Pope Francis' criticism of abortion, euthanasia, and gender ideology

The death of Pope Francis has generated much praise for him, even from people far removed from his way of thinking.

Pope Francis, Rest in Peace

Did Francis defend progressive ideas?

I think it's great that some people have the grace to say beautiful words to someone who has recently passed away, putting aside radical differences of principle between them. What's not right is trying to pass Francis off as someone he wasn't. Yesterday, for example, the socialist minister Félix Bolaños stated: "His defense of the weak and his drive for renewal leave a great legacy in the Church and in the world."

Likewise, leftist journalist Jordi Évole said of Francis: "In a time when reactionary ideas triumph, he was our ethical and political dam." From the far left, Juan Pablo Fernández Santos, secretary of the Podemos organization, said: "Pope Francis has tried more than any other Pope to move the Church towards more progressive, more open, and less reactionary positions."

Francis' harsh criticism of abortion

I confess that reading these things fills me with stupor. In Spain, the left has been insulting those of us who defend life against atrocities like abortion and euthanasia for years, those of us who denounce the aberrations of gender ideology, or attempts to denaturalize the family and marriage. However, that same left seems not to have read what Francis has said on these issues, creating a distorted and false image of the recently deceased Pope.

Perhaps some leftists are unaware that just a few months ago, Francis said that abortion "is homicide" and the doctor who performs it "is a hitman." On February 3, 2025, in a speech at the summit on children's rights, Francis stated:

In the name of this logic of discarding, in which human beings become all-powerful, nascent life is sacrificed through the homicidal practice of abortion. Abortion suppresses the life of children and cuts off the source of hope for the entire society.

On 9 January 2025, before the members of the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See, Francis affirmed: "It is unacceptable, for example, to speak of a presumed “right to abortion” that contradicts human rights, in particular the right to life. All life must be protected, at every moment, from conception to natural death, because no child is a mistake or guilty for existing, just as no elderly or sick person can be deprived of hope or discarded."

Francis' criticism of euthanasia

This last phrase of Francis was a reference to euthanasia. On April 11, 2024, the Argentine Pope said: "This is very important, the two extremes of life: children with disabilities are aborted, and the elderly in their final stages are given the “sweet death,” euthanasia, a disguised euthanasia, but it is always euthanasia, in the end." A few days later, Francis stated:

It is at this point that I would like to emphasize that true palliative care is radically different from euthanasia, which is never a source of hope or genuine concern for the sick and dying. It is rather a failure of love, a reflection of a "throwaway culture" in which "persons are no longer considered a primary value to be respected" (Fratelli tutti, 18). Indeed, euthanasia is often falsely presented as a form of compassion. In contrast, "compassion"—which means "suffering with"—does not imply an intentional action to end a life, but rather a willingness to share the burden of people facing the last part of our earthly pilgrimage.

Francis: “Today's worst danger is gender ideology”

Regarding gender ideology, which emerged from the far left, on March 1, 2024, Francis stated: "Today the ugliest danger is gender ideology, which erases differences. I have asked for studies to be done on this ugly ideology of our time, which erases differences and makes everything the same; to erase difference is to erase humanity."

In March 2023, Francis had already criticized that ideology in an interview published in the Argentine newspaper La Nación:

Gender ideology, at this moment, is one of the most dangerous ideological colonizations. It goes beyond the sexual. Why is it dangerous? Because it blurs differences, and the richness of men and women and all of humanity is the tension of differences. It is growing through the tension of differences. The gender issue blurs differences and makes the world equal, everything blunt, everything alike. And that goes against the human vocation.

The Argentine Pope's words on family and marriage

Regarding the family and marriage, Pope Francis also did not subscribe to the left's theses, which aimed to denature both institutions. In September 2023, the Argentine Pope was very clear:

The Church has a very clear conception of marriage: an exclusive, stable, and indissoluble union between a man and a woman, naturally open to conceiving children. Only such a union is called "marriage." Other forms of union only realize it "in a partial and analogous way" (Amoris laetitia 292), and therefore cannot strictly be called "marriage."

It is not merely a question of names, but rather the reality we call marriage has a unique essential constitution that demands an exclusive name, not applicable to other realities. It is undoubtedly much more than a mere "ideal."

For this reason, the Church avoids any type of rite or sacramental that might contradict this conviction and imply that something is recognized as marriage that is not.

Anyone who defends these ideas is systematically demonized by the left, as has happened in many countries for years, with forms of finger-pointing that make it clear that the so-called "progressives" refuse to be contradicted on these issues. However, the left insists on ignoring these teachings of Francis, as if they never existed. I hope this article serves to shed light on this mistaken view of the recently deceased Pope.