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Pope Francis On Gays: Who Am I To Judge Them?
这个教皇看来比上一个要开明
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/29/pope-francis-gays_n_36
Pope Francis has had a busy week at World Youth Day in Rio as he visited his
slums and prisons, blessed the Olympic flag and brought three million
people to Copacabana Beach for a final Mass on Sunday morning.
Now he has made another headline, this time when the pontiff said, "Who am I
to judge a gay person?"
While taking questions from reporters on the plane back to Rome, Francis
spoke about gays and the reported "gay lobby." According to the Wall Street
Journal, the Pope's comments about homosexuality came in the context of a
question about gay priests.
The pontiff broached the delicate question of how he would respond to
learning that a cleric in his ranks was gay, though not sexually active. For
decades, the Vatican has regarded homosexuality as a "disorder," and Pope
Francis' predecessor Pope Benedict XVI formally barred men with what the
Vatican deemed "deep-seated" homosexuality from entering the priesthood.
"Who am I to judge a gay person of goodwill who seeks the Lord?" the pontiff
said, speaking in Italian. "You can't marginalize these people."
John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter reported on the meeting as well
and said the Pope also addressed the question of the Vatican's reported "
gay lobby".
He hasn’t run into significant resistance to reform inside the Vatican, and
joked that if there really is a “gay lobby” he hasn’t yet seen it
stamped on anyone’s ID cards.
Father James Martin, S.J. who is an admirer of Francis, said that the
pontiff's comment about gay people is consistent with the rest of his papacy.
"One of Francis's hallmarks is an emphasis on mercy, which you see in that
response. That mercy, of course, comes from Jesus. And we can never have too
much of it."
The pope did not offer much hope for those advocating for women Catholic
priests, according to Allen at NCR, saying: Pope John Paul II “definitively
… closed the door' to women priests.
More from the Associated Press:
ABOARD THE PAPAL AIRCRAFT — Pope Francis reached out to gays on Monday,
saying he wouldn't judge priests for their sexual orientation in a
remarkably open and wide-ranging news conference as he returned from his
first foreign trip.
"If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I
to judge?" Francis asked.
His predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, signed a document in 2005 that said men
with deep-rooted homosexual tendencies should not be priests. Francis was
much more conciliatory, saying gay clergymen should be forgiven and their
sins forgotten.
Francis' remarks came Monday during a plane journey back to the Vatican from
his first foreign trip in Brazil.
He was funny and candid during a news conference that lasted almost an hour
and a half. He didn't dodge a single question, even thanking the journalist
who raised allegations reported by an Italian newsmagazine that one of his
trusted monsignors was involved in a scandalous gay tryst.
Francis said he investigated and found nothing to back up the allegations.
Francis was asked about Italian media reports suggesting that a group within
the church tried to blackmail fellow church officials with evidence of
their homosexual activities. Italian media reported this year that the
allegations contributed to Benedict's decision to resign
While stressing Catholic social teaching that calls for homosexuals to be
treated with dignity and not marginalized, Francis said it was something
else entirely to conspire to use private information for blackmail or to
exert pressure.
Francis was responding to reports that a trusted aide was involved in an
alleged gay tryst a decade ago. He said he investigated the allegations
according to canon law and found nothing to back them up. But he took
journalists to task for reporting on the matter, saying the allegations
concerned matters of sin, not crimes like sexually abusing children.
And when someone sins and confesses, he said, God not only forgives but
forgets.
"We don't have the right to not forget," he said.
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