India, May 14 -- On May 8, over 1.3 billion Catholics around the world watched with rapt attention as the burgundy drapes on the balcony of St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City opened to reveal a new Supreme Pontiff. Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, now elected by a conclave of his brother cardinals as Pope Leo XIV, walked out smiling and waving to the crowds below, wearing the regalia eschewed by his immediate, unassuming predecessor, Pope Francis. The hopes of queer Catholics were shattered soon after, however, when it became apparent that some of his past views on our lives didn't quite merit the labels centrist and moderate, which the international media adopted to describe him.

Two distinct assertions from the Holy Father, made at p...