Pope Francis has encouraged parents to support their gay children—a first statement of this nature to come from the highest ranking member of the Catholic Church.
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Contradicting statements
During his weekly general address at the Vatican's Pope Paul VI audience hall, the Pope touched on the many hardships parents go through when raising their children.
One of the points he made was that parents are not to condemn their kids, even if they happen to identify as something other than heterosexual. Instead, the Pope said that parents should find ways to help their kids that find themselves in less-than-ideal situations.
However, this goes against the belief the Catholic Church has about members of the LGBTQIA+ community. More specifically, The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican's top doctrinal office, has said in the past:
It is not licit to impart a blessing on relationships, or partnerships, even stable, that involve sexual activity outside of marriage, as is the case of the unions between persons of the same sex. There are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God's plan for marriage and family.
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Supporting all troubled children
Also during his speech, the Pontiff mentioned that parents who live with ill and disabled children, and even incarcerated children, should never stop supporting them. He said:
It made me so tender when in Buenos Aires I went by bus in front of the prison and there was a queue of people who had to enter for visits. And there were mothers there. This mother faced with the problem of a son who made a mistake, does not leave him alone.
