This is the article that appeared in the June 2025 edition of Catalyst, our monthly journal. The date that prints out reflects
the day that it was uploaded to our website. For a more accurate date of when the article was first published, check out the news release, here.
There is so much to say about a pope besides his position on contemporary public policy issues, but since the media are focused on this subject, it is important to know exactly what our new pope has said.
Abortion
- As a student at Villanova in the 1970s, he helped found a pro-life group on campus. (The College Fix)
- “Western mass media is extraordinarily effective in fostering within the general public enormous sympathy for beliefs and practices that are at odds with the gospel, for example abortion, homosexual lifestyle, euthanasia.” (2012 address to the Synod of Bishops, Newsweek)
- “Let’s defend human life at all times!” (2015 tweet in support of the March for Life in Chiclayo, Peru, Newsweek)
- “We cannot build a just society if we discard the weakest—whether the child in the womb or the elderly in their frailty—for they are both gifts from God.” (2019 homily, Newsweek)
- “The Church must walk with all people, especially the most vulnerable, ensuring their dignity is upheld from the womb to the end of life, as this is the heart of Christ’s mission.” (2023 address to clergy in Peru, Newsweek)
AI
- “[T]he Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice and labor.” (May 10, 2025, address to the College of Cardinals, Vatican)
- “I am thinking in particular of artificial intelligence, with its immense potential, which nevertheless requires responsibility and discernment in order to ensure that it can be used for the good of all, so that it can benefit all of humanity.” (May 12, 2025, address to the media, Vatican)
Assisted Suicide
- On Twitter, he shared an article by Catholic News Agency condemning Canada for implementing assisted suicide. (2016 Twitter, Newsweek)
Euthanasia
- “We cannot build a just society if we discard the weakest—whether the child in the womb or the elderly in their frailty—for they are both gifts from God.” (2019 homily, Newsweek)
Gender Ideology
- “The promotion of gender ideology is confusing, because it seeks to create genders that don’t exist.” (2016 to local media in Peru, National Catholic Register)
Immigration
- On X, he shared an article from National Catholic Reporter critical of Vice President Vance’s stance on immigration. (February 3, 2025 X post, @drprevost)
- On X, he shared an article from America Magazine critical of Vice President Vance’s stance on immigration. (February 13, 2025 X post, @drprevost)
- In an interview with the media, his older brother John Prevost has indicated that he is “not happy with what’s going on with immigration” policy in the United States. (May 9, 2025, The Guardian)
LGBT
- He criticized the media for portraying “alternative families composed of same-sex partners and their adopted children” in a positive light. (2012 address to the Synod of Bishops, Newsweek)
- “Pope Francis has made it very clear that he doesn’t want people to be excluded simply on the basis of choices that they make, whether it be lifestyle, work, way to dress, or whatever. Doctrine hasn’t changed, and people haven’t said yet, you know, we’re looking for that kind of change. But we are looking to be more welcoming and more open, and to say all people are welcome in the church.” (2023 interview with Catholic News Service, National Catholic Register)
- He has been ambiguous on Fiducia Supplicans. However, after the African bishops raised concerns about providing blessings to samesex couples, he suggested a compromise to allow the bishops to opt out. (2024, CBCPNews)
Ordaining Women
- When asked about the possibility of ordaining women, he noted that “the apostolic tradition is something that has been spelled out very clearly.” (2023, Synod on Synodality, National Catholic Register)
- “Something that needs to be said also is that ordaining women—and there’s been some women that have said this interestingly enough— ‘clericalizing women’ doesn’t necessarily solve a problem, it might make a new problem,” (2023, Synod on Synodality, National Catholic Register)
