What is the position of Pope Leo on reproductive rights, LGBTQ+ equality, and more?
Pope Leo XIV is the first American Catholic leader. He has shown both traditionalists and progressive values in his entire career. The new pope, formerly known as Cardinal Robert Prevost was described as being aligned to the late Pope Francis who was a progressive Catholic leader. Media has labeled Pope Leo as a centrist. Yet, says College of the Holy Cross religious studies professor Mathew Schmalz, U.S. political ideologies don’t necessarily directly translate to “understanding the global diversity of the Catholic Church.”
Here’s what we know about Pope Leo’s stances on abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, gender, and other reproductive justice issues, and how it compares to Pope Francis’ views and Catholic tradition.
Reproductive rights
Pope Leo has not clarified his views on reproductive rights issues. Catholics for Choice Senior Advisor Ashley Hildebrand believes this likely means his views align with Catholic doctrine, which does not allow for abortion in any circumstance.
Catholics for Choice advocates for reproductive freedom, including abortion access. Pew Research Center reports that nearly six in ten U.S. Catholics believe abortion should be legal most of the time or in all circumstances. According to the National Catholic Register, 92% of U.S. Catholics are using condoms for birth control and 68% use birth control pills. Currently, the Catholic church only endorses “natural family planning,” or fertility awareness-based methods.
Hildebrand said one detail in Pope Leo XIV’s career may offer some insight: his potential involvement in the removal of Bishop Joseph Strickland, who was outwardly critical of reproductive rights, COVID-19 vaccines, and even Pope Francis himself. Catholic media have suggested that Pope Leo, then an archbishop, played a role in Pope Francis’s decision to remove the bishop, likely because Strickland accused Pope Francis of “undermining the deposit of faith.”
“I take that as a good sign that maybe there will be less tolerance for this extremist rhetoric,” Hildebrand said.
Pope Francis generally opposed reproductive rights, and even compared abortion to “hiring a hitman to solve a problem.” He also called for a universal ban on surrogacy last year, calling it “despicable.”
“Pope Francis himself was very much consistent with Catholic doctrine and opposed contraception,
, sexual surrogacy, and, particularly, abortion,” Schmalz said. “So I don’t expect those things to change, though, there might be more outreach to couples who find themselves in situations where they have to use those, for lack of a better word, ‘techniques’ in order to have children.”[in vitro fertilization]LGBTQ+ inclusion
Pope Francis famously said, “we cannot be judges who only deny, push back and exclude” LGBTQ+ people from the Catholic church. Pope Leo has said that there are more conversations to be had about LGBTQ+ inclusion, as the cultural differences among episcopal conferences of the world are significant. In past remarks, Pope Leo has suggested that there are more conversations to be had about LGBTQ+ inclusion, as the cultural differences among the episcopal conferences of the world are significant.
“You have to remember there are still places in Africa that apply the death penalty, for example, for people who are living in a homosexual relationship … So, we’re in very different worlds,” he said in 2023, according to the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines News.
Hildebrand said that Pope Leo’s commentary on LGBTQ+ inclusion has evolved since 2012, when he commented disapprovingly on the “sympathy for beliefs and practices that are at odds with the Gospel,” specifically mentioning the “homosexual lifestyle.” During this time, she noted, then-Pope Benedict was still alive and had much stricter views on LGBTQ+ inclusion, unlike Pope Francis.
Hildebrand noted that Catholic leadership having these conversations is significant, even if doctrine doesn’t change.
“I think Pope Francis unlocked the doors to those conversations, but he didn’t fully open those doors so that we could have free flowing, ‘show up as our true selves’ dialogue,” she said.
But these conversations will not necessarily lead to a change in the Church’s doctrine regarding LGBTQ+ marriages, Schmalz said.
“It’s hard for me to see
doctrinally changing in the near future,” Schmalz said. “But what one sees in Catholic life is, at least in some places, a greater openness to the LGBTQ+ community, and a willingness to welcome them into the Church.”[that]Women in church leadership
In a historic move, Pope Francis opened synod–an advisory body to the Church–to laypeople and women. Pope Francis also commissioned experts to study women deaconship, as it may have existed during the early days of the Church. Pope Francis also commissioned experts to study women deaconship, as it may have existed during the early days of the Church.
Schmalz expects there to be some change with women in leadership in the Church, because Pope Leo spoke about it in his remarks after being introduced as the new pope.
“To all of you, brothers and sisters of Rome, of Italy, of the whole world, we want to be a synodal Church, a Church that walks, a Church that always seeks peace, that always seeks charity, that always seeks to be close especially to those who suffer,” Pope Leo said on May 8, 2025, speaking in Italian at the Vatican.
Pope Leo previously stated that the process to add women in leadership to the Church has been “slow,” according to the Washington Post, and that he does not believe ordaining women would combat issues of equality and representation.
“Women deacons–I don’t think they’ll initiate that discussion right away,” Schmalz said, “but there might be some hope for that down the line.”
