The Pope spoke to
reporters on his flight back to Rome from Armenia
Catholics and other
Christians not only must apologise to the gay community, they must ask
forgiveness of God for ways they have discriminated against gay people or
fostered hostility toward them, Pope Francis said.
“I think the Church
not only must say it is sorry to the gay person it has offended, but also to
the poor, to exploited women” and anyone whom the Church did not defend when it
could, he told reporters at a press conference on the way back from Armenia
yesterday.
Pope Francis was asked
to comment on remarks reportedly made a few days previously by Cardinal
Reinhard Marx, president of the German bishops’ conference, that the Catholic
Church must apologise to gay people for contributing to their marginalisation.
At the mention of the
massacre in early June at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, Pope Francis
closed his eyes as if in pain and shook his head in dismay.
“The Church must say
it is sorry for not having behaved as it should many times, many times – when I
say ‘the Church,’ I mean we Christians because the Church is holy; we are the
sinners,” the Pope said. “We Christians must say we are sorry.”
Changing what he had
said in the past to the plural “we,” Pope Francis said that when a gay person
“has good will and is seeking God, who are we to judge him?”
The Catechism of the
Catholic Church is clear, he said. “They must not be discriminated against.
They must be respected, pastorally accompanied.”
The Pope said people
have a right to complain about gay pride demonstrations that purposefully
offend the faith or sensitivities of others, but that is not what Cardinal Marx
was talking about, he said.
Pope Francis said when
he was growing up in Buenos Aires, Argentina, part of a “closed Catholic
culture”, good Catholics would not even enter the house of a person who was
divorced. “The culture has changed, and thanks be to God!”
“We Christians have
much to apologize for and not just in this area,” he said, referring again to
its treatment of gay people. “Ask forgiveness and not just say we’re sorry.
Forgive us, Lord.”
Too often, he said,
priests act as lords rather than fathers, “a priest who clubs people rather
than embraces them and is good, consoles.”
Pope Francis insisted
there are many good priests in the world and “many Mother Teresas, ”but people
often do not see them because “holiness is modest.”
Like any other
community of human beings, the Catholic Church is made up of “good people and
bad people,” he said. “The grain and the weeds – Jesus says the kingdom is that
way. We should not be scandalized by that,” but pray that God makes the wheat
grow more and the weeds less.
Pope Francis also was
asked about his agreeing to a request by the women’s International Union of
Superiors General to set up a commission to study the historic role of female
deacons with a view toward considering the possibility of instituting such a
ministry today.
Both Sister Carmen
Sammut, president of the sisters’ group, and Cardinal Gerhard Muller, prefect
of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, have sent him lists of names
of people to serve on the commission, the Pope said. But he has not yet chosen
the members.
As he did at the
meeting with the superiors, Pope Francis told the reporters that his
understanding was that women deacons in the early Church assisted bishops with
the baptism and anointing of women, but did not have a role like Catholic
deacons do today. He downplayed the issues: “They said: ‘The Church opens the
door to deaconesses.’ Really? I was a bit annoyed because this is not telling
the truth of things.”
The Pope also joked
about a president who once said that the best way to bury someone’s request for
action was to name a commission to study it.
Turning serious,
though, Pope Francis insisted the role of women in the Catholic Church goes
well beyond any offices they hold and he said about 18 months ago he had named
a commission of female theologians to discuss women’s contributions to the life
of the Church.
“Women think
differently than we men do,” he said, “and we cannot make good, sound decisions
without listening to the women.”
During the inflight
news conference, Pope Francis also said:
– 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.” The Church in the 1500s, he
said, “was not exactly a model to imitate.”
– He used the word
“genocide” to describe the massacre of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians in
1915-18 because that was the word commonly used in his native Argentina and he
had already used it publicly a year ago. Although he said he knew Turkey objects
to use of the term, “it would have sounded strange” not to use it in Armenia.
– Retired Pope
Benedict XVI is a “wise man,” a valued adviser and a person dedicated to
praying for the entire Church, but he can no longer be considered to be
exercising papal ministry. “There is only one pope.”
– “Brexit,” the
referendum in which the people of Great Britain voted to leave the European
Union, shows just how much work remains to be done by the EU in promoting
continental unity while respecting the differences of member countries.
– The Great and Holy
Council of the world’s Orthodox churches was an important first step in
Orthodoxy speaking with one voice, even though four of the 14 autocephalous
Orthodox churches did not attend the meeting in Crete.
– When he travels to
Azerbaijan in September, he will tell the nation’s leaders and people that the
Armenian leaders and people want peace. The two countries have been in a
situation of tension since 1988 over control of Nagorno-Karabakh, a
predominantly Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan.
