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Pope Leo XIV raises pro-LGBT UK archbishop to key Vatican roles
LifeSite News ^ | October 2, 2025 | Joseph Quinn

Posted on 10/03/2025 8:50:52 AM PDT by ebb tide

Pope Leo XIV raises pro-LGBT UK archbishop to key Vatican roles

Abp. Bernard Longley, tied to the controversial Soho 'LGBT Masses' and synodal LGBT 'outreach,' has been granted a third Vatican role under the new Pope’s agenda.

Pope Leo XIV has promoted a bishop who has supported LGBT-themed liturgies to a consulting position within the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, part of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity under Cardinal Kurt Koch.

Archbishop Bernard Longley of Birmingham, England, has received three Vatican appointments since June, despite his long record of support for initiatives in the Church that stand in contradiction to Catholic moral teaching.

The Vatican’s Thursday announcement follows Longley’s nomination to the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity in June and the Dicastery for Interreligious Dialogue in July.

Longley, 70, is the archbishop of the Archdiocese of Birmingham, England. He was ordained in 1981 and named auxiliary bishop of Westminster by Pope John Paul II in 2003.

As an auxiliary, Pink News celebrated his role in overseeing the “Soho Masses Pastoral Council” – a group organizing liturgies for active homosexuals. He was tasked with this role by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, then Archbishop of Westminster.

In 2010, he defended the “LGBT Masses” in The Tablet by rejecting any “moral means-testing” before distributing Holy Communion, and accusing critics of making assumptions about the sexual activity of participants.

His comments drew strong rebukes from campaigners, including the late Daphne McLeod of Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice – one of the groups that regularly held a prayer vigil outside the “LGBT Mass.”

In spite of her opposition, McLeod maintained a respectful relationship with the “LGBT Mass” participants. In her response to Longley, McLeod said that they were “perfectly honest about their homosexual lifestyles,” and were “emphasising that they are in sexual relationships.”

“No one, apart from the Archbishop, tries to pretend they are living or striving to live chaste lives,” she added.

Appointed Archbishop of Birmingham in 2009, Longley has maintained close engagement with LGBT groups. In May 2023, he thanked the “LGBTQ+ community” for its feedback in the Synod on Synodality.

His 2023 diocesan response to the synod referred to the “loving relationships” of “remarried divorcees, single parents, people living in polygamous marriage, LGBTQ people.”

Longley’s archdiocese subsequently hosted an event for LGBT-identifying Catholics for what the prelate called “a continued conversation to listen further.”

According to the archdiocesan website, Longley requested the establishment of a diocesan LGBT group, which “emerged from the Synodal Process.” Longley’s LGBT group organised an “LGBTQ+ Vigil Welcome Mass” in May of this year. Longley himself commented, “It is so important that everyone should feel welcome in the family of the Church,” and expressed his hope that such events would offer “appropriate accompaniment and encouragement.”

Longley’s appointments comes amid heightened scrutiny of Rome’s LGBT “outreach.” At the start of September, Pope Leo XIV received pro-LGBT activist Father James Martin, S.J., in a private audience – after which Martin claimed that Leo “will be continuing with the same openness that Francis showed to LGBTQ Catholics.”

Martin had issued a ringing endorsement of Leo on the day after his election, and was reported to have backed then-Cardinal Robert Prevost prior to the election.

Although some argued that Martin should not be treated as a trustworthy witness, events have confirmed his interpretation.

Prior to that meeting, Leo received the heretical pro-LGBT nun Sr. Lucia Caram in a secret, unannounced audience.

Less than a week later, the pro-LGBT group “Tent of Jonathan” descended on the Vatican with thousands of attendees, being able to hold a Mass at the Jesuit Gésu church, and processing through the Holy Door at St. Peter’s Basilica. This event was advertised on the Vatican’s Jubilee Year website.

Leo has himself indicated that the Church’s teaching on sexual morality could change, if attitudes changed first. In recent remarks, he strongly implied that shifting pastoral practice and public opinion must come before any formal doctrinal change.

Martin lauded this, and called for Catholics to pray “for a change in attitude” to this end.

Leo’s other recent appointments include Bishop Michael Pham to the Diocese of San Diego. In July, Pham’s auxiliary, Bishop Ramón Bejarano, offered an “LGBT Pride Mass” in the diocese with his backing. In July, he also appointed Father Thomas Hennen as bishop of Baker, Oregon, who had been involved in drafting pastoral guidelines for persons with same-sex attraction, which made no mention of the necessity of chastity.

As the recently elected vice president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales in 2025, Longley is positioned as one of the country’s most senior prelates as Leo reshapes key Vatican bodies.


TOPICS: Catholic; Current Events; Moral Issues
KEYWORDS: bernardlongley; disgrace; francisii; gaypriests; homofascism; homos; lavendarmafia; popebob; rico
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1 posted on 10/03/2025 8:50:52 AM PDT by ebb tide
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To: Al Hitan; Fedora; irishjuggler; Jaded; kalee; markomalley; miele man; Mrs. Don-o; ...

Ping


2 posted on 10/03/2025 8:51:32 AM PDT by ebb tide (Francis' "synodal church" is not the Catholic Church.)
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To: ebb tide

Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.


3 posted on 10/03/2025 8:55:38 AM PDT by Leaning Right (It's morning in America. Again.)
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To: ebb tide

What was once mortal sin will soon be a sacrament.


4 posted on 10/03/2025 8:56:07 AM PDT by SaxxonWoods (Annnd....TRUMP IS RIGHT AGAIN.)
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To: ebb tide

There’s the answer about his Theology and vision.


5 posted on 10/03/2025 8:56:19 AM PDT by Bayard
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To: ebb tide

SICKENING EVIL


6 posted on 10/03/2025 8:57:47 AM PDT by Democrat = party of treason
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To: ebb tide

Yes, the Catholic Church has been taken over by leftists whose objective is to destroy Christianity. Sadly, they are not the only Christian religious organizational sect that has been captured. They all have, but there are still individual churches that are not playing along with the leadership.


7 posted on 10/03/2025 8:58:21 AM PDT by Robert DeLong
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To: Leaning Right

“Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.”

As an outsider, it seems the “boss” is just a figure head. The real power resides in the Vatican Cardinals.


8 posted on 10/03/2025 9:02:15 AM PDT by TexasGator (The 750 hp Florida Gnat)
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To: ebb tide

9 posted on 10/03/2025 9:04:55 AM PDT by HYPOCRACY (Wake up, smell the cat food in your bank account. )
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To: Leaning Right

Another left-wing nut for a Pope.

The flock was hoping for a rebound, but Leo’s not the man for the job.


10 posted on 10/03/2025 9:15:55 AM PDT by BrexitBen
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To: ebb tide
Please tell me this is a mistranslation or something. I, a Protestant, was so hoping that Leo 14 would be someone who steers the RCC away from the hedonism it was heading toward and back towards boldly proclaiming the gospel of Christ.

We are in the 4th Great Awakening and we're all better off of the RCC leaders are part of it too.

11 posted on 10/03/2025 9:20:24 AM PDT by Tell It Right (1 Thessalonians 5:21 -- Put everything to the test, hold fast to that which is true.)
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To: BrexitBen

....James Martin, S.J. Society of Jesus...or “Jevvies” as we used to call them....its members are by and large far left wing......it figures.....


12 posted on 10/03/2025 9:29:09 AM PDT by TokarevM57
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To: ebb tide

The book of Jude also applies a warning to our era.

Jude 1:1-25 NIV
[1] Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and a brother of James, To those who have been called, who are loved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ: [2] Mercy, peace and love be yours in abundance. [3] Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt compelled to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to God’s holy people. [4] For certain individuals whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you. They are ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord. [5] Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord at one time delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe. [6] And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling-—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day. [7] In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire. [8] In the very same way, on the strength of their dreams these ungodly people pollute their own bodies, reject authority and heap abuse on celestial beings. [9] But even the archangel Michael, when he was disputing with the devil about the body of Moses, did not himself dare to condemn him for slander but said, “The Lord rebuke you!” [10] Yet these people slander whatever they do not understand, and the very things they do understand by instinct-—as irrational animals do-—will destroy them. [11] Woe to them! They have taken the way of Cain; they have rushed for profit into Balaam’s error; they have been destroyed in Korah’s rebellion. [12] These people are blemishes at your love feasts, eating with you without the slightest qualm-—shepherds who feed only themselves. They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted-—twice dead. [13] They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever. [14] Enoch, the seventh from Adam, prophesied about them: “See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones [15] to judge everyone, and to convict all of them of all the ungodly acts they have committed in their ungodliness, and of all the defiant words ungodly sinners have spoken against him.” [16] These people are grumblers and faultfinders; they follow their own evil desires; they boast about themselves and flatter others for their own advantage. [17] But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. [18] They said to you, “In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.” [19] These are the people who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit. [20] But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, [21] keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life. [22] Be merciful to those who doubt; [23] save others by snatching them from the fire; to others show mercy, mixed with fear-—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh. [24] To him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy-— [25] to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.


13 posted on 10/03/2025 9:32:14 AM PDT by right way right (“May we remain sober over mere men, for God really is our only true hope.)
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To: ebb tide

Nothing ever changes.

History is clear.

The aristocracy grooms Kings.

The clerocracy grooms Popes.

Indoctrinated groupthink.

America was a product of overthrowing a monarchy which had broken with the papacy.

That Independence included not bowing to a King nor kissing the ring of a Pope.

Most importantly it gave people the freedom to bow and curtsy and kiss rings if that floats their boat.

It would never float my boat.


14 posted on 10/03/2025 9:59:14 AM PDT by Biblebelter
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To: ebb tide

The pope is a dope


15 posted on 10/03/2025 10:27:21 AM PDT by Carriage Hill (A society grows great when old men plant trees, in whose shade they know they will never sit.)
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To: ebb tide

New pope, same as the old pope.

The pope is a dope.


16 posted on 10/03/2025 10:34:49 AM PDT by faucetman (Just the facts, ma'am, Just the facts )
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To: ebb tide

The evil t the top just doesn’t stop does it? Sheesh- is he a clone of the last pope?


17 posted on 10/03/2025 11:19:38 AM PDT by Bob434 (Time flies like an arrow, fruit flies like a banana)
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To: ebb tide

“In July, he also appointed Father Thomas Hennen as bishop of Baker, Oregon, who had been involved in drafting pastoral guidelines for persons with same-sex attraction, which made no mention of the necessity of chastity.” ‘Would it help if I tried to explain to them I’m not homosexual? Neither are they, you’d have to be human first.’


18 posted on 10/03/2025 1:41:49 PM PDT by kawhill ("I'm going to miss your stories, Robert. You have your own ones now.")
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To: ebb tide

“”Pope Leo XIV has promoted a bishop who has supported LGBT-themed liturgies to a consulting position within the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, part of the Dicastery for Promoting Christian Unity under Cardinal Kurt Koch.””

Ok. I’ll ask. How long before the Vatican announces that it’s hosting Drag Queen Story Hour in the name of....welcoming openness.


19 posted on 10/03/2025 1:48:48 PM PDT by Danie_2023
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To: Carriage Hill
"The pope is a dope"

Wasn't that a song by The Trashmen?

20 posted on 10/03/2025 2:06:35 PM PDT by Paal Gulli
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