at weddings, Pope Francis has said.
The Vatican decreed that a transgender person could be baptised as long as there was “no risk of causing a public scandal or disorientation among the faithful”.
A same-sex couple could have an adopted child or one obtained through a surrogate mother baptised if there was “a well-founded hope that it would be educated in the Catholic religion”, the Pope said.
Francis, 86, has tried to make the Church more welcoming to LGBT people without changing religious teachings, including one saying that same-sex attraction is not sinful but same-sex acts are.
In July, he told a transgender person: “Even if we are sinners, he (God) draws near to help us. The Lord loves us as we are, this is God’s crazy love.”
Bishop Jose Negri of Santo Amaro in Brazil sent the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith six questions in July regarding LGBT people and their participation in baptism and matrimony.
‘Pastoral prudence’
The Pope approved the answers on October 31, which were published online on Wednesday.
Transgender people could be godparents at a baptism as well as a witness at a Church wedding, at the discretion of the local priest, who should exercise “pastoral prudence” in his decision, the Vatican said.
Asked if a person in a same-sex relationship could be a godparent, the Vatican said that person had to “lead a life that conforms to the faith”.
The doctrinal office said a person in a same-sex relationship could also be a witness at a Catholic wedding, citing current Church legislation which contained no prohibition against it.
“This is an important step forward in the Church seeing transgender people not only as people (in a Church where some say they don’t really exist) but as Catholics,” said Father James Martin, a prominent Jesuit priest and supporter of LGBT rights in the Church.
However, the decree could prove controversial in the United States, where the national conference of Catholic bishops has rejected the concept of gender transition.