(LifeSiteNews) — A Catholic scholar has called for Pope Leo XIV to clearly affirm that Catholic Church teaching on sexuality cannot change, following a Crux interview in which Leo suggested that such a change is possible.
José Antonio Ureta, a researcher with Tradition, Family, Property (TFP), pushed back on Leo’s statement that it is “highly unlikely” that Church teaching on sexuality will change, “certainly in the immediate future.”
Ureta stressed to National Catholic Register Thursday, “The point is not whether such a change is likely or unlikely; the Church’s teaching in these areas cannot change at all.”
“The Pope should affirm this with absolute clarity, leaving no room for doubt or ambiguity,” he added.
Leo acknowledged during his Crux interview that LGBT-related issues are “highly polarizing within the Church” and said he is “trying” to avoid such polarization but to continue the inclusive approach of Pope Francis.
In response, Ureta noted that since the Church’s beginnings, her response to polarization “has not been to postpone or defer, but to resolve the matter definitively through dogmatic teaching.”
The author of TFP’s 2024 booklet The Breached Dam: The Fiducia Supplicans Surrender to the Homosexual Movement said he was “somewhat surprised” that homosexuality appears to be only a “background” issue for Leo and that he seems to have no plan for dealing with the issue.
The Register interview focused on the submission of a filial appeal to Pope Leo XIV by TFP groups asking that he “confirm and reaffirm” the Church’s teaching against homosexual relationships. The news of this appeal happened to coincide with the publication of Leo’s Crux interview, highlighting Leo’s prior ambiguity on the issue of homosexuality.
The signatories highlighted Leo’s granting of an audience to the openly pro-LGBT priest Father James Martin, S.J., and his reported support of Martin, as well as the Vatican’s recognition of an LGBT “pilgrimage” for the Jubilee Year 2025 and permission granted to these people to process into St. Peter’s Basilica “carrying a rainbow cross.”
While God loves all people, including those suffering homosexual inclinations, the Catholic Church formally condemns homosexual activity and urges homosexuals to live a chaste lifestyle.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered” and “contrary to the natural law.” The text adds that homosexual inclinations are “objectively disordered” and that homosexual activity can never be approved, repeating that “[h]omosexual persons are called to chastity.” Homosexual acts are mortal sins; therefore, anyone who commits these sins and does not repent through the sacrament of confession is in danger of hell.
Catholic professor of philosophy Edward Feser has weighed in on Leo’s concerns about “polarization,” stating on X, “As in the case of any other conflict between heresy and orthodoxy, the only Catholics who are ‘polarizing’ where the Church’s teaching on sexual morality are concerned are those who reject it.”
He added that “it is never per se divisive simply to uphold the Church’s perennial teaching on some matter, whereas it is always per se divisive to reject or obfuscate it.”
In his Crux interview, Leo had also suggested Church doctrine can change when he stated, “People want the Church doctrine to change, want attitudes to change. I think we have to change attitudes before we ever change doctrine.”
Another Catholic scholar, John Rist, also recently challenged those of Leo’s actions that appear to condone gravely immoral behavior. He highlighted one example, Leo’s private reception of Dominican Sister Caram, a firm proponent of homosexual “marriage” and abortion.
Rist told journalist Edward Pentin that St. Augustine would “be surprised and indeed appalled to see a member of an Augustinian Order – who widely quotes the Master’s own writings – appear tolerant of such wholly un-Catholic behaviour. He would immediately wonder why Prevost did not tell the deviant Sister to change her views right now if she wished to remain a Dominican Sister in good standing.”
