Pope Francis said this Sunday that he still believes Benedict XVI’s death, last December 31, at the age of 95, was instrumentalized “by people in politics and not in the Church,” referring to statements, publications and books , such as that of the Secretary of the Pope Emeritus, George Ganswein, after his death.
Francis even stated that “the stories told of Benedict XVI being very dissatisfied” about him was “a Chinese story”, in allusion to Ganswein, although he did not quote him, in reference to an interview in which Benedict XVI’s personal secretary assured that the previous pope did not like the limit that Pope Francis introduced to Masses in the Tridentine Rite, before the Second Vatican Council, and that they are celebrated in Latin and with the back to the faithful.
The press conference aboard the papal plane was also attended by the leader of the Anglican Church, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, and the moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, Iain Greenshields, with whom he was on St. in Juba, on the pope’s first visit to South Sudan.
The pope arrived in the Democratic Republic of Congo last Tuesday, on a journey that also took him to the Republic of South Sudan, where he has been since Friday.
Criminalizing homosexuals is a sin and an injustice
Pope Francis reiterated this Sunday that “the criminalization of homosexuals is an injustice” and “a sin”, claiming that “they must not be overlooked”, during a meeting with journalists, on board the papal plane, at the way back from the trip to Africa.
Francis answered questions from journalists at a press conference on his way back to the Vatican, at the end of his trip to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan, after being questioned about the persecution of homosexuals in some African countries.
“If a person has a homosexual inclination and is a believer and seeks God, who am I to judge him?” said Francis, repeating what he had said earlier, the Efe agency reported.
The “criminalization of homosexuality is a problem that cannot go unchallenged,” he insisted, estimating the number of countries that criminalize homosexuality in one way or another at nearly 50.
Some say it’s even more [países] and some of them, about 10, even carry the death penalty for homosexuals. This is not fair,” he insists.
The pope echoed what he said in a recent interview with the Associated Press (AP), saying that “people with homosexual tendencies are children of God.” “God loves them, God guides them and it is a sin to condemn such a person,” he argued.
“Punishing people with homosexual tendencies is unjust. I’m not talking about groups, that’s something else, lobbies are something else. I’m talking about people and the catechism of the church already says that no one should be marginalized,” he continued. .
In the AP interview, the pope said that “being gay is not a crime” and condemned those who criminalize homosexuality.
Source: DN
