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The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
Robert Mackey

Unearthed comments from new pope alarm LGBTQ+ Catholics

Men in colorful robes smiling
Pope Leo XIV greeting the crowd after being elected by the conclave on 8 May 2025 in the Vatican City. Photograph: Ivan Romano/Getty Images

After years of sympathetic and inclusive comments from Pope Francis, LGBTQ+ Catholics expressed concern on Thursday about hostile remarks made more than a decade ago by Father Robert Prevost, the new Pope Leo XIV, in which he condemned what he called the “homosexual lifestyle” and “the redefinition of marriage” as “at odds with the Gospel”.

In a 2012 address to the world synod of bishops, the man who now leads the church said that “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”.

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