(SS) Pope Francis endorsed same-sex civil unions for the first time as pope while being interviewed for the feature-length documentary “Francesco,” which had its premiere at the Rome Film Festival on Wednesday.

(WB) Authorities in Honduras have arrested a suspected gang member in connection with the murder of a transgender activist.

(AP) The most senior Vatican cleric to ever be charged in the Roman Catholic Church sex abuse scandal returned to Australia on Monday to stand trial in his home state on charges alleging he sexually assaulted multiple people years ago.

Justine Lindsay became the first trans NFL cheerleader, Netflix introduces a new vampire queer drama, and "Married at First Sight" star talks about her sexuality.

As a recovering "Cathaolic" and more precisely as a proud practicing atheist, I find myself in uncharted territory.  

(AP) Pope Francis has voiced support for Mexican bishops and citizens opposing the government's push to legalize same-sex marriage.

Pope Francis condemned the criminalization of homosexuality and urged church bishops to have a change of heart on the issue.

Pope Francis doesn’t want children learning gender is a choice.

(WB) The Vatican’s newspaper L’Osservatore Romano reported that during the weekly papal audience in St. Peter’s Basilica on Aug. 10, Pope Francis met with a fourth group of transgender people who are staying in a church on the outskirts of Rome.

Sister Genevieve Jeanningros and the Rev. Andrea Conocchia told L’Osservatore Romano that this was the fourth papal audience since the Blessed Immaculate Virgin Church in the Torvaianica neighborhood of Rome’s suburbs opened its doors to trans people during the coronavirus pandemic.

L’Osservatore Romano noted that the pope previously met with some of the trans residents sheltering in the church on April 27, June 22 and Aug. 3.

“No one should encounter injustice or be thrown away, everyone has dignity of being a child of God,” the paper quoted Jeanningros as saying.

Francis has earned praise from some members of the LGBTQ and intersex community for his outreach.

When asked in 2013 about a purportedly gay priest, he replied, “Who am I to judge?” He has met individually and in groups with trans people over the course of his pontificate the Associated Press reported.

But he has strongly opposed “gender theory” and has not changed church teaching that holds that same-sex sexual acts are “intrinsically disordered.” In 2021, he allowed publication of a Vatican document asserting that the Catholic Church cannot bless same-sex unions since “God cannot bless sin,” the AP noted.

Transgender, non-binary people and their “utopia of the neutral” will make people infertile, Pope Francis claims.

The pope has officially endorsed same-sex civil unions for the first time since becoming pontiff.

(EDGE) The Catholic Church took a step further away from equality Monday when Pope Francis, during an interview with French Catholic Newspaper La Croix, said Catholic public officials should not be obliged to officiate same-sex marriages or civil unions, Thai independent newspaper The Nation reports.

(CNN) Pope Francis reaffirmed his disagreement with teaching gender identity in schools on Sunday, after earlier calling it a "war against marriage."

(AP) Pope Francis says gays - and all the other people the church has marginalized, such as the poor and the exploited - deserve an apology.

(WM) The Vatican says Pope Francis’ comments on same-sex civil unions were taken out of context in a documentary that spliced together parts of an old interview, but still confirmed Francis’ belief that gay couples should enjoy legal protections.