Remembering Pope Francis: Father James Martin Reflects on LGBTQ+ Inclusion, Environmentalism, and Compassionate Leadership

 

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT:

 

REV. PAUL BRANDEIS RAUSHENBUSH, HOST: Father James Martin is a Roman Catholic priest, author, and speaker known for his work in bridging the gap between faith and contemporary issues. He serves as the editor-at-large for America Magazine, a national Catholic publication. His latest book is called Come Forth: The Promise of Jesus’ Greatest Miracle.

In 2017, Pope Francis appointed Father Jim, a fellow Jesuit, to the position of consulter to the Vatican Secretariat for Communication, advising the Vatican on communication matters, particularly related to the Church’s outreach to modern society and its engagement with issues of faith and culture.

His appointment reflected Pope Francis’s commitment to inclusive dialogue, as Father Martin has been a prominent advocate for LGBTQ+ inclusion within the Church. This position gave Father Jim the chance to meet personally and privately with Pope Francis, and form impressions of both the ministry and the man. And that’s why I’m grateful to have him with us.

On this sad occasion, Father Jim Martin, welcome back to The State of Belief.

REV. JAMES MARTIN, GUEST: Thanks so much for having me, Paul.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH: So can you just tell me the first time that you met Pope Francis? So many people have admired this man from afar, but you actually got to meet him – and not just once – on several occasions, but what was the first time you met him?

JIM MARTIN: Well, the first time I just shook his hand after Mass, and it was pretty quick – and I was a little disappointed. He barely said anything. But then a year or two later he invited me to a papal audience, a private audience in his library in the Apostolic Palace, which is where he meets diplomats and heads of state. And so this was a sign that he wanted to let the world know that he supported LGBTQ ministry.

Honestly, it was overwhelming, but I felt really at peace and kind of calm. I was surprised, Paul. It was like going out with you for dinner. I was relaxed. And I think one of the reasons was he’s so warm and friendly and funny.

And I’ll tell you a funny story. I I asked a cardinal friend of mine after I was invited to this audience, well, what do I say? And he said: he invited you, so you ask him what he would like to talk about – which I thought was great, in Vatican kind of diplomacy. And I said, Holy Father, what would you like to talk about? And he opened his arms and said, what would you like to talk about? And we spent about a half hour talking about LGBTQ Catholics. I thought I’d never see him again, so I figured this was my shot.

And then towards the end, Paul – because I was talking all about LGBT stuff, you know, he’s very warm and encouraging and all this – towards the end, I thought, boy, I’m kind of dominating this conversation. Maybe he would like to talk about something else. And so I said, Holy Father, is there anything I can do for you? Meaning would you like to talk about the American Church and the Jesuits or whatever? And he said, yes, you can continue this ministry in peace.That’s what you can do for me.

So it was really powerful. And I felt that it’s almost like a mission from the Pope. And I met with him several times since then, almost every time talking about LGBT stuff, and he was always very encouraging. We exchanged notes a lot over email. I would ask him questions and suggest things: some he would say yes to, some he would say no to, but we had a very… I wasn’t his best friend and I didn’t know him as well as many others, but we had a really friendly relationship.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH: Let’s get into the emotion of this, because, this is a moment of great transition. What is your dominant feeling on the passing of Pope Francis? And, what are some of the things that you want to make sure that people remember about who he was when he was in the Vatican?

JIM MARTIN: That’s a great question. Sadness, of course sadness on a, I would say a professional level that we lose that the Catholic Church loses a great leader. Sadness on a personal level. He was a lovely guy. He was really nice to me. But also gratitude that we had him as pope for 12 years and that I was able to…

I really would like to let people know a couple of things. First of all, how kind he was, how funny he was, how attentive he was, how open he was to learning. I can tell a story about that later. But also, for LGBTQ listeners, how he really had that community’s best interests in mind. He did more than any of the other popes combined for LGBTQ people. If you don’t mind, I’d like to share a few highlights.

I mean, if we think about it, sometimes people say, Oh, what did he do? He’s the first pope ever to use the word gay in public. His five most famous words in English, “Who am I to judge,” were said in response to a question about gay priests. He opposed publicly the criminalization of homosexuality. He signed that document, fiducia suplicans, that provided for priests to be able to bless same-sex couples under certain circumstances – which garnered him a ton of pushback.

He met with people like me and Sister Janine Gramick from New Ways Ministry. He appointed an openly gay man, Juan Carlos Cruz, to a papal commission. He told parents they should never kick out their gay children. Sometimes in the west, and I would imagine most people listening to this are in the United States or in the west, and sometimes we say, big deal. You know what? In Eastern Europe and Sub-Saharan Africa, That’s a big deal. And so he really got a lot of pushback.

And when he was with me, he was always encouraging, writing notes and just saying: “Keep up your ministry.” He would almost always say that in notes to me, “Keep up your good work and I support you.”

And so I think it’s important for people who might say, “Big deal. He was nice to gay people,” when we think about that from the United States, it might seem a little tepid; but in other parts of the world, it was white hot. And so he really stepped out. And so those are the kinds of things I’d like people to remember.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH: It’s totally important. And just something that we should all recognize as we’re thinking about his legacy, it’s wonderful. “Who am I to judge?” I actually, something came up on my, a photo from my past and I had on this huge t-hirt of Pope Francis and just those words.

You were with me during my HuffPost days; you were one of one of the most prolific writers, we worked together so much there. And I’m just recalling the whole thing with Pope Benedict stepping down, and what a moment that was in journalism; and what a moment it was, I’m sure, for Catholic believers. There was something totally disruptive happening. And then all of the mechanism of going through and finding this new pope, and a lot of us had never heard of him. And so he’s introduced into the main stage, and the fact that he took Francis… Can we talk a little bit about that, and Pope Francis’s commitment to the poor and the outcast and all that entails?

JIM MARTIN: Sure. And as a Jesuit, he is the first pope in centuries to be a member of a religious order and pope, which means he took a vow of poverty, which meant he lived very simply. And he was always very devoted to the poor. He lived simply as Archbishop of Buenos Aires. But there’s a story that sitting next to him during the conclave was Cardinal Hummes, I think you say, who was a Brazilian Cardinal. And immediately after he was elected, Cardinal Hummes turned to him and said, “Don’t forget the poor.”

And that, I think, inspired him to take the name Francis, after Francis of Assisi.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH: Can we just stop there for just one second? Because whether you’re Catholic, whether you’re Protestant, whether you’re Orthodox – no matter what tradition you come from, if you’re actually trying to follow in Jesus’s footsteps, the mandate, “don’t forget the poor,” is about as Jesus as you can get. And I’ve heard that story. I’m so glad for you to confirm it. Just thinking about Pope Francis and his legacy and who he was, I always come back to that story, remember the poor. And that’s, in some ways, a prism to understanding what he tried to accomplish during his time as pope.

JIM MARTIN: I totally agree. And a pope’s first big decision is what name is he going to take – and that kind of is the sort of programmatic stance for him. But interestingly, he was known among Jesuits as not always very progressive or open-minded, because among the Jesuits – he had been a Jesuit provincial or regional superior when he was very young, and was very doctrinaire and quite rigid and quite “my way or the highway.” And he changed.

And for about a day or two, there was some consternation among Jesuits about who is this guy that,was so rigid and pretty kind of right-wing when he was a Jesuit provincial? But it was, I think, on the second day, second or third day that he gave a talk before the Vatican press corps. And I remember he had a sheaf of papers in his hand and he said, “How I want a church that is poor and for the poor.” And I thought, oh, boy, this is okay. Now I think I know who we’re getting. But you’re right, Paul, that name really was the sign of the times that people needed to see, that this is where this guy’s going.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH: Oh my God. And then, again, my prism was both curiosity as a religious person who cares about theology and the way we talk about Jesus and the mission. To see him – I think this was in the first couple of weeks – to see him washing the feet of immigrants. This was on Maundy Thursday, and so Holy Week. I don’t remember exactly the chronology, but it wasn’t long after. So I’m just going back to those times where every action revealed more and more about who this leader was.

And let me tell you, it’s one of those things where Christians, non-Christians, Catholics, non-Catholics, everybody looked at that and said, Oh, wait, now I remember what Christians are supposed to be doing. Now I remember what Jesus… I’m not trying to be gushing or anything, but it was one of those things. And journalistically it was wild. People were so fascinated with this person. It recognized the hunger for people to have authentic religious people in the public arena. It just felt like he was stepping into a void that a lot of people felt.

JIM MARTIN: Yeah, I think you’re right. And, as we know – you’re a theologian – Jesus taught in the Gospels with words and deeds, right? And his deeds gave meaning to his words, and his words gave meaning to his deeds, and it all fit together. And Francis taught a lot in gestures – and you’re right, those images of him washing the feet of immigrants. Also you’ll remember that one of the first, I think the first trip he took outside of Rome was to the island of Lampedusa where he celebrated Mass. Four refugees on a boat – on an overturned boat that had been used like a vessel to ferry migrants back and forth.

And, the other image I remember was the fellow who had that sort of disfiguring skin condition who came up to him and he hugged him. And, I remember thinking at the time, boy, I hope we have this guy at least for a year. Because he was elderly and who knew? But 12 years of this, and he really put his money where his mouth was. And, he went all over the world.

Let me tell you a story. When I was at the Synod, which was this worldwide gathering of Catholics, it met twice – once in October 2023 once in October 2024 – he was there most days. And most days in this big hall in Vatican City near Saint Peter’s he would be there early, and he would be in the wheelchair, and he would be at 8:30 greeting a whole line of people, each of whom wanted their moment with him: Holy Father, I brought you this book that I wrote about whatever. Holy Father, can you record a greeting to my theology class back in Micronesia? Holy Father, I brought you this gift, I brought you this food, can you pray with me? Or bishops and cardinals: I need to talk to you.

You would have a line of people. At 11 o’clock when we had our coffee break – another line of people. And at 7. 30 when we were finishing, another line of people. And every – I swear this is true – every single person got attention. I didn’t see one – I know this sounds crazy – I didn’t see one moment where he was like, Oh my gosh, I gotta get home, or I’m tired.

Attentive, really seeing God in each person. And I thought that was just amazing. And this is his pastoral style. And he just poured himself out for everybody. I’ve never seen anything like it. I would have been like, Oh my gosh, it’s time for me to go home.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH: Talk to us a little bit about the encyclicals, because that was another piece. He wasn’t just going out there and doing and praying, but he was actually putting out some really important ideas, including around the environment, around the poor, and, speaking, actually, into something very near and dear to my heart, interfaith relations. And so could you talk a little bit about the legacy of his writing, and what he put into the world as pope?

JIM MARTIN: Yeah, I think that’s overlooked. And in addition to the encyclicals are a number of books that he wrote, or interviews, which a lot of them were about his own faith journey and questions of faith. But the one that I would focus on would be Laudato Si, which was his encyclical on the environment, on care for our common home, which I love that phrase. Before that, obviously, religious people and spiritual people had talked about climate change as an issue. But he really, I think definitively – at least in the Catholic Church – moved it from simply a scientific question and a political question to a spiritual question. That’s what he did in that encyclical.

And really, the insight was: everything is connected. Everything is connected, and to your point, Paul, he reminded people that the people who suffer most from climate change are the poor. And so that’s one reason it is an especially important moral question.

And then in his his encyclical Fratelli Tutti, which was about brotherhood, he said: everyone is connected. I think that’s how you can summarize both of those encyclicals. But Laudato Si to me is just… Let me share one part that I thought was really beautiful. And you read these, obviously, as spiritual documents. And when I was reading it, I thought, I’ve never thought about this. And just something simple that I think you’d enjoy too.

He says that, when Jesus was walking through the environment and Galilee and Judea, that he wasn’t just using things from nature in his parables, like instrumentally; he actually enjoyed nature, which I really never thought of. As he walked through nature, he enjoyed it. I thought that was so beautiful.

There’s so many insights he has. He did afford to my book Come Forth, which you mentioned, on Lazarus; and just insights he has… One of the things he says was, get this, scripture and the Bible as God’s love letter to us. And I just thought, that’s so beautiful. So there are these wonderful insights and aperçue and, just, spiritual gems…

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH: Even that, and how wonderful to have Pope Francis write a foreword for your book – it’s just incredible. But the idea of scripture as a love letter – given, especially, your work, where scripture is so often used as a hammer, and to flip it and say that scripture is not meant… If it’s dealing death, you’re doing it wrong. And I think even just that offering – and especially in the context of your beautiful book…

One of the remarkable – I don’t know how to even call it – interactions, we had this odd situation where a very fervent Catholic who is our vice president, JD Vance, who was attacking the Catholic bishops for their work with the poor, with the migrants, very in line with what the Pope Francis really put as his own emphasis and is clearly his heart. And he said that they were only interested in the bottom line. And then he went on to offer this theological treatise, and lecturing the Catholic bishops on what the concentric circles of care should look like.

Talk to me about how that felt, in that moment; but then also maybe we can get into a little bit, as we look towards the future and perhaps a future pope, in this moment of unrest and uncertainty, how does that play into this moment, thinking about the legacy and then turning towards the future?

JIM MARTIN: When I heard JD Vance’s comments, I was really disturbed. The first one is a sort of misinterpretation of this idea called the Ordo Amoris, which comes from, actually, Aristotle and Augustine and then Thomas Aquinas, which basically says you love your closest to you first: your family, and then supposedly your neighbors, and then your community, and then maybe other people. And Aquinas was not using this as something that is a “should”: you should do this and therefore you only have a little love left for strangers, as if it’s a zero sum game. We had a couple of great articles about that on America that’s false.

Jesus says, “I was a stranger and you did not welcome me,” or “I was a stranger, you did welcome.” So it was really a false way of presenting Catholic teaching, and I think using Thomas Aquinas to basically say or imply you don’t need to take care of strangers.

Even worse… Truly, I thought, all right, maybe he misinterpreted that. Maybe that’s his way of looking at that particular question. Even worse was accusing the bishops of making money off of migrants. And look, if you just want the dollars and cents, they took in 129 million donations for migrants. They spent 130 million. So the U. S. Bishops Conference is not making money off of migrants. It’s a lie, basically, we have to be honest about that. And to say that, and to put that into people’s heads – and as that gets into people’s heads, and that gets into the popular discourse, was just awful.

And then at the same time, to be cutting USAID, which is now gone, where people are going to die, and to say that this is being done as a Christian or as a Catholic, I thought, was really reprehensible. Like I said, you can argue with his interpretation of the Ordo Amoris and Aquinas and all that, but to lie about the bishops was unbelievable to me. And as a Catholic, to do that is just unbelievable.

And fortunately, the bishops pushed back. And then finally Pope Francis pushed back, and wrote a very brief letter to the US bishops supporting their work with migrants and against mass deportation, and also reminding us that the real sort of template or ethos is not at the Ordo Amoris, it’s the Good Samaritan. It’s Jesus. So I was glad he did that.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH: That’s major. Like literally, “More Catholic than the Pope” is a phrase that we used to joke about. But literally, JD Vance thinks he’s more Catholic than the Pope. And I’m not giving him that permission slip. I think it’s just really important to see how out of line he was, but how it gives permission, like you say, it’s in the atmosphere now, and it’s poison. But it’s amazing that, one, that Pope Francis felt the need because of the gravity of the misinterpretation and the gravity of the accusations to speak back. And it just goes to his last days, how committed he was to that.

JIM MARTIN: And it was always a big issue for him, migrants and refugees. And also he understood the US Church, I would say. When I was with him, he understood exactly what was going on. He understood what needed to be done.

But, can I tell a story that really, I think, shows you what an amazing guy he was. And for me, this story really sums up everything. And it’s about just how open he was. Very briefly, you probably remember, last year, he made a comment to the Italian bishops’ conference about the sort of over-prevalence of gay priests in the priesthood and in seminaries, and used a slur word, which I can never say, which is basically… I won’t say it. It’s like effeminate, frociaggine, anyway, and I was really surprised by this. And I thought, this is so out of character from the guy that I know. And it really made headlines, and it made a lot of LGBTQ people upset.

In any event, I was over there a couple months later for a meeting with comedians that I was asked to help to arrange with the Pope, which went very well. I’m over there, and he agrees to meet with me, and I bring this up. I bring up the slur that he used, and I bring up the question about gay priests. And he says to me, right off the bat, “Well of course I know many holy and faithful and celibate gay priests and seminarians, you know that, and I’ve told you that.”Aand I said, maybe it would be good for you to say that publicly, And he said, and this is how he talks, he said, this is in Spanish, with the translator, he said, “You can say that.” And I said, wait a minute, I can say that you know many gay priests and seminarians who are holy and gay and celibate? “Of course you can say that!” And I said to the translator, Did he…? And the translator said, yeah, he just said, you can say that. And he said, of course you can say that because I do believe that.

And then we had a discussion about the slur, which apparently he didn’t understand the gravity of. And he said, I’m never going to use it again. Okay, and then we moved on to other stuff, the US Church and all sorts of things. All right. That’s part one.

Part two is I’m at this meeting with all the comedians. And everyone’s going up to get their hands shaked, shook, whatever. And I wait in the back because I thought, I just saw him so I don’t need to see him again. So I go up, he laughs, and he says, “Oh, so now you’re a famous American comedian, huh?” And then I laugh – and I swear, and there’s video of this, I start to pull away, he pulls me back and says, “Thank you for that meeting the other day. I really needed to hear that. That was so helpful.” And then gave me a thumbs up.

And I just thought, Paul, who does that? Who thanks people for a difficult meeting? Who thanks people for being corrected? And it’s someone who’s holy and open and humble. That’s true humility for me. And listening. And I thought this was one of his secrets, in addition to God’s grace. That was one of his secrets. Who does that?

So it was so moving, that little throwaway thing. And I’m glad I have the little video of it, was just so amazing to me. And, not oh, hey, okay, I got what you were saying. “Thank you. I needed that.” So that’s who he was.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH: I know there’s only certain moments when the Pope is infallible, but someone who actually has the ability to say, and now I’m being fallible, to say, I was fallible there. I actually think that’s a great story to talk about who he was. And this is what great leadership is – religious leadership, but real leadership of any kind, is to recognize, oh, okay. I can grow here. I can learn here.

It reminds me of a professor of mine, Jim Cone, who was a professor of Black liberation theology at Union. And he wrote his big book, really important book, on Black liberation. And then women came to him and said, you’re really not thinking about us at all. And then he was like, you’re right. Let’s figure out ways I can get better. And not being intimidated. And up to the point where, Jim Cone was very interested in LGBTQ rights. He was always about Black rights and Black liberation, but he realized he could learn and we could all learn. And boy, how much I’ve had to learn over the years. But that ope Francis was still learning, even at that late time, it’s just a testimony to what, hopefully, we can inspire religious leadership to incorporate that idea into what leadership means today.

JIM MARTIN: I hope so. And I learned a lot from him. One of the things I learned was that change takes time. And he said to me – I proposed something dramatic, which I won’t say, about LGBT stuff – and he said, “I prefer to go step by step so as not to cause a chain reaction,” meaning a big pushback and having it blow up in your face.

And I thought, you know what? He’s right. It’s important to be prophetic, but he was also about unity in the Church. So I was so lucky to know him and it was such a blessing. And look, I’ll just say, I’m not a cardinal. I’m not an archbishop. I’m not a bishop. I’m not president of a university. I’m not a provincial of, I’m just me. I just write books and do my little work. So for him to meet with me several times was amazing for me. Really, a huge blessing.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH: And, thank you, because, those of us who are part of the LGBTQ community, but part of the broader Christian community, and the bravery that you have every time you speak publicly.

And a lot of people who consider themselves Catholic come out to protest you in really terrible ways. And yet for you to feel like you had, literally, the Pope’s blessing, that must have given you a great deal of comfort. Can you say more? That must have been like, yeah, you can come for me, man.

JIM MARTIN: Well, but he is my boss, technically. He’s my boss. I’m a Jesuit. I take a vow of obedience. Where there’s a superior general of our Jesuits and he supports me, I tell him what I’m doing, but his boss is the Pope. So it did make a huge difference.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH: So just, in these moments that are uncertain for the future, what do you imagine happening with the Church going forward?

JIM MARTIN: Well, we’ll see. We’ll see who is elected pope. We’ll see who’s elected pope. I would encourage people to give the new pope, whoever he is, a chance. I think you’ll get a little bit of an idea of where he’s going by the choice of his name. And we’ll see – as we’re recording it, we don’t know who the new pope is, and I think there are lots of interesting candidates. Interestingly, for those people who watched the movie Conclave, that’s pretty accurate. That’s what happens, the different factions and different desires.

And it’s not quite as dramatic with – I don’t want to ruin Conclave, but it gives you a good sense of what the process is like. But, really, to give the new pope a chance, I would say.

PAUL RAUSHENBUSH: Fr. James Martin has been Consultor to the Vatican Secretariat for Communication since 2017, appointed by Pope Francis. Fr. Jim is Editor-at-Large for America Magazine, and has written about a gazillion books, all of which are amazing. The most recent is Come Forth.

Jim, I really appreciate you, and I really appreciate you being willing to talk to me and to our listeners on The State of Belief, and sharing all that you know about Pope Francis, but also all the work that you did with him. And so I just want to end with a note of deep appreciation for you and for Pope Francis.

JIM MARTIN: Thank you, Paul, for being such a supporter and an advocate and a brother. And it was wonderful being on with you.