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.

NB:for those who will come here and say dat d pope is in support of gay marriage.
NO, d pope was talking about gay priests or gay people who are not sexually active and seeks d face of God. dat was d question asked.
his reply was dat he has no right to judge anybody who confesses his sins to God since He will always forgive