Pope francis has promoted a more open approach to homosexuals by the catholic church. He did not want to judge gays because of their sexual orientation, he said.
The 76-year-old returned to the vatican on monday from his first trip abroad to brazil. On the plane, he answered questions from journalists traveling with him for about 80 minutes, as the italian news agency ansa reported. He also announced further reforms in the roman curia and in the vatican’s scandalous bank, the IOR. He described the vatileaks affair about stolen documents in the vatican as a major problem.
"If someone seeks god with good will, who am i to judge?" The pope responded to a question about the church’s stance on homosexual priests, according to the wall street journal. A lot is being written about gay lobbies. But so far he has not found anyone in the vatican whose identity card says "gay". "You have to distinguish between being gay, having that tendency or lobbying," francis said. "The lobbies, all lobbies are not good," he stressed.
Gay organizations buried the pope’s reassurances that homosexuals should be integrated into society rather than marginalized. "Perhaps for the first time there are not openly homophobic words coming from a pope," said italian deputy and gay activist alessandro zan, according to ansa. "Is there about to be a change of course in the vatican? This may be doubted, but these revisions of the pope (…) are new," said zan. For the grunen member of parliament volker beck the pope’s words give hope. "But it’s not much more than a hope," said beck. The pope’s obscure ranting against a so-called gay lobby also puzzles him.
Francis also advocated for greater involvement of women in the church. The pope said that today there are girls who are altar servers and women who read, but that there is more to be done, "even on the level of theology," without giving details. At the same time, however, franciscus recalled the no of former pope johannes paul II. On the ordination of women. "This door is closed," he said.
Commenting on his modest accommodation at the santa marta guesthouse in the vatican, francis said he needed people around him. "I live in santa marta because i cannot be alone. I need to live in the community, in fact, and also for psychiatric reasons," he said. The pope’s chambers in the apostolic palace are coarse, but not luxurious, he stressed. Cardinals also lived in apartments and were frugal. "There are also many saints in the curia. But they make no noise – a tree that falls makes more noise than a forest that grows," franciscus said.
The pontiff spoke of a sparing trip to brazil. The days in rio had done him good spiritually. Despite security concerns, it was important to meet people in an open vehicle and not behind glass. "You can’t visit a people with such a coarse heart in a glass box."As possible destinations for his next trips abroad, franciscus mentioned israel, especially jerusalem, and asia.
To young people in his native argentina, the pope had recently said that he, too, sometimes felt like he was in a cage. When asked about this on the plane, he said: "you don’t know how much I enjoyed walking through the streets of rome sometimes, I used to like it so much."
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