Pope clarifies homosexuality and sin comments in note

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ROME — Pope Francis has clarified his recent comments about homosexuality and sin, saying he was merely referring to official Catholic moral teaching that teaches that any sexual act outside of marriage is a sin.

And in a note Friday, Pope Francis recalled that even that black-andwhite teaching is subject to circumstances that might eliminate the sin altogether.

Pope Francis first made the comments in an interview January 24 with The Associated Press, in which he declared that laws criminalising homosexuality were “unjust” and that “being homosexual is not a crime.”

As he often does, Pope Francis then imagined a conversation with someone who raised the matter of the church’s official teaching, which states that homosexual acts are sinful, or “intrinsically disordered.”

“Fine, but first let’s distinguish between a sin and a crime,” Pope Francis said in the pretend conversation. “It’s also a sin to lack charity with one another.”

His comments calling for the decriminalisation of homosexuality were hailed by LGBTQ advocates as a milestone that would help end harassment and violence against LGBTQ persons. But his reference to “sin” raised questions about whether he believed that merely being gay was itself a sin.

The Rev. James Martin, an American Jesuit who runs the US-based Outreach ministry for LGBTQ Catholics, asked Francis for clarification and printed the pope’s handwritten response on the Outreach website late Friday.

In his note, Pope Francis reaffirmed that homosexuality “is not a crime,” and said he spoke out “in order to stress that criminalisation is neither good nor just.”