14/08/2026
and yet there are still gay people who support Catholicism
Pope Leo XIV's April 2026 tour of Algeria, Cameroon, Angola and Equatorial Guinea took him through a continent where the majority of Catholic bishops have actively opposed the decriminalisation of homosexuality, and where the Church's considerable institutional weight has been used in multiple countries to support or defend legislation that criminalises same-sex relationships. In Ghana, where an anti-LGBTQ bill imposing prison sentences of up to three years passed into law in 2025 with vocal support from Catholic bishops, Leo made no public statement. In Cameroon, where homosexuality is also criminalised and Catholic Church leaders have publicly backed that position, Leo's visit focused entirely on Christian-Muslim dialogue and peace.
The Vatican's own Catechism continues to describe homosexual acts as "intrinsically disordered," and Leo XIV has confirmed he does not anticipate doctrinal change on sexuality in the near future. But the gap between Rome's increasingly pastoral tone and its silence on African bishops' active promotion of criminalisation represents a deeper contradiction: a Church that speaks of dignity in European capitals while its African hierarchy campaigns for imprisonment in Accra and Yaoundé. Leo's Africa tour was framed around peace, poverty and migration — all vital issues. The 35 African countries that still criminalise homosexuality, many of them with significant Catholic populations and influential Catholic bishops, went entirely unaddressed.
Sources: Human Rights Watch, April 2026; PinkNews, April 27, 2026; New Ways Ministry, April 2026
