Papal biographer Austen Ivereigh wrote on X on Tuesday that the pope’s “concern is with gay men seeing the priesthood as a way of living out their sexuality, and the gay subculture in many seminaries.”
The pope has at times been hailed for his outreach to the LGBT-identified community.
During an in-flight press conference in 2013, the pope responded to a question from a journalist on his experience as a confessor to homosexual persons by asking rhetorically: “Who am I to judge that person?”
The pope expanded on these remarks in a 2016 book-length interview titled “The Name of God Is Mercy,” where he said he was “paraphrasing by heart” the Catechism of the Church, which states that “these people should be treated with delicacy and not be marginalized.”
“I am glad that we are talking about ‘homosexual people,’” the pope continued, “because before all else comes the individual person, in his wholeness and dignity.”
In December of last year, meanwhile, the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith issued Fiducia Supplicans, a declaration allowing for nonliturgical blessings for couples in “irregular” situations, including same-sex couples.
Responding to the strong criticism the document received, Pope Francis said in February that to be “scandalized” by gay couple blessings is “hypocrisy.”
“No one is scandalized if I give a blessing to an entrepreneur who perhaps exploits people: and this is a very serious sin,” the pope said in the interview to the Italian weekly print periodical Credere.
“Whereas they are scandalized if I give it to a homosexual … This is hypocrisy! We must all respect each other. Everyone,” the Holy Father said.
Credit: Source link
