Pope Francis appointed three prelates, known for their support for homosexuality, to the Vatican’s doctrinal office Saturday, just as LGBT groups were kicking off gay pride month.
Edward Pentin, a veteran Vatican journalist and author of The Next Pope, noted that the three men, two of whom are cardinals, have all been on the front lines in the push to relax the Church’s moral teaching on the evil of homosexual acts.
Portuguese Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça, who adopted a “Who am I to judge?” approach in his pastoral work with homosexuals in Lisbon, has been a public advocate for former sister Maria Teresa Forcades i Vila, notorious for her promotion of “queer theology.” Cardinal Tolentino wrote a preface to one of her books and invited her to speak at the launch of a book of his in 2016.
The second appointment was Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, who has reportedly turned his diocese of Albano into “the Italian capital of the Catholic-gay movement,” annually hosting the Forum of Italian LGBT Christians, which seeks to make the homosexual lifestyle fully accepted inside the Church. Semeraro also wrote the foreword to a book by Father Aristide Fumagalli (dubbed “the Italian version of Fr. James Martin”), which bore the title Possible Love — Homosexual Persons and Christian Morality.
The pope’s third nominee was Archbishop Bruno Forte of the Italian diocese of Chieti-Vasto, the author of sections on homosexuality in the controversial interim document of the first Synod on the Family in 2014 that attempted to open the door to acceptance of homosexual relationships in the Church. Forte made a stir in 2023 by inviting people to pray for those taking part in Gay Pride events in the month of June.
Curiously, the Vatican announced these three new appointments on Saturday, just days after Pope Francis provoked outrage among certain LGBT groups by reiterating the Church’s ban on allowing homosexuals to enter seminary training, telling Italian bishops there is already too much “faggotry” in the Church.
The bishops should “get all the fairies [checche] out of seminary, even those who are only semi-oriented,” the pope added.