I knew it. He just didn't seem like a crazy homophobe. Today we get confirmation of his relatively relaxed attitude toward gays.
"If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?" Francis asked.His predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, signed a document in 2005 that said men with deep-rooted homosexual tendencies should not be priests. Francis was much more conciliatory, saying gay clergymen should be forgiven and their sins forgotten.
For a pope, that's pretty damn good. (And never mind the "sin" part. Catholics are crazy; gotta remember that.)
This isn't bad, either:
Francis was asked about Italian media reports suggesting that a group within the church tried to blackmail fellow church officials with evidence of their homosexual activities. Italian media reported this year that the allegations contributed to Benedict's decision to resign.Stressing that Catholic social teaching that [sic] calls for homosexuals to be treated with dignity and not marginalized, Francis said it was something else entirely to conspire to use private information for blackmail or to exert pressure.
Repeat after me: "Pope Francis is not a crazy homophobe." And thank dog for that!
On the other hand, things don't look promising for women who want to be priests:
In one of his most important speeches delivered in Rio, Francis described the church in feminine terms, saying it would be "sterile" without women. Asked what role he foresaw, he said the church must develop a more profound role for women in the church, though he said "the door is closed" to ordaining women to the priesthood.
