On a flight home from Armenia, Pope Francis said that gays, as well as other groups that Christians have marginalized, deserve apologies from the Church.
“I believe that the Church not only should apologize to the person who is gay whom it has offended,” the Pope said, “but has to apologize to the poor, to exploited women, to children exploited for labor; it has to ask forgiveness for having blessed many weapons.”
The Pope’s remarks came in response to a question about if German Cardinal Reinhard Marx was right that, in the wake of the Orlando massacre at a gay nightclub, gay people deserve an apology for the discrimination they have faced from the Church.
“The Church must say it is sorry for not having behaved as it should many times, many times — when I say ‘the Church,’ I mean we Christians because the Church is holy; we are the sinners. We Christians must say we are sorry.”
He went on to repeat several variations of his famous “who am I to judge?” statement, which he made about gay people in 2013 on his first foreign trip as Pope.
“The questions is: if a person who has that condition, who has good will, and who looks for God, who are we to judge?”
Vatican spokesperson Father Federico Lombardi clarified that by “condition,” the Pope meant “a person in that situation,” not a medical condition, as the word “condition” can also mean “situation” in Italian.
Though Pope Francis said, “One can condemn certain protests that are too offensive to others,” he also said that “some traditions and cultures that have a different mentality,” and that nothing validates discrimination and marginalization.
Despite the progressiveness of the Pope, many gay Catholics still await more official progress from the Church, as a two-year consultation on family issues failed to bring about change.
The Pope also discussed Brexit with reporters, saying “For me, unity is always superior to conflict, but there are different forms of unity and also brotherhood. and here I come to the EU – brotherhood is better than enmity or distance and bridges are better than walls.” He expressed the necessity of ensuring peaceful coexistence following the UK’s departure from the European Union. “There is something that is not working in that unwieldy union, but let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater, let’s try to jump-start things, to recreate.”
