Pope Francis meets with Father James Martin at Vatican

By AC Wimmer

CNA Newsroom, Nov 11, 2022 / 05:24 am

Pope Francis received Father James Martin, SJ, in a private audience in the apostolic palace inside the Vatican on Friday.

In a tweet published after the encounter, Father Martin wrote he was “was deeply grateful to meet with Pope Francis in the Apostolic Palace this morning for 45 minutes.”

The conversation covered “the joys and hopes, the griefs and anxieties, of LGBTQ Catholics,” Martin added, writing: “It was a warm, inspiring and encouraging meeting that I’ll never forget.“

The Vatican does not customarily comment on papal meetings with individual priests or bishops.

Martin is the author of “Building a Bridge: How the Catholic Church and the LGBT Community Can Enter into a Relationship of Respect, Compassion, and Sensitivity” and frequently speaks on issues pertaining to homosexuality and Catholicism.

Pope Francis met with Father Martin in 2019 and expressed support for the American Jesuit’s ministry in a letter a year later, encouraging him to “continue this way.“

AC Wimmer is founding Editor-in-Chief of CNA Deutsch. The multilingual Australian, raised in Bavaria and South Africa, held senior roles at Australia's SBS and served as editor-in-chief of the historic Münchner Kirchenzeitung. A graduate in Philosophy and Chinese Studies from the University of Melbourne, Anian Christoph Wimmer — Chinese name 刘威猛 — sat on the jury of the Media Award of the German Bishops’ Conference, is a former Honorary Research Fellow in Communications at the University of Melbourne and served on the Board of Caritas in Munich.