The first American Pope has made room for progressive LGBTQ+ voices in several recent high-profile appointments, per an analysis in the popular Substack Letters from Leo, written by former Obama staffer Christopher Hale.
In February, Pope Leo XIV officially appointed Bishop James Checchio as leader of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, per a blogpost from New Ways Ministry, a Catholic outreach organization that “educates and advocates for equity, inclusion, and justice for LGBTQ+ persons.” Checchio had been in line to take over the role informally since September 2025, per EWTN News.
Checchio, who had previously led the Metuchen Diocese in New Jersey, made LGBTQ+ outreach a priority with at least two of the 75 parishes under his jurisdiction known to be explicitly LGBTQ+-friendly, according to New Ways Ministry: Sacred Heart Parish in South Plainfield and St. Joseph Parish in Hillsborough.
Not only did Checcio support a group for LGBTQ+ Catholics in his diocese, he attended their 2016 Christmas party, per a 2017 write-up in MyCentralJersey.com.
“He stayed and talked to every person — made a point to go around to get to know them. In terms of times of healing, that meant a lot to a lot of our members,” one of the group’s leaders, David Harvie, told the local outlet.
Appointed by Pope Leo in December and officially installed as bishop of Monterrey, California, in February, Bishop Ramón Bejarano has also made headlines for his notable embrace of the LGBTQ+ community, per Catholic Culture.
In 2024, Bejarano led an “All Are Welcome” Pride Mass that included a drag queen speaker, during which Bejarano also issued an official apology to all LGBTQ+ people who have been hurt or harmed by the church.
“I apologize for the pain and distress that I and the Church have caused to many of you,” Bishop Bejarano said at the time, per New Ways Ministry. “I apologize for the stigmatization and trauma we have caused to others, because we have told them that they are not valued and that they are not worthy of the love of God. There are many others out there who feel rejected and unvalued. Like Jesus, who in today’s gospel sent the Twelve for mission, so Jesus sends us home where we get welcomed. But before we get welcomed, we must also welcome.”
Bejarano also asked a local drag queen, Nicole Murray-Ramirez, to speak, per conservative Catholic website LifeSiteNews, which tried to generate controversy around the mass.
“I had the Honor to be asked to speak and it was so wonderful to see and hear the well deserved thunderous prolong ovation that Bishop Bajarano received when I sincerely thanked him on behalf of all of us for standing up for not only the LGBTQ COMMUNITY but the undocumented and refugees,” Murray-Ramirez wrote on Facebook following the mass, per the Catholic outlet.
In July, Leo appointed former auxiliary bishop Christian Würtz to be the new bishop of Eichstätt in Germany. Per Catholic Culture, Würtz has supported both the blessing of same-sex couples and reevaluating the Catholic Church’s teaching on homosexuality. He has also supported reevaluating women’s ordination.
“The diocese, though relatively small (nearly 400,000 Catholics),” Catholic Culture wrote, “has been viewed as a bellwether.”
Bejarano, Würtz, and Checcio join previous appointment Rev. Thomas Hennen, who at age 47, became the youngest bishop to lead a diocese when Leo appointed him to lead in Baker, Oregon after previously having been stationed in Iowa.
In Letters from Leo, Hale noted that Hennen “helped author one of the most pastorally sensitive Church documents on gender and sexuality in recent memory,” in a social media post made following news of his appointment.
Hennen was indeed part of a committee convened in Davenport, Iowa, that drafted guidelines for pastoral issues surrounding “sexual and gender minorities.” Those guidelines invited church leaders to listen to LGBTQ+ people, especially trans people, when it came to issues of pronouns, bathroom use, and attire, calling for “a fundamental respect for the dignity of every human person, body and soul, created in the image and likeness of God.”
“Our transgender siblings should be treated with respect, compassion and sensitivity,” Hennen told the Catholic Messenger. “Are there some appropriate accommodations that we could make as a Church that neither ‘sell out’ on our beliefs nor slam the door in the face of transgender persons? I think there may be.”
From his perspective as an observer of Leo’s papacy, Hale seems optimistic about what these appointments might signal for the Vatican’s stance on LGBTQ+ issues during his tenure.
“Rome decides its great questions in assemblies and documents, but it decides much earlier (sometimes years earlier) who will be in the room when the questions get asked,” Hale wrote. “By seating. . . bishops who stood with grieving gay Catholics when it cost something to do so, Leo is choosing the witnesses whose testimony the Church will weigh.
Shortly after being named Pope in May, Leo signaled in July 2025 that it would continue Pope Francis’s 2023 policy of blessing same-sex couples. One month later, he became the first Pope to welcome a pro-LGBTQ+ Catholic group to the Vatican. That September, author and Catholic priest Fr. James Martin said after meeting with Pope Leo XIV that he would continue Pope Francis’s message of “openness and welcome” to LGBTQ+ Catholics.
In February, during an interview with his biographer, Pope Leo XIV said that official church doctrine on LGBTQ+ people wouldn’t be changing soon, but that the church “must first change attitudes” across the board.
“I must confess that the issue remains in the background of my thoughts because, as we saw at the Synod, within the Church any theme related to the LGBTQ reality is highly polarizing,” Leo reportedly told Elise Ann Allen, per an English translation of his remarks. “For now, in coherence with what I have already tried to witness and live as Pope at this moment in history, I try not to fuel polarization in the Church.”
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