At a press conference, at the end of his three -day apostolic visit to Armenia, Pope Francis commented on the recent statements of the German Cardinal Reinhard Marx.
At a press conference, at the end of his three -day apostolic visit to Armenia, Pope Francis commented on the recent statements of the German Cardinal Reinhard Marx, who said that the Church must apologize to the gays for giving them a "scandalous" treatment.
"I believe that the Church must not only offer apologies, as that Marxist cardinal (laughs) has said, to this person who is gay to whom he has offended, but also to the poor too, to exploited women, and the children exploited at work," said the pontiff.
"He must apologize for having blessed so many weapons; for not behaving so many times ... When I say church I say Christians. The Church is holy, sinners are us. Christians must offer apologies for not having accompanied so many elections, so many families ..." he added.
He recalled that when he was a child, in the "closed Catholic" culture he lived in Buenos Aires, he could not even enter the house of a family of divorced. He acknowledged that this way of acting was "many years ago", and that culture has already changed "thank God."
He assured that the Catechism of the Catholic Church is clear in asking that homosexuals are not discriminated, but that they must be respected and accompanied by pastorally.
He acknowledged that "certain manifestations" of the "too offensive" gays can be condemned towards others, but not for ideological reasons, but for reasons of "political behavior."
Then he evoked what he said on his first international apostolic trip to Brazil in 2013: "If a person in that condition has good will and seeks God, who are we to judge?"
"We must accompany well ... what the catechism says! It is very clear about catechism. Then there are traditions in some countries, in some cultures, which have a diverse mentality with respect to this matter," he established.
Later he insisted that Christians should not only offer apologies but ask for forgiveness, which is a very forgotten word even in the same church, where many priests behave as "patterns" before as parents who embrace, forgive and comfort.