Pope Francis told reporters on Sunday that Catholics and other Christians should apologize to gay people and seek their forgiveness “for not having behaved as it should many times”.
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Francis uttered his “Who am I to judge?” comment during his first airborne press conference in 2013, signalling a new era of acceptance and welcome for gay people in the church. “This could be a very important step in healing the relationship between the Catholic Church and LGBTQ people”, she stated.
“We must accompany them”, Francis said. “The Catechism is clear”.
Crux adds that Francis also conceded “that there are ‘some traditions and cultures that have a different mentality, ‘ and said apologies are in order whenever there are ‘people we could have defended and we didn’t'”.
As a Church and as a society, “we’ve also (got) to say ‘sorry, sorry, ‘” the cardinal said. “All of us are saints, because all of us have the Holy Spirit”, he said, but also cautioned that “we are all sinners, me first of all!” “It has to ask forgiveness for having blessed many weapons”. Indeed, “Christians must say sorry and not only for this”.
This apology shouldn’t just be institutional, but rather Christians themselves are the ones who must apologize, Francis said. Think of Catalonia and Scotland.
He confessed that he “has not studied well for what reasons the United Kingdom took this decision”.
About Brexit the pope said unity is always superior to conflict, bridges are better than walls and brotherhood is better than enmity. He urged the bloc to chart a new way forward by giving member states greater freedoms. He warned against “throwing the baby out with the bath water”.
– He believes “the intentions of Martin Luther” were not wrong in wanting to reform the church, but “maybe some of his methods were not right”.
“Maybe some methods were not the right ones”, the pope continued. He was a reformer protesting against a Church rife with corruption, worldliness and lust for power’. And then there were the princes, “cuius regio, eius religio”. “It is a story that is not easy to understand; not easy”. “We should not be scandalized by that”, but pray that God makes the wheat grow more and the weeds less. “It is a big challenge”. “To the women who have been exploited, to children who have been exploited by (being forced to) work”. He said clearly on February 11 that I continue to help the church with prayer, and he went to the monastery to pray.
“While focused on the headline-grabbing war in Syria, the two leaders did not ignore the tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave in Azerbaijan where the majority of people are ethnic Armenians and had voted for independence”.
Pope Francis, who returned to Rome on June 26 after visiting a monastery in Armenia near the border with Turkey, first used the word past year during a ceremony at the Vatican.
The Christian faith demands concrete acts of charity, Pope Francis and Catholicos Karekin insisted.
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Pope Francis did, however, praise Benedict for having is back.
