Pope Francis — "If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to ju…"
If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?
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More from Pope Francis
"I’ll tell you something. I don’t watch television. It’s been 25 years since I’ve watched television. It's not a vow, but I decided it on a certain moment when I felt that it didn't do me any good."
"It is not a good thing when priests become rigid. Rigidity is a sign of something bad. It is a sign of a lack of freedom, and that is a sign of spiritual worldliness."
"The Church is not a customs office."
"If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge them?"
"The globalization of indifference has taken from us the ability to weep."
About Pope Francis (born 1936)
First Latin American and Jesuit pope (2013-), who has steered the Catholic Church toward pastoral inclusion on LGBTQ pastoral care, divorced Catholics, and climate. Closely associated with Pope John XXIII (the Vatican II reformer pope) and Cardinal Walter Kasper (his theological ally on pastoral reform). For an intellectual contrast, see Cardinal Raymond Burke, American traditionalist cardinal, former head of the Vatican Apostolic Signatura — Burke is the public face of Catholic traditionalism that views Francis's pastoral approach as doctrinally dangerous — he has formally challenged Amoris Laetitia and other Francis reforms.
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Understanding this quote
What it means
This quote rejects religious authority as a moral gatekeeper over sexual identity. It argues that sincere faith and good intentions — not conformity to traditional sexual norms — define a person's standing before God. By turning the question back on himself, Francis displaces judgment from human institutions to the divine, inviting compassion over condemnation and fundamentally reframing how faith communities should engage with LGBTQ+ believers seeking belonging.
Relevance to Pope Francis
Bergoglio, elected in 2013 as the first Latin American Jesuit pope, consistently described the Church as a 'field hospital' prioritizing mercy over doctrine. Raised in Buenos Aires, his pastoral instincts favored direct human encounter over theological rigidity. Though he maintained traditional Church teaching on marriage, he deliberately broke from his predecessors' combative rhetoric on homosexuality, reflecting his core conviction that humble accompaniment of struggling people must define institutional posture.
The era
Spoken in July 2013, weeks after the US Supreme Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act and as same-sex marriage expanded across Europe and the Americas. The Catholic Church was also navigating deep credibility damage from clergy abuse scandals. Francis's statement landed at a cultural inflection point, signaling a pastoral reset for an institution many felt had prioritized condemnation over welcome at precisely the moment LGBTQ+ visibility reached a historic peak.
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