Back in 2013, Pope Francis made waves when he said, “If a person seeks God and has goodwill, then who am I to judge,” when asked a question about a gay priest.
He was quickly dubbed ‘Francis the Radical’, and he later appeared on the cover of The Advocate as their Person of the Year.
People were quick to latch on to this idea that the latest leader of the Catholic Church might be more open-minded and progressive than his predecessors, and many hoped that he might bring the Catholic Church into the 21st century.
Unfortunately, recent interviews with the Pope suggest his views aren’t as progressive as everyone hoped.
Spanish Claretian missionary Fernando Prado spent four hours interviewing Pope Francis for his book, La Forza della Vocazione (The Strength of Vocation), which comes out today.
During these interviews, Francis revealed he’s “very worried” about homosexuality within the Church. Prado asked Francis what he thought about the high number of gay priests (while solid statistics are hard to come by, estimates put the number of gay priests between 15 and 50 percent of priests in the US).
The Pope said that seminaries need to work harder at “weeding out” gay priests, explaining:
“As I said before, it may be that at the moment they are accepted maybe they do not show their faces [as gay], but later they appear.”
He makes it sound like gays are all Professor Quirrell, hiding their Gay Faces underneath their turbans.
Francis blames the rest of society for the increasing acceptance of homosexuality in the Church.
“In our societies it even seems that homosexuality is fashionable. That mentality, in some ways, also influences the life of the Church.”
Francis is right: an increasingly tolerant society, combined with the shrinking influence of the Catholic Church, does mean that gay people are more accepted than ever before. That’s called progress.
The Pope’s advice for those who are gay and already living as nuns or priests is, unsurprisingly, to remain celibate.
“I say to the priests, gay religious men and women, we must urge you to live fully celibate and, above all, to be exquisitely responsible, trying not to scandalize your communities or the holy faithful people of God by living a double life. It is better that you leave the ministry or consecrated life rather than live a double life.”
How on earth the Pope can find time to worry about gay people who are just living their lives when he has so many instances of child sexual abuse conducted by officials within his Church is beyond me. Maybe he’s a fantastic multitasker.
Turns out that you don’t get elected to be head of the Catholic Church by shaking things up too much. Who knew?