By Le Figaro with AFP
Posted 2 hours ago, Updated 2 hours ago
Pope Francis at the Basilica of St. Paul in Rome, Italy, January 25, 2023. Portal
The sovereign pope, in a letter published on a Catholic LGBT website, clarified the remarks made during an interview on Wednesday.
Those who criminalize homosexuality are “in the wrong,” Pope Francis said in a letter released Saturday, seeking to clarify previous comments about homosexual acts being viewed as a sin. In an interview on Wednesday, the pope said that being homosexual was “not a crime”. “It’s not a crime. Yes, but it’s a sin,” he continued, adding, “It’s also a sin not to have charity toward others.”
In a letter to American priest James Martin, the Pope points out that these recent comments on homosexuality were intended “to emphasize that criminalization is neither good nor just”. The 86-year-old pope’s letter was in response to the letter from James Martin, who told the Associated Press (AP) agency Wednesday that he asked for clarification. “I want to say that anyone who wants to criminalize homosexuality is wrong,” François wrote in this letter, written in Spanish and published on the Outreach website, a Catholic LGBT website of which James Martin is the editor.
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Francis points out that his comments on sin were a reference to moral teaching within the Catholic Church. “When I say it’s a sin, I’m simply referring to Catholic morality, which says that any sexual activity outside of marriage is a sin.” “, he adds. “As you can see, I repeated something general. I should have said, “It’s a sin, like any sexual act outside of marriage.”
travel to africa
The comments come days ahead of a trip by the Pope to Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan, where criminalization of homosexuality is common.
The issue of homosexuality created a huge divide between modernists and conservatives in the Catholic Church. Francis has sparked controversy with his relatively liberal stance on sexual orientation since his appointment as pope in 2013.
Although Francis often received homosexuals and said they should be welcome in the Church, he does not deviate from the line of Catholic teaching on marriage, which is defined as the union between a man and a woman with a view to procreation.
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In a June 2021 letter to James Martin, the Pope thanked the priest for his work with LGBT people, emphasized the inclusive nature of Catholicism, and wrote that God “loves each of His children.”
A few months earlier, the Vatican had reiterated that it considered homosexuality a “sin” and homosexual people could not receive the sacrament of marriage.