A coalition of Catholic associations has submitted a “filial appeal” to Pope Leo XIV, respectfully calling on him to “confirm and reaffirm” the Church’s perennial teaching on homosexual relationships and unions in the face of a “powerful lobby” that is seeking their moral legitimization within the Church.

The group further calls on Pope Leo to annul a 2017 papal edict on the issue of allowing divorced and civilly remarried Catholics to receive Holy Communion, and to revoke the 2023 Vatican declaration Fiducia Supplicans that allowed non-liturgical blessings of same-sex couples.

The appeal warns Pope Leo of individuals and groups “committed to modifying the doctrine of the Church not only in language but even in substance, evaluating the same sinful acts as positive facts, to the point of considering them an image of Christ's Eucharistic gift.”

Signed by 25 national associations that trace their inspiration to the Brazilian Catholic leader Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, the appeal was dated Sept. 15, the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, and delivered to the Holy Father by courier yesterday morning. 

A prominent 20th-century intellectual and thinker, Corrêa de Oliveira was known for his advocacy of traditional Catholic values and founded the Tradition, Family and Property movement, which now has offices worldwide. 

News of the filial appeal coincides with the publication of a first interview with Pope Leo on Thursday, in which he states that his approach to LGBTQ Catholics will be similar to that of Francis — namely, an attitude of welcome while stressing that Church teaching will not be changed.

He said ritual blessings of same-sex couples would go beyond Fiducia Supplicans but added, “That doesn’t mean those people are bad people, but I think it’s very important to understand how to accept others who are different than we are, how to accept people who make choices in their life and to respect them.”

“We have to change attitudes before we even think about changing what the Church says about any given question,” he told Crux.

“What I’m trying to say is what Francis said very clearly when he would say, ‘todos, todos, todos.’ Everyone’s invited in, but I don’t invite a person in because they are or are not of any specific identity,” Leo continued. “I invite a person in because they are a son or daughter of God.”

He also called out what he said can be a Western “obsession” with sexuality, and quoted a cardinal from the Global East lamenting that “the Western world is fixated, obsessed with sexuality.”

Leo said he is “trying not to continue to polarize or promote polarization in the Church.”

Filial Appeal 2015

The filial appeal comes almost exactly a decade after the same organizations, including the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property, submitted a filial appeal to Pope Francis. 

That appeal, which drew more than 850,000 signatures, including those of 211 prelates, called on Francis to “clarify the growing confusion” among the faithful regarding the Church’s teaching on admitting divorced and civilly remarried Catholics receiving Holy Communion. 

They warned that watering down Christ’s clear teaching in that area would open a breach within the Church that would accept adultery, leading to the Church virtually accepting homosexual unions. 

In their new filial appeal to Leo XIV, the signatories state that “with great sorrow in our hearts,” Francis failed to respond to that appeal and “further aggravated the situation.” They remind him that, as well as civilly remarried divorcees being admitted to Holy Communion in Francis’ 2016 apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, Francis made other gestures and statements legitimizing same-sex civil unions, and in 2023 allowed Fiducia Supplicans, opening the door to blessings of same-sex couples.

“Since then, the situation has continued to worsen, especially concerning the acceptance of homosexual relationships,” the signatories continue. They note “a proliferation of statements by high-ranking prelates” calling for changes to the Church’s teaching on homosexuality in the Catechism, including that of Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg, an influential prelate who has declared Catholic teaching on homosexuality “incorrect,” asserting that its sociological and scientific basis is allegedly no longer valid.

They cite the German Synodal Way and other leading activists in this attempted legitimization, including longtime campaigners Sister of Loretto Jeannine Gramick, Jesuit Father James Martin and Cardinal Timothy Radcliffe. In particular, they single out Cardinal Robert McElroy of Washington, D.C., who, they say, denies that all sexual sins are grave, paving the way for the “legitimization and normalization of impurity,” and highlighting his affirmation that “radical inclusion” of practicing homosexuals should be sacramental. 

“Given all this, Most Holy Father, we cannot help but conclude that, under the pretext of mercy and adapting to science, some forces are striving to reinvent the Catholic Faith according to worldly passions, making it unrecognizable,” the signatories state. 

They go on to list recent events at the Vatican that have taken place under Leo’s watch, which include more than 1,000 LGBTQ activists, carrying a rainbow cross, being allowed to process in through the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica earlier this month as part of a jubilee pilgrimage, and Leo granting a private audience with Father Martin, who said afterward the Pope encouraged him in his activism. The Vatican did not correct Father Martin’s words, nor did it issue a statement about the activists entering the basilica, although Church officials were aware of their plans.

Truth Over Unity

The signatories suggest these “shocking events” were organized by people around the Holy Father and that he allowed them because he wants to change the Roman Curia “gradually,” but they stressed their opposition to any attempt to sacrifice truth for unity. Quoting St. Augustine, they state: “To do the truth is not only to say what is true, but also to practice it before many witnesses.”

They praise Leo for his homily during the Jubilee of Families on June 1, when he upheld marriage as the “true love between a man and a woman” rather than an ideal, but they express concern that, as they say happened under Pope Francis, pastoral practice will not be coherent with Church teaching. 

They therefore renew their request made in their 2015 filial appeal to Pope Francis not to dilute Christ’s teaching and imploring him to adhere to what Jesus clearly taught about the importance of “coherence between life and truth.” 

More specifically, the signatories call on Leo to confirm and reaffirm the Church’s teaching that same-sex relationships are “objectively and intrinsically disordered," and they recall that Sacred Scripture qualifies them as "grave depravities.” The activists, they warn the Holy Father, are committed to changing that teaching “not only in language but even in substance."

They ask that Leo annul a 2017 rescript (official edict) of Pope Francis that placed “special magisterial value on the heterodox interpretation of the ambiguities of Amoris Laetitia,” and clearly reiterate instead that divorced and civilly remarried Catholics living more uxorio “cannot receive sacramental absolution nor, as public sinners, Holy Communion.”

They also implore the Holy Father to revoke Fiducia Supplicans and reaffirm the Vatican’s 2021 response to a formal question that clearly rejected blessings of same-sex couples.

In response to the Pope’s words about homosexuality in Crux, José Antonio Ureta, a TFP researcher who is author of the TFP’s 2024 booklet The Breached Dam: The Fiducia Supplicans Surrender to the Homosexual Movement, said he was “somewhat surprised” that it seems only to be a “background” issue for Pope Leo and that he appears to have no plan for addressing it, even though he acknowledges that the hierarchy is “deeply polarized.” 

Ureta noted that since the Apostolic Council of Jerusalem in A.D. 50, the Church’s response to such polarization “has not been to postpone or defer, but to resolve the matter definitively through dogmatic teaching.” 

He said he was also “perplexed” by Pope Leo’s suggestion that it is “highly unlikely” the Church’s teaching on sexuality and marriage will change in the near future. “The point is not whether such a change is likely or unlikely: the Church’s teaching in these areas cannot change at all,” Ureta told the Register. “The Pope should affirm this with absolute clarity, leaving no room for doubt or ambiguity.”