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Vatican Says Transgender People May Be Baptized
Statement is the latest sign of Pope Francis’ conciliatory approach to LGBTQ Catholics
By Francis X. Rocca, WSJ
Nov. 9, 2023
ROME—The Vatican said transgender people may be baptized as Catholics and can serve as godparents, in the latest sign of the church’s greater openness to LGBTQ people under Pope Francis.
The Vatican also said that the children of gay couples, including ones who are adopted or born to surrogate mothers, may be baptized, and that such couples may serve as godparents.
The statement, released on Wednesday, helps to clarify Catholic teaching with regard to transgender people, a topic the Vatican has said little about until now.
“A transsexual—even one who has undergone hormonal treatment and sex reassignment surgery—can receive baptism, under the same conditions as other believers, if there are no situations in which there is a risk of generating public scandal or disorientation in the faithful,” said a statement from the Vatican’s doctrinal office that was dated Oct. 31 and bore Francis’ signature of approval. The statement didn’t specify when such a risk would arise.
The doctrinal office said it was responding to questions sent to it in July by a bishop in Brazil.
The new document represents a marked shift in the Vatican’s public stance on transgender people. In 2015, the doctrinal office instructed a bishop in Spain that a transgender man couldn’t serve as a child’s godfather on the grounds that he wasn’t living according to the tenets of the Catholic faith.
Internal guidelines for bishops from 2000, when St. John Paul was pope, stated that people who undergo transition surgery aren’t eligible to marry in the church or be ordained to the priesthood on the grounds that their decision to transition reflects the presence of a mental disorder. The new document doesn’t revise that stance.
The Vatican’s first major public statement that addressed transgender issues, a 2019 document aimed at educators, criticized the idea that a person’s biological sex at birth can be separated from their gender identity but didn’t pronounce on the morality of sex reassignment.
The new document is the Vatican’s first public statement on baptism for transgender people.
“The Vatican’s affirmation that transgender people should be welcomed in the church’s sacramental life signals Pope Francis’ desire for a pastorally focused approach to LGBTQ+ issues is taking hold,” said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, which advocates for LGBTQ Catholics.
The news comes a month after the Vatican published a letter in which the pope softened the church’s ban on blessings for same-sex unions, saying that priests may use their discretion in giving such blessings, so long as they don’t imply a same-sex union is equivalent to a heterosexual marriage.
Francis hasn’t changed church teaching that homosexual orientation is “objectively disordered” and that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered.” But he has been notable for his conciliatory approach to LGBTQ people. The most famous words of his pontificate are his 2013 statement about gay priests: “Who am I to judge?” He also has met transgender people on several occasions at the Vatican.
The doctrinal office’s new statement expresses caution about some situations involving LGBTQ people and the sacraments. It warns that transgender people shouldn’t serve as godparents “if there is a risk of scandal, inappropriate legitimization or disorientation” among the faithful.
The doctrinal office said that nothing in church law prohibits transgender people or partners in same-sex relationships from serving as witnesses at a Catholic wedding.
Write to Francis X. Rocca at francis.rocca@wsj.com
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