Within hours of the announcement from Vatican City (Italy) that Pope Benedict XVI would step down as Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, gay rights activists across Europe began taking stock of what a post Benedict-pontificate will look like, both for the world’s 1 billion Roman Catholics.

Pulling no punches, Franco Grillini, the former leader of Italian gay rights group Arcigay, called Benedict “one of the biggest enemies of LGBT people.”

But others are split in just what the departure of the arch-conservative pontiff, who succeeded his mentor, John Paul II, as Bishop of Rome and pope in 2005, will mean.

Giuseppina la Delfa, President of Famiglie Arcobalenop, an LGBT family group, told expressed optimism about the selection of a new earthly leader of Roman Catholicism.

“I simply think that this Pope is obsessed by homosexuality and he acknowledged that a new Church is needed by our society,” la Delfa told reporters. “I’m optimistic. I think that the new Pope could only be a better one. The Vatican has understood that they have made a lot of mistakes, on human rights, on LGBT rights, on condoms, on new families and on modern needs of contemporary people.”

This week, Benedict XVI—born Joseph Ratzinger—announced that he will step down as the heir to St. Peter on February 28, at which time the Roman Catholic Church will begin the process of selecting his successor.

“After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry,” Benedict told a shocked world on Monday.

The Roman Catholic Church is the world’s largest Christian Church, with more than 1 billion members worldwide. It is among the world’s oldest institutions, playing a prominent role in western history. The Catholic hierarchy—led by the Pope and including cardinals, patriarchs of Eastern Rite conclaves that owe allegiance to Rome, and diocesan bishops—teaches that it is the one true Church, divinely founded by Jesus Christ, and that its bishops are successors of Christ’s apostles with the Pope being sole successor to St. Peter, who enjoyed apostolic primacy.

Imma Battaglia, a left-wing politician and gay rights Italian activist, had questions about the reasons underlining the pontiff’s decision to relinquish the Shoes of the Fisherman, despite Benedict’s claims of ill health and advancing age.

“Behind this resignation there’s the will to hide a scandal. Maybe something linked to money or, why not, to love,” Battaglia offered. “This Pope has made too many mistakes, but now he has been overwhelmed by the French and English votes on gay marriage and by the LGBT people’s requests, that’s the truth.”

But LGBT Roman Catholic activist Aurelio Mancuso offered words of caution. “I know the Church very well, and I know that nothing will change, at least not now,” he predicted.

“The cardinals’ conference is very conservative. It’s influenced by African and South American cardinals. They are against renovation and modernity. Then, we have to consider that Benedict XVI is still alive and that the new Pope will not be able to go against the doctrine of a man who’s still alive.”