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| Pope Francis answers reporters questions during a news conference aboard the papal flight on its way back from Brazil, Monday, July 29, 2013. Pope Francis reached out to gays on Monday, saying he wouldn't judge priests for their sexual orientation in a remarkably open and wide-ranging news conference as he returned from his first foreign trip. "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. Francis' remarks came Monday during a plane journey back to the Vatican from his first foreign trip in Brazil. |
ABOARD THE PAPAL
AIRCRAFT (AP) -- A remarkably candid Pope Francis struck a
conciliatory stance toward gays Monday, saying "who am I to judge" when
it comes to the sexual orientation of priests.
"We
shouldn't marginalize people for this. They must be integrated into
society," Francis said during an extraordinary 82-minute exchange with
reporters aboard his plane returning from his first papal trip, to
celebrate World Youth Day in Brazil.
"If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?" the pope asked.
Francis'
first news conference as pope was wide-ranging and open, touching on
everything from the greater role he believes women should have in the
Catholic Church to the troubled Vatican Bank.
While
his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, responded to only a few
pre-selected questions during his papal trips, Francis did not dodge a
single query, even thanking the journalist who asked about reports of a
"gay lobby" inside the Vatican and allegations that one of his trusted
monsignors was involved in a gay tryst.
Francis
said he investigated the allegations against the clergyman according to
canon law and found nothing to back them up. He took journalists to
task for reporting on the matter, saying it concerned issues of sin, not
crimes like sexually abusing children. And when someone sins and
confesses, he said, God not only forgives - he forgets.
"We don't have the right to not forget," he said.
While
the comments did not signal a change in Catholic teaching that
homosexual acts are "intrinsically disordered," they indicated a shift
in tone under Francis' young papacy and an emphasis on a church that is
more inclusive and merciful rather than critical and disciplinary.
Francis'
stance contrasted markedly with that of Benedict, who signed a document
in 2005 that said men who had deep-rooted homosexual tendencies should
not be priests.
Gay leaders were buoyed by
Francis' approach, saying the change in tone was progress in itself,
although for some the encouragement was tempered by Francis' talk of gay
clergy's "sins."
"Basically, I'm overjoyed at
the news," said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of the
U.S.-based New Ways Ministry, a group that promotes justice and
reconciliation for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people and the
wider church community.
"For decades now,
we've had nothing but negative comments about gay and lesbian people
coming from the Vatican," DeBernardo said in a telephone interview from
Maryland.
The largest U.S. gay rights group,
Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement that the pope's remarks
"represent a significant change in tone."
Still,
said Chad Griffin, the HRC president, as long as gays "are told in
churches big and small that their lives and their families are
disordered and sinful because of how they were born - how God made them -
then the church is sending a deeply harmful message."
In Italy, the country's first openly gay governor, Nichi Vendola, urged fellow politicians to learn a lesson from the pope.
"I
believe that if politics had one-millionth of the capacity to ...
listen that the pope does, it would be better able to help people who
suffer," he said.
Vendola praised the pope for
drawing a clear line between homosexuality and pedophilia. "We know
that a part of reactionary clerical thought plays on the confusion
between these two completely different categories," he said.
Francis
also said he wanted a greater role for women in the church, though he
insisted "the door is closed" to ordaining them as priests. In one of
his most important speeches in Rio, Francis described the church in
feminine terms, saying it would be "sterile" without women.
Funny
and candid, Francis' exchange with the media was exceptional. While
Pope John Paul II used to have on-board talks with journalists, he would
move about the cabin, chatting with individual reporters so it was
hit-or-miss to hear what he said. After Benedict's maiden foreign
voyage, the Vatican insisted that reporters submit questions in advance
so the theologian pope could choose three or four he wanted to answer
with prepared comments.
Francis did not shy
away from controversial topics, including reports suggesting that a
group of gay
clergymen exert undue influence on Vatican policy. Italian
news media reported this year that the allegations of a so-called "gay
lobby" contributed to Benedict's decision to resign.
"A
lot is written about this gay lobby. I still haven't found anyone at
the Vatican who has `gay' on his business card," Francis said,
chuckling. "You have to distinguish between the fact that someone is gay
and the fact of being in a lobby."
The term
"gay lobby" is bandied about with abandon in the Italian media and is
decidedly vague.
Interpretations of what it means have ranged from a
group of celibate gay priests who are friends, to suggestions that a
group of sexually active gay priests use blackmail to exert influence on
Vatican decision-making.
Stressing that
Catholic teaching calls for homosexuals to be treated with dignity and
not marginalized, Francis said he would not condone anyone using private
information for blackmail or to exert pressure.
The
Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit author and commentator, saw the pope's
remarks as a sign of mercy.
"Today Pope Francis has, once again, lived
out the Gospel message of compassion for everyone," he said in an
emailed statement.
Speaking in Italian with occasional lapses in his native Spanish, Francis dropped a few nuggets of news:
-
He said he is thinking about traveling to the Holy Land next year and
is considering invitations from Sri Lanka and the Philippines.
-
The planned Dec. 8 canonizations of Popes John Paul II and John XXIII
will likely be changed - perhaps until the weekend after Easter -
because road conditions in December would be dangerously icy for people
from John Paul's native Poland traveling to the ceremony by bus.
Francis
also he solved the mystery that had been circulating since he was
pictured boarding the plane to Rio carrying his own black bag, an
unusual break with Vatican protocol.
"The keys
to the atomic bomb weren't in it," Francis quipped, referring to the
case that accompanies U.S. presidents with nuclear launch codes. The
bag, he said, contained a razor, a prayer book, his agenda and a book on
St. Therese of Lisieux, to whom he is particularly devoted.
"It's
normal" to carry a bag when traveling, he said, displaying a simplicity
of style that separates him from previous pontiffs, who until a few
decades ago were carried around on platforms.
"We have to get used to this being normal."
