Pope Leo XIV ascended to the papacy on Thursday with little public record on L.G.B.T.Q. issues, a signature concern of his predecessor, Pope Francis, as well as a source of deep conflict between liberal and conservative Catholics.
Nevertheless, proponents of greater inclusion for gay and transgender people in the church said they were cautiously optimistic, even if they might not know much about the man who will now lead the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics. Until today, few people believed an American pope was a possibility.
“We are sitting here Googling everything we can about the new pope,” said Francis DeBernardo, who runs New Ways Ministry, a Maryland-based group that promotes L.G.B.T.Q. inclusion in the church. “I think he is the best we could have hoped for.”
The Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit writer and well-known proponent of outreach to L.G.B.T.Q. Catholics, said he was “stunned” that an American had been chosen, but that he “rejoiced in the selection” of the new pope, whom he had met socially in the past.
“I know him to be a down-to-earth, kind, modest, reserved guy, hardworking, decisive, not afraid of speaking his mind,” Father Martin said in a statement. “It is a great choice.”
Pope Francis was praised by admirers for his openness to members of the L.G.B.T.Q. community, his support for those who provided them with ministry and spiritual guidance, and for the ways in which he changed the church’s tone — if not always its doctrine — on issues of gender and sexuality.
Pope Leo has spent most of his career in rural Peru and has never drawn wide attention for his positions on those issues. But reports that he had made scattered comments in the past that were critical of gay and transgender people had left some in the L.G.B.T.Q. community nervously reading the tea leaves on Thursday.
Mr. DeBernardo said he thought L.G.B.T.Q. Catholics should take a “wait and see approach” to Pope Leo, who he said had never really appeared on his organization’s radar in its years of closely tracking the positions of church leaders.
Still, he said it was worrying that Leo had made unfriendly remarks in the past, including a 2012 speech in which he criticized the positive portrayal of the “homosexual lifestyle” in the Western media, which he said fostered “sympathy for beliefs and practices that are at odds with the Gospel.”
But Mr. DeBernardo said that the world is different now than it was in 2012, when opposition to many elements of gay rights remained widespread. President Barack Obama, for example, announced that year that he had changed his position to support same-sex marriage. “A lot can change in 13 years,” Mr. DeBernardo said.
“When Francis was elected, it immediately came out that he had opposed marriage equality in Argentina in pretty strong terms,” Mr. DeBernardo said. “So when it comes to the comments Pope Leo made about the ‘homosexual lifestyle,’ we are hoping that in the intervening 13 years that maybe he has opened up a little more on these issues.”
During that time, Pope Leo moved from a rural area in northern Peru to the heart of Rome, where he oversaw a Vatican office that helped Pope Francis vet and appoint a significant number of bishops who are seen as supportive of L.G.B.T.Q. inclusion in the church. He is also a Chicago native who is reputed to be close with Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago, whom many consider one of the most open-minded cardinals in the American church.
Those clues do not add up to a strong endorsement of any one view, Mr. DeBernardo acknowledged.
“If I was going to predict anything, I would predict that he is not going to clamp down on L.G.B.T.Q. acceptance, but he probably will not support it in the way Francis did,” he said. “I do not think this will actively be part of Leo’s agenda.”
Brian Flanagan, a Catholic theologian at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs at Georgetown University, said that Leo “does not seem to me like a pope who is going to turn things backward.”
Mr. Flanagan said the new pope’s early remarks were especially heartening because of their embrace of synodality, a way of governing the church that Francis favored, and which includes input from lay people.
“For me, synodality is really important because it creates a structure by which the entire Catholic Church can hear the voices of L.G.B.T.Q. Catholics,” he said. “I am hoping that provides the space for the Catholic Church to continue to have a conversation about how sexuality and gender might be more complicated than we used to think they were.”
Michael Sennett, a master’s student in pastoral care at Fordham University, was part of a delegation of transgender and intersex people who traveled to Rome last October for an audience with Pope Francis. Mr. Sennett said he was deeply affected by the new pope’s emotional greeting of the crowd at the Vatican on Thursday.
“The way Pope Leo was so moved today when he was standing on that balcony, delivering a message of love and unity — it reminded me so much of the spirit I felt when I was in Rome to meet Pope Francis,” he said. “I think the church continues to be in good hands.”
Pope Leo’s choice of his papal name also seems to indicate that he will continue the pastoral approach of Francis, who dedicated his papacy to reaching out to people on the margins of society, Father Martin said.
The new pope’s name appeared to be a tribute to Pope Leo XIII, the 19th-century pontiff who laid the groundwork for Catholic social teaching, which emphasizes a concern for the welfare of the sick and the poor.
But as much as the name may point to an interest in social justice, it may also indicate a focus on the issues that matter to people in poor or war-torn countries, where gay rights are not high on the agenda, Mr. DeBernardo said.
There is an irony, he said, in the idea that the first American pope may also be a pontiff who is less concerned with American culture-war issues.
“For so many bishops around the world, their main concerns are things like refugees and starvation, and L.G.B.T.Q. issues are just not a pressing concern for their people,” he said.
Liam Stack is a Times reporter who covers the culture and politics of the New York City region.
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