During his return flight from a four-nation tour of Africa, Pope Leo XIV offered a clear perspective on the Church’s moral priorities, stressing that questions of justice, equality, and peace should take precedence over debates centered on sexual matters.
In a press conference aboard the papal plane on Thursday, the first U.S. pope responded to a question about blessings for same-sex couples by reaffirming support for a 2023 decision by the late Pope Francis. That decision permitted pastors to offer informal, case-by-case blessings outside of any ritual service. However, Pope Leo indicated he did not favor formalizing such blessings further.
“The unity or division of the Church should not revolve around sexual matters,” Leo said, according to Reuters. “I believe there are much greater and more important issues such as justice, equality… that would all take priority before that particular issue.” He added, “To go beyond that today, I think that the topic can cause more disunity than unity.”
The pontiff, who is 70 years old, made these comments as he reflected on his recent journey through Africa, where he delivered firm denunciations of despotism and war. Experts consulted by Reuters suggested that this moment on the flight home could hold greater long-term significance for the Church’s 1.4 billion members than the more widely reported elements of the trip.
Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of Dignity USA, a group that supports LGBTQ Catholics, described the pope’s remarks as “a very significant and overdue reorientation of priorities,” according to the Reuters report.
Rev. James Keenan, a Jesuit priest and academic at Boston College who founded a global network of Catholic academics focused on ethical issues, called the approach new for the global Church. “This is clearly a prudential judgment by the pontiff… that issues of blessing gay marriage ought not eclipse more immediate challenges of dictatorships and war,” Keenan said, as reported by Reuters. He noted that the pope is “stating that the Vatican has a hierarchy of concerns and the perception that matters of sexuality have singular priority of place is not the case.”
The Catholic Church continues to teach that sexual relationships outside of heterosexual marriage are sinful and that individuals with same-sex attractions are called to chastity. On his 2009 trip to Africa, the late Pope Benedict XVI drew international attention when he stated that the Church could not relax its ban on condom use, even in the context of fighting HIV/AIDS transmission, arguing that it would only “increase the problem” ethically.
Pope Leo’s comments echo aspects of the pontificate of Pope Francis, who served for 12 years until his death last April. Francis often highlighted issues of justice and famously responded in 2013 to questions about a gay priest by saying, “If a person is gay and is seeking the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge them?”
David Gibson, a Vatican expert and academic at Fordham University, told Reuters that Leo’s remarks represent “Leo’s ‘Who am I to judge?’ moment.” Gibson added that the pope “is about peace and justice and sees those moral teachings as equally important as sexual ethics.”
Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, another group supporting LGBTQ Catholics, praised the response. “He listed other matters, more social matters — justice, equality, freedom — as being of greater moral concern,” DeBernardo said, according to Reuters. “For years, Catholic advocates for LGBTQ+ people have been saying the same thing.”
Throughout his Africa visit, Pope Leo focused on themes of peace amid conflict and inequality, while also facing public criticism from U.S. President Donald Trump. Catholic observers note that the pontiff’s emphasis on a broader hierarchy of moral concerns seeks to foster greater unity within the Church by directing attention toward pressing global challenges such as war, poverty, and injustice, without altering core doctrinal teachings on human sexuality and the sanctity of marriage.
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