Letter to Jesuit priests
Pope Francis declares statement on homosexuality
Pope Francis: “And I say to anyone who wants to criminalize homosexuality, they are wrong”. photo
© Andrew Medichini/AP/dpa
“When I said it’s a sin, I was simply referring to Catholic moral teaching”: Pope Francis sees himself misunderstood and makes it clear: homosexuality is not a crime.
Pope Francis caused a stir this week with a statement about homosexuality as a sin. Now the pontiff admitted that a corresponding answer in an interview could be misunderstood. “When I said it was a sin, I was simply referring to Catholic morality, which says that all sexual contact outside of marriage is a sin,” Pope Francis wrote to Father James Martin. “But of course you have to consider the circumstances that can reduce or eliminate guilt.”
The Jesuit priest published the Pope’s letter on Saturday on the website of the Catholic LGBTQ magazine Outreach, of which he is the editor. LGBTQ is the English abbreviation for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer. The Pope explained that the interview was oral and that it was “understandable” if certain nuances were lost in the transcript.
In the letter in Spanish, Francis emphasized, as in the interview, that homosexuality is not a crime for him. “And I would say to anyone who wants to criminalize homosexuality that they are wrong,” wrote the 86-year-old Argentine.