Can Pope Francis Get the Catholic Church's Mind Off of Sex?

Pope Francis wants to move away from divisive fights over sex, abortion and gay rights. Behind the scenes at the U.N., Vatican diplomats are focusing on little else.

 In August 2013, just months after being selected to lead the Catholic Church, Pope Francis told an interviewer that the Holy See's clergy and diplomats should be less fixated on questions of sexual morality and show greater concern for the fate of billions of people abandoned by a modern "throwaway" culture that pays little heed to the world's poor and persecuted.

"We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage, and the use of contraceptive methods," Pope Francis said in the interview, in which he underscored the importance of promoting peace and tackling poverty and wealth inequality. "The teaching of the church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time."

The comments marked the start of a major rebranding campaign for the Catholic Church, whose image has been tarnished in recent years by the hierarchy's failure to crack down on sexual abuse by priests and its clergy's reputation as hard-bitten crusaders more committed to enforcing stringent moral codes than promoting peace and ministering to the world's neediest.

Two years into his papacy, Pope Francis has also managed to successfully restore the Holy See's reputation as an important diplomatic player. He has cultivated a personal image as peacemaker and truth-teller, brokered secret diplomatic talks between the U.S. and Cuba, and forced the world to confront uncomfortable truths, from the Armenian genocide to the deadly exodus of thousands of immigrants into Europe. He has also emerged as a powerful voice of compassion for those long living on the fringes of the church, or at least treated as second-class citizens, including the destitute, women, and openly gay Catholics.

A review of a confidential internal negotiating text from a recent conference on the Commission on Population and Development, obtained by Foreign Policy, show the Holy See's negotiator working to strip out references to "reproductive rights," which the Vatican sees as a green light for abortion, and "gender equality," a phrase the Vatican views as an implicit endorsement of transgender rights.

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Indeed, there is little doubt that Francis is already walking a delicate line between conservatives who share his predecessor's more traditional views of gay marriage and abortion and pragmatists more amenable to softening those stances.

Defenders of the pope also say the Vatican's diplomatic activity is by no means limited to matters of sex and reproductive rights.

Pope Francis and his U.N. envoy have taken advantage of the Catholic Church's status as the only religion recognized as an observer state at the U.N. to promote a range of other causes, from the abolition of nuclear weapons and the fight against climate change to the protection of migrants and Christian minorities in the Middle East and Africa. His role in opening the door to talks between the U.S. and Cuba stands as one of the more remarkable diplomatic achievements of the past decade.

"The word on the street is that Francis matters," said John Allen Jr., associate editor at the Boston Globe and its Catholic coverage website Crux, and author of nine books on the Vatican and Catholic affairs. Allen said that "delegates are now constantly approached by their governments for reads on what the pope is up to."

From Backwater to Diplomatic Hot Spot

Only four years ago, the Vatican was in danger of becoming a diplomatic backwater. Francis's predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, had previously been the guardian of Catholic doctrine in the Vatican. Benedict had taken an interest in the major challenges of the day, earning the moniker of the "green pope" and playing a role in urging Iran to release 15 British sailors. But he showed less interest in diplomacy than his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, who has been credited with working with President Ronald Reagan to topple the Soviet Union.

In Rome, diplomats wondered aloud whether diplomatic embassies at the Vatican even made sense, recalled Allen.

In November 2011, Ireland, a major Catholic country, withdrew its ambassador from the Vatican following protests by then-Prime Minister Enda Kenny, who accused the Holy See of obstructing an investigation into sex abuse. Ireland claimed the decision was designed to save money, but many diplomats suspect it was a result of the sex abuse dispute.

Vatican officials feared it was the start of a diplomatic exodus from the Vatican by governments that felt embassies weren't worth the expense given the Holy See's diminished diplomatic profile, according to Allen.

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Who Am I to Judge?

Francis has also raised hopes that his papacy that would strike a dramatically different approach to gays than his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, who once signed a Vatican letter asserting that homosexuality is "an objectivedisorder" that reflects a "strong tendency toward an intrinsic moral evil."

Francis has spoken compassionately about gays, suggesting the church would be accepting of them. In February, the Vatican for the first timegranted VIP seats to the New Ways Ministry, a group of visiting gay and lesbian Catholics, to a weekly audience with the pope at St. Peter's Square.

"If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has goodwill, who am I to judge?," he said in an August 2013 interview." Last October, the Vatican issued a report indicating that "homosexuals have gifts and qualities to offer the Christian Church."

The pope's remarks were embraced as the dawn of a more compassionate church that would focus on the matters that affect all humanity.  But on the eve of the pope's upcoming visit to the United Nations, advocates for gays, women and other marginalized groups have been disappointed on that front, saying the Holy See's diplomats have invested most of their diplomatic resources into leading a cultural war.

The Vatican's views on homosexuality reveals a deep seated anxiety about the way that U.N. bureaucrats and Western governments have framed international discussion on development and concerns about efforts to control population.

Those concerns were heightened in debates on population and women's rights in the mid-1990s in Cairo and Beijing, which fueled calls for universal access to reproductive health services and family planning information by 2015.

The Vatican's principle preoccupation is less about sex than about what it views as the emergence of radical new definition of gender, which see human beings, not simply as men and women, but as individuals who can determine their own sexual identity control their natural reproductive cycle.

For the Church, this represents an affront by liberals and feminists to the natural biological order and the traditional family, headed by a man and woman, and contributes to homosexuality, abortion and the erosion of the family.

Under Pope Benedict XVI, the Vatican launched an inquiry into the largest the Leadership Conference of Women Religious on the ground for promoting "radical feminism" themes incompatible with the Catholic faith. They were cited for straying from church doctrine on issues like birth control and an all-male priesthood and scolded for devoting too much time to tending the on poverty and economic inequality while remaining  silent about abortion and same-sex marriage. Last month, the Vatican reached a settlement with the nuns that effectively ended the stand off.

Pope Francis "hasn't changed the church's position on abortion or gay marriage but his attitude is everybody already knows where the church stands on that," said Father Thomas Reese, a Jesuit priest who serves as a senior analyst for the National Catholic Reporter. "We don't have to beat a dead horse."

The Pope is Not Waiving the White Flag in the Culture Wars

Other observers say Pope Francis is facing a difficult balancing act, and that some may have had unrealizable expectations on liberal causes, including gay rights and abortion.

"The Catholic Church has always been pro-life and also in favor of peace and justice, and this is true of Pope Francis," according to Allen. "The fact that he probably speaks more about the poor and migrants and the environment than pro-life matters is not intended to get the Vatican out of the pro-life game."

The Catholic hierarchy is largely divided into camps: the theologians, who ascribe to a pure reading of church doctrine, and the diplomats, who think the church should be more focused on matters of peace and justice. For now, the diplomats are in ascendance at the Vatican, but the pope has had to assure the theologians that he is not rewriting church doctrine. Last August, Francis visited a so-called cemetery for "abortion victims" outside of Seoul South, Korea, to underscore the church opposition to abortion. Francis has "to convince the pro-life contingent in the church that he is not their enemy," said Allen. "And he has done stuff to make clear he is not waiving the white flag in the culture wars."

Atocon Moses Atyekwo mosesatocon@msn.com @twitter: @AtyekwoM Skype:Atomose