Cardinal Dolan, whose name was floated as a possible candidate for the papacy, made his own waves last spring in televised interviews on Easter Sunday. Having vigorously fought the legalizing of same-sex marriage in New York, he said the church could be more welcoming of gay men and lesbians. “We’ve got to do better to see that our defense of marriage is not reduced to an attack on gay people,” he said.

On Sunday, Cardinal Dolan, who is president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, held a brief news conference in the sanctuary to talk about Pope Francis’ first six months in the Vatican and to address the pope’s groundbreaking interview with an Italian Jesuit journal. He was joined by the Very Rev. Robert Barron of Chicago, a priest known for his weekly radio program “Word on Fire,” who delivered the homily.

Asked how the city’s gay Catholic population regarded the new pope, Cardinal Dolan said, “I think they embrace him and I’m glad they do.” The pope’s message, Cardinal Dolan said, was that “we don’t look at people first and foremost as their sexual orientation or sexual identification; we look at him as a child of God, made in his image and likeness.” He added: “That’s the glasses we use. Everything else is secondary, so I hope that hits home.”

Father Barron offered a similar analysis. “If the first and last thing that gay people hear from the Catholic Church is that your acts are intrinsically disordered, that’s a tragedy,” he said. “I heard a new pastoral strategy in this interview. It’s a question of what do you prioritize, how do you do the work? You lead always with the merciful face of Christ.”

Still, Cardinal Dolan said the interview did not signal a shift in church doctrine or policy, whether toward same-sex marriage or abortion.