JAKARTA, Indonesia (LifeSiteNews) — Pope Francis is being praised for his pro-LGBT “inclusiveness” by transgender activists in Indonesia, where the archdiocese of the country’s capital city has been “welcoming” unrepentant gender-confused individuals into parishes in recent years, according to The New York Times.
The Times reported that Francis, who is visiting the conservative, largely Muslim nation during a tour of southeast Asia, “has become a personal hero” to men in Indonesia who claim to be “transgender” because of “his messages of tolerance and openness toward” the so-called “L.G.B.T.Q. community.”
“When we got Francis as the pope, I realized that God was really listening,” said a person identified as “Mami Yuli,” who the Times referred to as “the leader of the trans community” in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia.
Yuli, apparently a man who identifies as a woman, has “lobbied the church” in favor of pro-LGBT causes, according to the article.
“This is not the pope but God himself visiting us,” he said.
Yuli added that “there is never someone as high profile who sends a message of inclusiveness” regarding homosexual and gender-confused individuals in Indonesia, where the public is overwhelmingly opposed to sodomy and transgenderism.
Pope Francis has repeatedly contradicted Catholic teaching on homosexuality, referred to gender-confused men as females, and endorsed LGBT activists and pro-LGBT events around the world throughout his papacy.
READ: Pope Francis again welcomes group of ‘transgender’ males, homosexuals at Vatican audience
In Indonesia, the Archdiocese of Jakarta has taken an increasingly liberal approach to transgenderism, following Francis, according to The New York Times.
“Pope Francis has called for us several times not to judge them,” Rev. Agustinus Kelik Pribadi of St. Stephen Catholic Church in South Jakarta, told the paper, pointing to Pope Francis’ notorious “Who am I to judge?” remarks about homosexual priests in 2013. “We must listen,” Pribadi said.
The Jakarta archdiocese’s relationship with the so-called “trans women community,” some of whom engage in prostitution, is due to Cardinal Ignatius Suharyo Hardjoatmodjo, the archbishop of Jakarta, priests told the Times.
Suharyo, who was made a cardinal by Pope Francis in 2019, has instructed priests to “welcome” individuals who identify as “transgender” into Catholic parishes to “respect human dignity,” according to the report.
“Dozens” of gender-confused males who were not raised Catholic “have been baptized in Jakarta in recent years,” the article related.
But while the men may have received baptism, in many cases, they appear to continue identifying as “transgender” and do not seem to have renounced transgenderism, which Catholic doctrine condemns.
“When I go to the church, nobody judges me,” a gender-confused individual identified as “Ms. Gondhoadjmodjo” told the Times, which added that Gondhoadjmodjo was baptized in 2022 and “started volunteering as a teacher thanks to the church.”
Over 50 individuals described as “trans women” attend a “prayer meeting” at the Jakarta cathedral once a month, Rev. Adrianus Suyadi, a Jesuit priest at the cathedral, said.
The report also cited a “trans woman” identified as “Mika Horulean” who attends “Catholic trans-counseling meetings, in which participants discuss their experiences, on Zoom every Friday.”
Father Suyadi told The New York Times that he proposed to the local bishops’ conference to have Yuli, the transgender activist, meet with Pope Francis, though the proposal was not accepted.
The article makes no mention of gender-confused individuals being called to conversion from their transgender lifestyles.
Catholic teaching rejects transgender ideology, affirms the reality of the two sexes, and condemns bodily mutilation, such as “gender transition” procedures, as “against the moral law.”
The Church also teaches, in accordance with Sacred Scripture and the constant Tradition of the Church, that homosexual activity is mortally sinful and a “sin that cries to heaven” and that the homosexual inclination is “objectively disordered.”
Repentance of mortal sin is necessary for salvation, as the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches.
Mortal sin “results in the loss of charity and the privation of sanctifying grace that is, of the state of grace,” the Catechism states. “If it is not redeemed by repentance and God’s forgiveness, it causes exclusion from Christ’s kingdom and the eternal death of hell,” it continues.