A Critique of Leo XIV’s Comments on Changing Church Doctrine

“You are in the wrong church, you’re not A TRUE Shepherd, you’re one of many wolfs in sheep’s clothing. If you want to change the centuries of tradition and sound doctrine and sound magister of the HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH, you’re a Protestant reformist modernist…. You believe in a god who accepts sin, but doesn’t accept repentance and penance. You believe in a god who celebrates the sinner and the sin, I’m sorry, this is not my GOD. FROM: A sinner like everyone else, repentant and with a love for the true Church of Christ, which made me return and accept my misery, the Church did not applaud my sin; on the contrary, it made me detest it, hate it and makes me work hard to achieve my SALVATION, which obviously your god could never give to me or to anybody.”

The above quote is one of several posted to Fr. James Martin’s Instagram page, taking the Jesuit priest to task for lauding statements Pope Leo XIV made in an interview with CruxNow.com Senior Correspondent Elise Ann Allen (Sept. 18). Martin is, of course, well known for his support of the LGBTQ+ community and his advocacy for changing Church doctrine on sexual morality.

The quote gives a hint of the controversy the interview sparked. Allen asked the Pope if he would continue the tone set by his predecessor, Francis, regarding LGBTQ+ issues. Leo replied, “I think we have to change attitudes before we even think about changing what the Church says about any given question. I find it highly unlikely, certainly in the near future, that the Church’s doctrine in terms of what the Church teaches about sexuality, what the Church teaches about marriage, [will change]” (brackets in original).

Leo’s comments are troubling in that they easily can be interpreted as: Once Catholics change their attitude toward the Church’s doctrine that bans homosexual acts, the Church can consider changing her doctrine to approve such behavior. Though we cannot expect such a change “in the near future,” at some point the Church could indeed change her doctrine regarding the objective immorality of homosexual acts.

To be fair, here is the exchange in its entirety:

Allen: Just a quick follow up on the LGBTQ+ point, it can be a very ideological issue. However, beyond any ideological views, I think people felt this was just spoken about in a different way, with a different tone, under Francis. What will your own approach be?

Leo XIV: Well, I don’t have a plan at the moment. I was asked about that already a couple of times during these first couple of months, about the LGBT issue. I recall something that a cardinal from the eastern part of the world said to me before I was pope, about “the western world is fixated, obsessed with sexuality.” A person’s identity, for some people, is all about sexual identity, and for many people in other parts of the world, that’s not a primary issue in terms of how we should deal with one another. I confess, that’s on the back of my mind, because, as we’ve seen at the synod, any issue dealing with the LGBTQ questions is highly polarizing within the Church. For now, because of what I’ve already tried to demonstrate and live out in terms of my understanding of being pope at this time in history, I’m trying not to continue to polarize or promote polarization in the Church.

What I’m trying to say is what Francis said very clearly when he would say, “todos, todos, todos.” Everyone’s invited in, but I don’t invite a person in because they are or are not of any specific identity. I invite a person in because they are a son or daughter of God. You’re all welcome, and let’s get to know one another and respect one another. At some point, when specific questions will come up… People want the Church doctrine to change, want attitudes to change. I think we have to change attitudes before we even think about changing what the Church says about any given question. I find it highly unlikely, certainly in the near future, that the Church’s doctrine in terms of what the Church teaches about sexuality, what the Church teaches about marriage, [will change]. (ellipses in original)

Leo followed this up with comments that apparently were intended to mitigate the damage. He said the family is founded on “a man and a woman in solemn commitment, blessed in the sacrament of marriage,” and he criticized the Church in Northern Europe for ritualizing blessings for same-sex couples, which, he said, “goes specifically against the document that Pope Francis approved, Fiducia Supplicans, which basically says, of course we can bless all people, but it doesn’t look for a way of ritualizing some kind of blessing because that’s not what the Church teaches.”

Apparently, Fr. Martin didn’t read this far into the interview. As he did in the wake of Fiducia Supplicans, the Jesuit was quick to exploit Leo’s statements. Recall that the day after that document was issued, Martin arranged a photo-op for The New York Times in which he blessed a same-sex couple. More recently, on the very day Leo’s interview with Allen was published, Martin celebrated with a post on Instagram, saying, “The Holy Father is 100% correct when he says that before anything else, it’s a matter of changing ‘attitudes.’” How will attitudes change? According to Martin, they will change by the so-called culture of encounter, by “coming to know LGBTQ people as family members or friends,” as “nothing changes a person’s attitude to LGBTQ issues faster than their child coming out to them.”

This author has personal experience with the “culture of encounter” and has had to learn to navigate loving and accepting family members who are openly homosexual while remaining faithful to Christ’s teachings. My brother Paul, with whom I was very close growing up, sadly died of AIDS at age 42. I have another close family member who is “married” to her partner, and she, too, is someone I love and respect. It is not easy to walk the path of truly loving persons who are actively engaged in homosexual activity and at the same time witness to the objective, God-given meaning of human sexuality as taught by the Catholic Church.

In the interview, Leo also expressed openness to the ordination of women to the permanent diaconate, which means admitting women to the Sacrament of Holy Orders. He nuanced his approach by saying, “Why would we talk about ordaining women to the diaconate if the diaconate itself is not yet properly understood and properly developed and promoted within the Church?” In other words, now is not the time to ordain women to this office, since the role of the male deacon is not yet fully understood, and in many parts of the world the permanent diaconate is hardly present. Nonetheless, the Pope is basically saying the door could be opened to female ordination, and further study of this issue should go forward. “There are these study groups; the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, which has responsibility for some of those questions,” he said. “They continue to examine the theological background, history, of some of those questions, and we’ll walk with that and see what comes.”

Leo gives the impression that this question isn’t settled, even though, ontologically speaking, according to the nuptial meaning of the covenant of redemption, it is impossible for women to be admitted to Holy Orders. Yet Leo, echoing what he said about Church teaching on sexual morality, said this regarding the female diaconate: “I at the moment don’t have an intention of changing the teaching of the Church on the topic. I think there are some previous questions that have to be asked.” Apparently, Leo believes he has the authority to make such a change. However, to his credit, he demonstrated a certain wariness when he added, “Would we simply be wanting to invite women to become clericalized, and what has that really solved?”

When Leo says things like “at the moment” or “not in the near future,” he is saying Church doctrine could be altered, but neither he nor the Church is ready. Yet no pope, bishop, priest, or layman can say such a thing regarding these topics because, based on the natural law and God’s revelation, neither the Church’s teaching regarding the meaning of human sexuality nor the essence of the sacraments can be altered — not now or ever. The Church cannot — and will not — alter the meaning of sexuality and marriage in order to accommodate, accept, or approve same-sex relationships or homosexual acts. It is fair to say that Leo’s remarks are, at the very least, irresponsible in that they give the impression that such teachings are adaptable to current social mores. Such statements are easily exploited by those, such as Fr. Martin, who agitate for reform.

It is interesting that most secular news outlets reported that Leo is not seeking to change Church doctrine. Yahoo News ran this headline: “Pope Leo Puts the Brake on Church Reforms.” News Nation ran a similar headline: “Pope Leo XIV Says No Major Changes Coming to Catholic Doctrine.” Catholic-oriented media outlets, however, dug a little deeper. At LifeSiteNews.com, for example, Robert Jones offered commentary that was harshly critical. Calling Leo’s statements “deeply inadequate,” he said that “the central points of Catholic teaching on sexual morality — including the sinfulness of homosexual acts, as well as fornication, adultery and others — are not contingent, or matters of probabilities and personal conjecture. They are definitive, grounded in both the natural law and divine revelation, and incapable of alteration. We can know with certainty from reason alone that sexual activity outside of marriage — and thus all sexual activity between persons of the same sex — is contrary to the natural law.”

Perhaps the oddest interpretation came in an article titled “Pope Leo Unleashes a Coded Catholic Broadside Against the Heterodox” by Gavin Ashenden (TheCatholicThing.com, Sept. 22). He writes, “The code is designed to break [Leo’s] heterodox opponents, but not to eviscerate them. It is a triumph of pastoral gentleness and credal vigour. But the exercise to read his mind needs a little code-breaking. The news is good. It’s more than good. It’s excellent…. [Leo] is using the language and preoccupations of the progressives, but rooting the words in the magisterium, and so emptying the rhetoric of heterodox velocity. The ideas can’t take off like a revolutionary firework and wreak havoc. They are tethered to the teaching of the Church.” How Ashenden arrived at this conclusion is quite perplexing. Regarding the ordination of women to the diaconate, he provides an inventive spin on the Pope’s words:

[Leo] gives with one hand something that costs him nothing: “I hope to continue in the footsteps of Francis, including in appointing women to some leadership roles at different levels in the Church’s life, recognizing the gifts that women have that can contribute to the life of the Church in many ways.” There is no reason why competent women professionals should not enrich the organizational and intellectual or theological life of the Church. But as everyone knows, ordination is the real goal for the heterodox. The odd chairwomanship of a committee is and never can be enough. So, Pope Leo promises he has no intention of changing the Church’s teaching (forget the “at the moment” that is a small piece of therapeutic soothing for the feminists to help them get through each day).

So, Leo is just stringing the feminists along!

As for the LGBTQ+ agenda, Ashenden believes Leo delivered “a political knock-out blow.” He suggests that Leo’s “highly unlikely” line has the hallmark of classic understatement. For those not blessed with the ability to decode Leo, this actually means impossible.

Ashenden might be correct that this is what Leo meant, but it isn’t what he said. Why must we have to break the code in a pope’s public statements when his God-given mission is to clearly enunciate the truths of the Catholic faith? If that’s the case, then anything a pope says is subject to anyone’s interpretation, and most people will interpret him according to their ideological allegiances. That’s precisely what Fr. Martin did. Ashenden’s analysis is reminiscent of the many attempts commentators made during the previous pontificate to rehabilitate Francis. They ended up twisting themselves into pretzels trying to square Bergoglio’s ambiguity with Catholic orthodoxy. Is it too much to expect pontiffs to speak with clarity?

The question arises: Why did Leo make such remarks? The clue lies in something else he said in the interview. Addressing the LGBTQ+ question, he cautioned, “For now, because of what I’ve already tried to demonstrate and live out in terms of my understanding of being pope at this time in history, I’m trying not to continue to polarize or promote polarization in the Church.” Jonathan Liedl offered this explanation in the National Catholic Register (Sept. 18): “Baseball fans know a good umpire isn’t the star of the show. He’s there to make sure everyone gets a fair swing of the bat, call base runners ‘out’ or ‘safe,’ and correctly interpret the rules to ensure the game’s integrity is preserved…. Leo XIV made clear that he sees his own role in a similar vein. With both the Catholic Church and the world riven by deep division and seemingly zero-sum conflicts, the U.S.-born Pontiff sees his job as being in the middle of all the action. Not to solve every problem or to advance his personal preferences, but instead to listen widely, promote unity and, above all else, to proclaim the Gospel.”

Perhaps Leo will come to be known as the Pope of Appeasement (as Francis’s fans fancied him the Pope of Mercy), a man of “the middle,” giving something to each opposite pole in the Church — the Martins seeking change and the devout Catholics who believe in, rely on, and defend the Church’s Deposit of Faith. In a sense, Leo’s line that “attitudes must change before doctrine can change” is his way of throwing a bone to the disaffected who find the doctrines of the Church repugnant and alienating — a way to give them hope when there is no hope.

Be that as it may, even to insinuate that changes could be made in the right circumstances, and that the Church of the future could be open to such error, does little to assure the devout that Leo has their back. If it’s a matter of waiting for “attitudes to change” before doctrine can be changed, let’s note that some attitudes have already significantly shifted. After all, 80 percent of Catholics reject the Church’s teaching against artificial contraception, and recent polls indicate that barely 30 percent of Catholics believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Should these teachings, too, be up for revision?

The God-given responsibility of any bishop, and certainly the bishop of Rome, head of the universal Church, is to protect and faithfully expound the teachings of Christ. This is affirmed by many documents of the Church. Pastor Aeternus, Vatican I’s “First Dogmatic Constitution on the Church of Christ” (1870), clearly teaches that “the Holy Spirit was promised to the successors of Peter not so that they might, by his revelation, make known some new doctrine, but that, by his assistance, they might religiously guard and faithfully expound the revelation or deposit of faith transmitted by the apostles…. This gift of truth and never-failing faith was therefore divinely conferred on Peter and his successors in this See so that they might discharge their exalted office for the salvation of all, and so that the whole flock of Christ might be kept away by them from the poisonous food of error and be nourished with the sustenance of heavenly doctrine” (ch. 4, nos. 6, 7).

And just this summer, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith issued this statement: “The pastors of the Church have a duty to preserve in its integrity the deposit of faith entrusted to them by Christ. To fulfill this task, throughout history, the Popes have used various instruments, and various departments have been established with the aim of facilitating the governance of the Church.”

I don’t believe Leo’s troubling comments should cause us to worry that the Church is in for a repeat of the rocky pontificate of Francis. Leo has given several indications that he is a clearer thinker and a more careful speaker. We can and should still hope for a good pontificate. But it would be best for the Pope — indeed, any pope — not to grant interviews to the media. If Leo feels he must do so, then reporters should be required to submit their questions ahead of time, thus giving the Pope the time and space to pray and carefully discern his responses, rather than being put in the position of having to speak extemporaneously on controversial issues facing the People of God.

I pray for Leo every day. I ask God to give him the will and the courage needed to proclaim the Catholic faith in all its beautiful fullness. I encourage you to do the same.

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