Leo: The Church Should be an “Open House” that “Listens Without Judging”

David Martin | The Daily Knight

Pope Leo has said that he wants the Church to be an “open house” that “listens without judging.” In his prayer video for October 2026, he said:

“May your Church be an open house, a safe space where everyone has a place — a community that accompanies and never excludes; that listens without judging; and that draws near without fear.”

Unfortunately, Leo has erred again. This is not said to criticize the papacy, which we embrace, but to simply say the truth in Christ. The Church is not an “open house” for the errant but it is the House of God where the Creator Himself dwells around the clock in full Body and Spirit.  Christ is the Just Judge who will come to “judge the living and the dead” (Apostles Creed), but it appears that Rome has forgotten this. While on earth Christ constantly Judged and pointed out the difference between good and evil to enable his representatives to do the same in their ministry. As Christ said, “Judge just judgment” (John  14:15).

The clergy indeed are bound to judge the evils of homosexuality, feminism, and heresy and to expel those who hold to these abominations. If St. Paul ordered the incestuous man to be banned from the Church how much more would he command that homosexuals and feminists be banned?

So the Church Should to Listen to the World?

When Leo says that the Church should ‘listen without judging,’ he is saying that those in authority (priests) should listen to homosexuals and heretics when they seek recognition for their cause. Not so. It is the errant who must listen to the priests (provided the priests are tradition-minded). Christ never listened to the people but he rather corrected and instructed them, so the clergy must reflect this in their ministry. To not correct and admonish the sinner is to deprive him of pastoral care. It is uncharitable.

Leo says the Church should be “a safe space where everyone has a place” but the Church is for Catholics only, not for outsiders. And that’s official Church teaching. It’s dogma!

And how can the Church be a “safe place” when there are hordes of heretics and homosexuals overrunning the place? This puts the faithful in danger of spiritual seduction (and the other kind too). And who has put these LGBTQ offenders in key strategic positions but Leo and his predecessor?

He says that people should be able to “draw near without fear,” but any Catholic, regardless of his sins, is given the chance to fearlessly “draw near” if he humbly consents to go to confession. God is waiting for him with an open and gentle heart, but if he refuses to confess and renounce his sins he has everything to fear. The hierarchy has been beguiled to think that God accepts us as we are, but God only accepts us as we are when what we are is what he made us to be – the dedicated sons and daughters of God (1 Thess: 4:3).

Is today’s Vatican hierarchy what God wants it to be?