DUBLIN (LifeSiteNews) – A prominent pro-LGBT nun recently praised by Pope Francis claimed that the Pope was not fully aware of the contents of the March 2021 document he approved rejecting blessing for same-sex relationships.
In a strikingly revealing interview conducted in March 2022 with Ursula Halligan of the heretical group We are Church Ireland, Sr. Jeannine Gramick – the co-founder of dissident LGBT group New Ways Ministry – referred to the March 15, 2021 document from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) that rejected “blessings” for same-sex couples.
The CDF’s document, a Responsum ad dubium, answered in the “negative” as to whether the Church had the “power to give the blessing to unions of persons of the same sex,” calling them “illicit.”
Pope Francis did not fully know contents of CDF document he approved
But speaking to Halligan, Gramick said that while she was “disappointed” with Pope Francis for approving the document, she had been informed he had done so “with not full knowledge” of its contents.
What I find out behind the scenes is that yes, Pope Francis did sign off on the document, but with not full knowledge of what was in the document. And we now know within the last month or so that the person at the CDF who was really responsible for that document, has been transferred out. So he’s no longer there.
Questioned by Halligan as to whether Pope Francis might therefore “rescind” the CDF document, Gramick answered that the removal of the official responsible for the document was Francis’ way of rescinding the document.
“The way he rescinds it is to remove the person who did the damage, and put in people who won’t do damage in the future,” she said. “It’s all very subtle.”
This official is believed to be the former second-in-command at the CDF, Archbishop Giacomo Morandi, who was removed from the Congregation by Pope Francis to lead a diocese in January 2022. Morandi’s removal from the CDF is understood to be a punishment and a demotion due to his key role in the CDF’s document condemning same-sex “blessings,” as well as being linked to Morandi’s opposition to the Pope’s restrictions on the Latin Mass contained in Traditionis custodes.
Supporting Gramick’s claims is the English text of the CDF document itself, which bears the closing note that Francis “was informed and gave his assent to the publication of the above-mentioned Responsum ad dubium,” but does not say he examined or signed the document.
Claims supported by homosexual friend of Pope Francis
While Gramick’s revelations about Pope Francis’ lack of knowledge about the CDF document are striking, they are not unsubstantiated. Juan Carlos Cruz, an openly homosexual man and friend of the Pope, told Chilean news outlet La Tercera in April 2021 that Pope Francis was “hurt” by the CDF repudiation of same-sex “blessings,” although the Pope was “ultimately responsible.”
Cruz – who was previously allegedly told by Francis that “God made you gay” – told La Tercera: “This [CDF document] must be understood in the context of the Vatican, of the fanaticism of some. I know, because I have spoken to the Pope, that he is very hurt by what happened.”
“I know he didn’t sign it,” said Cruz, adding he believed “in some way he [Francis] is going to repair this situation.”
Five days after the release of the CDF document, Cruz was personally called by Pope Francis on March 20 and appointed to the Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors. Cruz had publicly criticized the CDF ruling as an attempt “to defend the indefensible.”
Francis’ record since March 2021
Since the CDF’s March 2021 responsum, Pope Francis has made numerous public statements praising and supporting advocates of LGBT ideology and same-sex civil unions.
Notably, Francis wrote a series of letters to Gramick and New Ways Ministry’s executive director Francis DeBernardo during 2021. The group released the letters in a political move intended to show the papal support they enjoyed after the Vatican’s General Secretariat for the Synod of Bishops initially removed a New Ways Ministry video from the list of resources provided for the multiyear Synod on Synodality. The video was subsequently reinstated after the Secretariat apologized in light of the Pope’s support for the group.
Consolidating his support for NWM, Pope Francis then wrote again on December 10, in the midst of the media controversy over the video, praising Gramick for her “50 years of closeness, of compassion and of tenderness.” Gramick has a long history of dissenting from Catholic teaching on homosexuality and abortion and was officially silenced by the Vatican in 1999, an order that she ignored. In 2010, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) further declared that New Ways Ministry “has no approval or recognition from the Catholic Church” to speak on LGBT issues.
Gramick predicts ‘change’ in Church teaching on homosexuality
Speaking recently to Halligan, Gramick echoed comments she has repeatedly made since the Pope’s letters, predicting that Pope Francis would bring about “change” in the Church’s teaching on homosexuality. “I don’t know if I’ll be alive to see it, but I know it will change,” she said.
“Change comes about very slowly but inevitably,” added Gramick, calling also for a grassroots movement to influence and support Francis in this revolution.
“It is not his job to move yet. The faith must come from the people, and so if there are people and theologians within the Catholic community who believe that the traditional sexual ethics needs to change, we need to raise our voices and say that. We need to get other people to come on board to understand that. We have to change people’s attitudes.”
In a separate part of the interview, Gramick somewhat confusingly described the various religious sisters she has met as “predominantly heterosexual, or predominantly lesbian or bisexual.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that “Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.’ They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved” (CCC 2357).
In a 2019 Declaration of Truth, Catholic Church leaders such as Cardinal Raymond Burke and Bishop Athanasius Schneider stated that two persons of the same sex “sin gravely when they seek venereal pleasure from each other.”
LifeSite’s John-Henry Westen has compiled a non-exhaustive list of the Pope’s support and promotion of LGBT ideology.