Who am I to judge gay people, says Pope
30 July 2013 11:41 PM GMT
Pope Francis on Monday reached out to gays, saying he wouldn’t judge priests for their sexual orientation in a remarkably open and wide-ranging news conference while returning from his first foreign trip to Brazil.
‘If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?’ Francis asked. His predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, signed a document in 2005 that said men with deep-rooted homosexual tendencies should not be priests.
Francis was much more conciliatory, saying gay clergymen should be forgiven and their sins forgotten. ‘The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains this very well. It says they should not be marginalised because of this (orientation) but they must be integrated into society,’ he said.
He was funny and candid during his first news conference that lasted almost an hour and a half. He didn’t dodge a single question and even thanked the journalist who raised allegations reported by an Italian newsmagazine that one of his trusted monsignors was involved in a scandalous gay tryst. Francis said he investigated and found nothing to back up the allegations.
Francis was asked about Italian media reports suggesting that a group within the church tried to blackmail fellow church officials with evidence of their homosexual activities. Italian media reported this year the allegations contributed to Benedict’s decision to resign.
Stressing that Catholic social teaching which calls for homosexuals to be treated with dignity and not marginalised, Francis said it was something else entirely to conspire to use private information for blackmail or to exert pressure.
However, he also took journalists to task for reporting on the matter, saying the allegations concerned matters of sin, not crimes like sexually abusing children. ‘When someone sins and confesses, God not only forgives but forgets.
We don’t have the right to not forget,’ he said.
The directness of his comments suggested that he wanted to put the matter of the monsignor behind him as he sets about overhauling the Vatican bank and reforming the Holy See bureaucracy.
Speaking in Italian with occasional lapses in his native Spanish, Francis dropped a few nuggets of other news: He said he was thinking of travelling to the Holy Land next year and is considering invitations from Sri Lanka and Philippines as well.
Francis also said the ban on women priests was definitive, although he would like them to have more leadership roles in administration activities.
‘If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?’ Francis asked. His predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, signed a document in 2005 that said men with deep-rooted homosexual tendencies should not be priests.
Francis was much more conciliatory, saying gay clergymen should be forgiven and their sins forgotten. ‘The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains this very well. It says they should not be marginalised because of this (orientation) but they must be integrated into society,’ he said.
He was funny and candid during his first news conference that lasted almost an hour and a half. He didn’t dodge a single question and even thanked the journalist who raised allegations reported by an Italian newsmagazine that one of his trusted monsignors was involved in a scandalous gay tryst. Francis said he investigated and found nothing to back up the allegations.
Francis was asked about Italian media reports suggesting that a group within the church tried to blackmail fellow church officials with evidence of their homosexual activities. Italian media reported this year the allegations contributed to Benedict’s decision to resign.
Stressing that Catholic social teaching which calls for homosexuals to be treated with dignity and not marginalised, Francis said it was something else entirely to conspire to use private information for blackmail or to exert pressure.
However, he also took journalists to task for reporting on the matter, saying the allegations concerned matters of sin, not crimes like sexually abusing children. ‘When someone sins and confesses, God not only forgives but forgets.
We don’t have the right to not forget,’ he said.
The directness of his comments suggested that he wanted to put the matter of the monsignor behind him as he sets about overhauling the Vatican bank and reforming the Holy See bureaucracy.
Speaking in Italian with occasional lapses in his native Spanish, Francis dropped a few nuggets of other news: He said he was thinking of travelling to the Holy Land next year and is considering invitations from Sri Lanka and Philippines as well.
Francis also said the ban on women priests was definitive, although he would like them to have more leadership roles in administration activities.
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