Vatican news highlights for 2024 included Pope Francis’ longest trip, an 11-day trip through Asia and Oceania; the conclusion of the three-year global process known as the Synod of Synodality; and the incorporation of 20 new cardinals to the body that will elect the next pontiff.
All of these events reinforced themes that have marked the current pontificate practically since its beginning: a preference for trips to non-Western countries; an emphasis on broader consultation with the laity; and a tendency to elect men of non-traditional origin or location as princes of the Church.
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Pope Francis also displayed a now-familiar feature of his leadership style: the use of seemingly strategic ambiguity that stimulates debate and broadens the range of acceptable views on some of the most sensitive issues in the life of the Church. This year, that focus was particularly striking when it came to teaching about same-sex relationships, the ordination of women, and surrogacy.
The best-known example of this method remains the Pope’s most famous statement, given in response to a question about homosexuality and the priesthood at his first press conference in 2013: “Who am I to judge?”
Consequently, this year began amid controversy over the publication in December 2023 of Begging for confidencea statement from the Vatican Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith personally approved by the Pope, which gave priests permission to bless same-sex couples.
After the president of the Symposium of the Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar, Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo Besungu of Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, traveled to Rome to protest the document, Pope Francis allowed African bishops to prohibit such blessings in their continent.
“A separate case are the Africans, for them homosexuality is something ‘ugly’ from a cultural point of view, they do not tolerate it,” the Pope declared to the Italian newspaper La Stampa.
Three months later, in an interview with CBS News, the Pope downplayed Fiducia supplans, suggesting that it allowed blessings only for individuals, despite the document’s repeated references to “couples.”
“What I allowed was not to bless the union. “No, that cannot be done,” said the Pope. “But yes (you can) bless the person.”
The following month, in a closed-door meeting with Italian bishops, the Pope used a vulgar Italian term to refer to homosexuality, while reaffirming the Church’s policy of prohibiting entry into seminaries for men with “deeply homosexual tendencies.” rooted.” He apologized for the expression through a spokesperson, who said the Pope “never intended to offend or express himself in homophobic terms.”
In April, the doctrinal office published the statement Infinite dignityabout the defense of human dignity, which includes gender and bioethics issues. Cardinal Víctor Fernández, prefect of the dicastery, had predicted, in an interview with the Spanish news agency EFE, that the document would reassure Catholics concerned about the controversy over same-sex blessings.
The new statement cites a recent statement by Pope Francis that characterizes as “deplorable the practice of so-called surrogacy, which seriously offends the dignity of women and children; and is based on the exploitation of the mother’s situation of material need”, and calls for its universal prohibition.
But in the CBS interview shortly after, the Pope seemed to soften his condemnation and suggest that there could be exceptions: “I would say that in each case the situation must be considered carefully and clearly, consulting medically and then also morally. “I think there is a general rule in these cases, but each case must be analyzed in particular to evaluate the situation, as long as the moral principle is not avoided.”
Pope Francis also told CBS that he would not consider ordaining women as deacons, apparently closing the page on an issue for which he had appointed three different study panels. But in October, the Pope adopted as part of his official papal teaching a final synodal document stating that “the question of women’s access to the diaconal ministry remains open and it is necessary to continue discernment in this regard.”
The Synod turned out to be a disappointment to those who expected it to address controversial issues, such as LGBT issues, clerical celibacy or contraception, after the Pope confiscated those issues to special study groups, including one explicitly designated to handle “doctrinal issues, pastoral and controversial ethics. They are supposed to report their findings by the end of June 2025.
At a press conference in September, the Pope weighed in on the U.S. presidential election, saying it presented American Catholics with the need to choose the “lesser evil”: a Democrat who strongly supported the legalization of abortion or a Republican who promised deport millions of immigrants. Both candidates were “against life,” he said. “What is the lesser evil? That lady or that man? Don’t know; “Each person must think and decide according to his or her own conscience,” the Pope said, in contrast to the American bishops, whose voter guide has identified opposition to abortion as its “preeminent priority.”
Throughout the year, the Pope made repeated calls for peace in the world’s trouble spots, particularly in Ukraine and Gaza. He generally maintained a stance of neutrality among the belligerents, although he sometimes vehemently criticized Israel, especially when he said, in an interview published in November, that the country’s campaign in the Palestinian enclave had to be investigated as possible genocide. A pair of images in December exemplified the precariousness of the Pope’s balancing act on the volatile issue of the Middle East conflict. Pope Francis was photographed in the Vatican praying in front of a Christmas nativity scene made by Palestinian artisans, which featured a statue of the Baby Jesus lying in a manger covered with a keffiyeh scarf, a widely recognized emblem of the Palestinian cause. The image sparked controversy in Israel and elsewhere, and then it was withdrawn. The next day, the Vatican released a photograph of the Pope looking at what he has described as one of his favorite paintings: Marc Chagall’s 1938 painting, white crucifixionwhich depicts Jesus as a Jew against a backdrop of scenes of anti-Semitic persecution in the former Russian Empire and Nazi Germany.
In another tribute to culture last year, a open letter published in August on the importance of literature for the education of priests and others in pastoral ministry, Pope Francis urged humility in taking sides on complex issues:
“By recognizing the uselessness and perhaps also the impossibility of reducing the mystery of the world and the human being to an antinomian polarity of true/false or fair/unjust, the reader welcomes the duty of judgment not as an instrument of domination but as an impulse.” towards incessant listening.”
Translated and adapted by the ACI Prensa team. Originally published in National Catholic Register.
Francis X. Rocca
Francis X. Rocca is a senior Vatican analyst for EWTN News. He has covered the Vatican since 2007, most recently for The Wall Street Journal, where he also reported on global religion. He has written for Time, The Times Literary Supplement, and The Atlantic, among other publications. Rocca is the director of the documentary “Voices from Vatican II: participants remember the Council.”