Those who criminalize homosexuality are “in the wrong,” Pope Francis said in a letter released this Saturday seeking to clarify previous comments on homosexual acts being considered 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”.
Catholic Moral Teaching
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 writes in this letter, written in Spanish and published on the Outreach website, a Catholic LGBT website edited by James Martin. 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 states that any sexual activity outside of marriage is a sin.”
“Of course, we always have to consider the circumstances that can mitigate or eliminate a deficiency,” he adds. “As you can see, I was repeating something general. I should have said: It’s a sin, like any sexual act outside of marriage.”
The Pope soon on a trip 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 major split in the Catholic Church between modernists and conservatives. 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 that they should be kindly received into 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.
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.