Pope Francis On Gay Rights: "Jesus Saved Us All"
Pope
Francis waves to faithful as he arrives for his weekly general audience
in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2013
In his most recent interview, Pope Francis frankly expressed his views upon abortion, gay rights and the Roman Catholic church being focused on gay marriage.
The Pope says that, although the church is entitled to have its own opinions, it cannot "interfere spiritually" in the lives of homosexual individuals. This statement follows a similar one he made earlier in July, 2013.
In his interview with Rev. Antonio Spadaro, a fellow Jesuit and editor of La Civiltà Cattolica, the Pope says there is no necessity to talk about these issues all the time, but there is a need to focus on the the poor and other social problems.
"The dogmatic and moral teachings of the church are not all equivalent," he further adds. "The church's pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be
imposed insistently."
Also, the Pope says the church needs to find a new balance because without it, the moral edifice of the church will shatter "like a house of cards," losing "the freshness and fragrance of the Gospel".
The Pope reminds that Jesus Christ has saved the humanity. Thus, the ministers of the church must be ministers of mercy, above all.
The key, he notes, is for the church to not exclude.
The Pope spoke in Italian and then supervised the English translation of the interview, which was released in 16 Jesuit journals at the same time.
Rev. James Martin, editor of the Jesuit magazine in America, says he was surprised by the Pope's "free-thinking". He found Francis "creative, experimental, willing to live on the margins, push boundaries back a little bit."
The new Pope turned out to be not as conservative as some thought he would be.
Francis also revealed several personal details about himself, such as his love of Mozart, Dostoevsky and Federico Fellini's movie "La Strada."
