Pope Francis has
called for transsexuals and homosexuals to be accepted and embraced by
the Catholic Church, but said he was staunchly opposed to schools
promoting or endorsing such “tendencies”.He said he had ministered to such people when he was a priest, then as a bishop and now as Pope.
The Vatican maintains that homosexual acts are sinful, but homosexual orientation is not.
The Pope made the remarks during a question and answer session with Vatican correspondents aboard the papal plane as he returned to Rome from a three-day visit to Georgia and Azerbaijan.
He has made a habit using the return flights from official trips as an opportunity to give candid answers to reporters’ questions on a broad range of topics.
He revealed that he had
personally met a woman from Spain who later had a sex change to become a
man and subsequently married a woman.
He invited the couple to the Vatican, where they told him how upset they had been when a local priest had told them they would “go to hell”.
"Life is life, and things should be taken as they come," the Pope said. "Sin is sin, but tendencies or hormonal imbalances ... can cause many problems and we have to be careful.
"But each case must be welcomed, accompanied, studied, discerned and integrated. When a person (who is gay) arrives before Jesus, Jesus certainly will not say, 'Go away because you are homosexual,'" Francis said.
He then joked: "Please don't write that the Pope will bless transsexuals. I can see the front pages of newspapers now.”
The Pope tempered his apparent openness by reiterating his opposition to gender theory – the idea that while people may be biologically male or female, they have the right to identify themselves as male, female, both or neither.
He invited the couple to the Vatican, where they told him how upset they had been when a local priest had told them they would “go to hell”.
"Life is life, and things should be taken as they come," the Pope said. "Sin is sin, but tendencies or hormonal imbalances ... can cause many problems and we have to be careful.
"But each case must be welcomed, accompanied, studied, discerned and integrated. When a person (who is gay) arrives before Jesus, Jesus certainly will not say, 'Go away because you are homosexual,'" Francis said.
He then joked: "Please don't write that the Pope will bless transsexuals. I can see the front pages of newspapers now.”
The Pope tempered his apparent openness by reiterating his opposition to gender theory – the idea that while people may be biologically male or female, they have the right to identify themselves as male, female, both or neither.
During the trip to the Caucasus,
he had said that the teaching of gender theory in schools amounted to a
"global war" against traditional family values and marriage.
"What I was talking about was the nastiness that is present today in indoctrinating people in gender theory," he said. "It is one thing for a person to have this tendency, this option, and even change sex," he said.
"But it is another thing to teach it, gender theory, in schools along these lines in order to change mentality. I call this ideological colonisation."
The observations echoed a now-famous remark he made while returning from a week-long trip to Brazil in 2013, when he said "Who am I to judge?" in relation to homosexuals. "If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?" he said, after his first foreign trip as pontiff.
"What I was talking about was the nastiness that is present today in indoctrinating people in gender theory," he said. "It is one thing for a person to have this tendency, this option, and even change sex," he said.
"But it is another thing to teach it, gender theory, in schools along these lines in order to change mentality. I call this ideological colonisation."
The observations echoed a now-famous remark he made while returning from a week-long trip to Brazil in 2013, when he said "Who am I to judge?" in relation to homosexuals. "If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?" he said, after his first foreign trip as pontiff.