Pope Francis has criticized laws that criminalize homosexual people as “unjust,” stressing that God loves all his children just as they are and asking Catholic bishops who still support these laws to welcome the LGBTI community into the Church. . “Being homosexual is not a crime,” he pointed out in an interview with the US agency Ap released this Wednesday.
“It is not a crime. Yes, but it is a sin. Well, first let’s distinguish sin from crime. But the lack of charity towards one’s neighbor is also a sin,” said the Pontiff, who also warned that bishops, in particular, must carry out a process of change to recognize the dignity of all. “The bishop also has a conversion process,” he explained, adding that they had to show “tenderness, please, tenderness, like God has with each of us.”
Since his famous statement in 2013, when he said “who am I to judge?”, Francis has approached the LGBTI community on several occasions, one of the features of this pontificate. The Argentine pope has always said that homosexuals should be accepted by their families. On his trip to Ireland, in August 2018, when asked what he would say to the parents of a homosexual son, he responded that ignoring him would be “a lack of motherhood and fatherhood.” He has also advocated for civil unions for gay people. For example, on the plane returning from his visit to Slovakia, when he reiterated that they must be “helped” but “without imposing things on the Church that by their nature cannot be imposed.”
The doctrine of the Catholic Church does not accept marriage between people of the same sex, something with which the Pontiff has always agreed. In 2021, the Vatican stressed that the Catholic Church cannot give its blessing to people of the same sex, in what was a huge bucket of cold water for some priests in countries like the US or Germany who had begun to bless these couples.
In the interview, Francis also addressed the speculation that has arisen in the Vatican following the death of Benedict XVI, which clears the way for his future long-term resignation. If the management of two pontiffs was already complicated, three would have been inconceivable. Now this obstacle no longer exists. Although he repeated that he does not rule out following the path of his predecessor and taking a step back, he stressed that he will continue to lead the Church as long as he can. “It didn’t even occur to me to make a will about myself,” he commented.
“I’m healthy. For my age, I am normal,” the 86-year-old Jesuit pope said on Tuesday, although he indicated that diverticulosis, the bags that form in the wall of the intestine, had “returned.” In 2021, 33 centimeters of his large intestine were removed due to what the Vatican described as inflammation caused by a narrowing of the colon. He also revealed that he had healed a small fracture in a fall without surgery, with laser treatment and magnotherapy. “I can die tomorrow, but come on, he is under control. My health is fine,” he added, with his usual irony.
In some circles of the Holy See there is a debate about whether, after the death of Benedict, it is time to regulate the institution of the emeritus papacy to avoid some of the controversies of recent years, when Ratzinger was instrumentalized by some ultra-conservative sectors to oppose Bergoglio. Asked about this, the Pontiff said that it is something that has not occurred to him, because he believes that the Vatican needs more experience with retired popes to “regulate more or regulate more.”
Furthermore, he insisted that, if he resigned, he would take the position of bishop emeritus of Rome – and not pope emeritus, as his predecessor did – and would live in the residence for retired priests in the diocese of Rome, instead of in a monastery. inside the Vatican gardens. “He was still a slave, in quotes, of a pope, right? –Francisco said– From the vision of a pope, of a system. Slave in the good sense of the word. In which he was not completely free, as perhaps he would have wanted to return to his Germany and continue studying theology from there.
Ratzigner’s death has also uncovered a deep wave of criticism of his pontificate by some cardinals and bishops, beginning with the controversial book by Benedict’s private secretary, Georg Gänswein, or by the statements of the German cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, who believes that Bergoglio is surrounded by a “magic circle” without theological preparation that advises him on decisions.
“One prefers there not to be any. “For peace of mind, go,” said the Pope, defining these criticisms as “hives, which bother a little.” “But I prefer that they do them, because that means that there is freedom to speak,” he added. If not, a dictatorship of distance is generated, what I call it, where the emperor is there and no one can tell him anything. No, let them say, because the company, the criticism, helps to grow and for things to go well.”
