Cardinal Robert McElroy, the progressive archbishop of San Diego, has slammed conservative Catholics who oppose blessing gay couples, suggesting they are anti-gay.

Opposition from U.S. Catholics to the recent Vatican declaration lifting a ban on blessing gay couples is the result of “an enduring animus among far too many toward LGBT persons,” Cardinal McElroy stated this weekend at the Religious Education Congress sponsored by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

The cardinal caused an uproar in 2023 when he suggested sodomy is not necessarily serious sin, despite the well-known biblical condemnation of the act as an “abomination” and enduring Catholic teaching condemning homosexual acts.

In a separate article, McElroy advocated scrubbing the traditional distinction between temptation and sin when dealing with homosexuality, asserting those who resist their sinful inclinations are no different from those who give into them.

“The distinction between orientation and activity cannot be the principal focus for such a pastoral embrace because it inevitably suggests dividing the L.G.B.T. community into those who refrain from sexual activity and those who do not,” the cardinal said, while urging that both groups be invited to receive the Eucharist.

Cardinal Robert Walter McElroy, Bishop of San Diego, attends a reception for relatives and friends in the Paul VI Hall at the Vatican Saturday, Aug. 27, 2022. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

In response, Springfield Bishop Thomas Paprocki accused Cardinal McElroy of “heresy” for his rejection of the basic Church teaching.

“Unfortunately, it is not uncommon today to hear Catholic leaders affirm unorthodox views that, not too long ago, would have been espoused only by heretics,” Bishop Paprocki stated.

It is “deeply troubling to consider the possibility that prelates holding the office of diocesan bishop in the Catholic Church may be separated or not in full communion because of heresy,” he wrote, because they “reject essential truths of the faith.”

Pope Francis elevated Bishop McElroy to the rank of cardinal in 2022, evoking praise from the leader of a dissident Catholic LGBT advocacy group who proclaimed McElroy “the kind of prelate our church needs.”

McElroy has come to the defense of President Joe Biden, a Catholic who supports abortion rights, insisting he should be permitted to continue receiving Holy Communion despite his overt opposition to basic Church teaching.

Bishop McElroy has repeatedly downplayed the importance of abortion, insisting that it is less important than other issues such as climate change.

In February 2020, McElroy made the astonishing claim that while abortion is a great evil, “the long-term death toll from unchecked climate change is larger and threatens the very future of humanity.”

Both abortion and climate change are “core life issues in the Catholic Church,” the bishop said during a public lecture at the University of San Diego, but neither should be identified as preeminent.