AP Members of the LGBTQ+ Catholics and their families who joined a Holy Year pilgrimage to Rome walk through the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican in 2025.

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican is sending new signals about how it intends to minister to LGBTQ+ Catholics in the Pope Leo XIV era, with signs of openness and limitations after Pope Francis ushered in a notable welcome during his 12-year pontificate.

Catholic LGBTQ+ advocates cheered this week when a Vatican working group released a report featuring the testimony of two gay, married Catholics who spoke openly about their sexuality, faith and how the Catholic Church’s negative teaching on homosexuality had hurt them.

Additionally, Leo made clear during a recent airborne news conference that he believed the church’s teachings on social justice, equality and freedom were far more important than its teaching on sexual morality, suggesting he doesn’t intend to prioritize the issue.

At that same news conference, though, Leo indicated he will go no further than Francis on the contentious matter of same-sex blessings. The Vatican has recently renewed its opposition to any local efforts to deviate from the Holy See stance.

For the Rev. James Martin, an American Jesuit who has spearheaded the church’s outreach to the LGBTQ+ community in the U.S., the developments signal strong continuity with Francis.

“If the Catholic Church has begun to listen to LGBTQ Catholics as part of its methodology, the church has already moved forward in a significant way,” he wrote recently.

But the signals have prompted criticism from conservatives, who have stressed official Catholic teaching — unchanged during even Francis’ pontificate — that says homosexual activity is “intrinsically disordered.”

The Vatican working group report summarized the work of experts studying controversial topics that emerged after Francis’ yearslong reform effort. The report has no binding value and is merely a synthesis of deliberations. It’s not clear what, if anything, Leo will do with it.

The testimony of the gay men, contained in annexes published on the Vatican’s synod website, featured moving accounts of how one, from Portugal, came to terms with his homosexuality and married his husband. The man also recounted how he sometimes struggled with his faith because of insensitive remarks from a Catholic spiritual director and forced “conversion therapy,” the scientifically discredited practice of using therapy to “convert” LGBTQ+ people to heterosexuality or traditional gender expectations.

The other testimony, from an American, criticized the therapy he went through and counseling he received from a Catholic pastoral group, Courage, that seeks to help people with same-sex attraction live chastely.

“My sexuality isn’t a perversion, disorder, or cross; it’s a gift from God,” the person wrote.