When Dustin Pagan-Peterson and his husband found out Pope Francis had passed, the only thing they could do after confirming it online was hold each other’s hands across the breakfast table and cry.

“It’s still so hard to actually believe,” Pagan-Peterson said Friday, April 25.

Pope Francis was 88 when he died on Easter Monday, April 21. His death was a blow to Catholics around the world, especially those who appreciated Francis’ views on LGBTQ+ people, poverty and immigration.

As the May 7 conclave gets underway in the Vatican to choose a new pope, there’s concern in the LGBTQ+ community over whether a new pontiff’s views will be as progressive as Francis’s.

”I guess for us, the scary part is what comes or who comes next, you know?” Pagan-Peterson said. “And how much will that person, whoever he is, follow in the footsteps of Pope Francis or not? Where does that leave the LGBT community as far as the Catholic church goes?”

Pagan-Peterson, who lives with his husband in Torrance, converted to Catholicism in 2018 through the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults. He knew that Catholicism wasn’t much more accepting of homosexuality than the Southern Baptist environment he was raised in, but as his relationship with his Catholic partner deepened, so did his faith in the Catholic view of Christianity.

He recalled seeing one of pope Francis’ first news conferences in 2013, when a reporter asked Francis about his stance on the sexual orientation of priests and the freshly-appointed pope had replied, “If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?”

“ Then he just expanded from there to say that priests could bless, at least, gay people,” Pagan-Peterson said. “We still can’t get married in the church, but still that blessing, it’s just been such a light.”

Southern California LGBTQ+ Catholics like Jessica Gerhardt, who is bisexual and newly wed to her trans nonbinary partner with a Jesuit officiant, see Pope Francis’ stance on homosexuality as one of the strongest defenses against discrimination in the church.

”Ideally you wouldn’t have to appeal to higher authorities to just be heard,” Gerhardt said. “But in the case of … the hierarchical Catholic church, being able to point to a pope that did have these fairly social-justice-minded, liberation-theology-minded perspectives … all of it was just really inspiring.”

Gerhardt added, ”I just felt like the pope’s spirituality, and very much akin to that Jesuit spirituality, was one that I would try to come back to whenever my inner critical trad voice would be like, ‘You’re not Catholic enough, you’re not Catholic enough.’”

Jamie Garza, a structural engineer in Los Angeles, and a trans woman, said she had been following the pope’s health closely, praying for his full recovery.

Garza began her transition “in earnest” in 2018, and said she’s been very happy ever since, and feels support from her parish and community.

“I’ve been able to deepen my faith and live out my faith honestly,” Garza said. “I think before, it’s hard to live out your faith when you hate yourself, or you’re carrying a burden that you’re not a whole person or that there’s something missing.”

Garza is concerned about how the pope’s death will affect the current state of affairs for trans people in the church.

“ I’m afraid of what’s going to come next,” Garza said. “The pope provided cover and openness and allowed the LGBT community to live, to thrive, to do ministry, not just to partially exist, but to exist fully in our churches. And I’m afraid if you lose that leader, it may be easier for churches to kick us out.”

In October of 2023, Pope Francis signed a letter to the Rev. José Negri in Brazil which stated that a transgender person “can receive Baptism under the same conditions as other believers.” Along with another section that affirmed trans adults could be godparents, the notes are part of Francis’ lasting legacy of creaking the door open for LGBTQ+ people to be more accepted into the church, despite the lack of change in the official doctrine.

“ The Catechism in the Catholic church defines homosexuality as intrinsically disordered, but it also emphasizes the importance of love, compassion, acceptance to people who are homosexual,” said Michelle Loris, director of the Center for Catholic Studies at Sacred Heart University. “Before Francis, that was the main document.”

According to Loris, of the 135 cardinals who will participate in the conclave, 108 were appointed by Francis, and many of those 108 favored an ideology that Francis embraced called synodality. The principle calls church leaders to listen attentively to congregants of all walks of life in order to create a more inclusive, community-centered church.

“Synodality is a way of being heard … in the Greek it means ‘journeying together,’” Loris said. “He brought people together sitting at a round table from different countries, from different ethnicities, clerics, lay people, men, women, all of them together, talking about the important issues.”

The attention to synodality amidst the electing cardinals implies they could elect a pope with similar values. Loris said in that case, it would be likely the pope-elect would continue Francis’ pastoral work, but unforeseeable that he would push LGBTQ+ rights within the church any further than Francis did. The new pope will face the ever-present obstacle of navigating common ground within a church where some cardinals believe LGBTQ+ people are part of the community, and others believe in criminalizing homosexuality.

”What Francis has done is, it’s just amazing. It really is,” Loris said. “The gospel, the work of Jesus Christ, was the work of love and mercy, and that’s what he tried to bring in. For him the Church was in fact the people of God … all of us. Todos todos todos (meaning everyone, everyone, everyone).”

While worried for the future, Garza said she is proud to be visible, and what she called “an easy target.” She wants people within the church to know that she is an example of trans people who want to be a part of the church’s ministry, who want to contribute and “be a part of the family.”

“ Through his leadership and his not only acceptance but interaction and dialogue with the LGBT community, specifically the trans community and the local trans community in Rome, [Pope Francis] has allowed a shift,” Garza said. “It’s allowed pastors locally to be welcoming to everybody.”