Pope Francis said this Sunday that “the criminalization of homosexuals is an injustice” and “a sin”, arguing that they “should not be overlooked”, in a meeting with journalists aboard the papal plane, returning from the trip To Africa.
The Pope answered questions from journalists at a press conference held on his return trip to the Vatican, at the end of his trip to the Democratic Republics of Congo and South Sudan, after being questioned about the persecution suffered by homosexuals in some African countries.
“If a person is homosexual and a believer and seeks God, who am I to judge him?”Francisco said, reiterating what he had said before, the Efe agency reported.
The “criminalization of homosexuality is a problem that should not go unnoticed,” he said, estimating the number of countries that, in one way or another, criminalize homosexuals at around 50.
“Some say it’s even more [países] and in some of them, about ten, there is even the death penalty for homosexuals. This is not fair, ”she stressed.
Reiterating what was said in a recent interview with the Associated Press (AP), the Pope said that “people with homosexual tendencies are children of God.” “God loves them, God accompanies them and condemning such a person is a sin,” he argued.
“Criminalizing people with homosexual tendencies is an injustice. I’m not talking about groups, that’s something else, the lobbies they are something else. I am talking about people and the Church’s catechism already says that no one should be marginalized, ”she maintained.
In the AP interview, the Pope stated that “being gay is not a crime” and condemned those who criminalize homosexuality.
In today’s press conference, Pope Francis also said he believed that the death of Benedict XVI, on December 31, at the age of 95, was instrumentalized “by people from politics and not from the Church,” in statements, publications and books, such as that of the secretary of the Pope emeritus, George Ganswein, after the latter’s death.
Pope Francis went so far as to affirm that “the stories that were told that Benedict XVI was very unhappy” with him “were a Chinese tale”, alluding to Ganswein, although he did not quote him, regarding an interview in which the secretary Benedict XVI’s staff assured that the previous pontiff did not like the limit that Pope Francis introduced to the Masses in the Tridentine rite, before the Second Vatican Council, and that they be celebrated in Latin and with their backs turned 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 in St. in Juba, the past this first visit of the Pope to South Sudan.
The Pope arrived in the Democratic Republic of the Congo last Tuesday, on a trip that also took him to the Republic of South Sudan, where he has been since Friday.
Source: TSF
