‘Who am I to judge’ gays? pontiff says
ABOARD THE PAPAL AIRCRAFT — A remarkably candid Pope Francis struck a conciliatory stance toward gays Monday, saying “who amI to judge” when it comes to the sexual orientation of priests.
“We shouldn’t marginalize people for this. They must be integrated into society,” the pope said during an extraordinary 82-minute exchange with reporters aboard his plane returning from his first papal trip, a journey to cele-
brate World Youth Day in Brazil.
“If a person is gay and seeks God and has goodwill, who am I to judge him?” the pope said.
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 preselected 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.
The pope said he investigated the allegations against the clergyman according to canon law and found nothing to back the allegations 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, Francis 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 gay 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 contrasts markedly with that of Benedict, who signed a document in 2005 that said men who have deeprooted 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 the pope’s 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. gayrights group, Human Rights Campaign, said in a statement that the pope’s remarks “represent a significant change in tone.”
Still, said Chad Griffin, 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 wants 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 de Janeiro, Brazil, Francis described the church in feminine terms, saying it would be “sterile” without women.
Funny and candid, the pope’s 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.