Pope Francis has said that the Roman Catholic Church and Christians everywhere should apologise to gay people for the way they’ve treated them.
On a flight from Armenia to Rome, he was asked whether he agreed with comments made by German Cardinal Reinhard Marx, who said that the Church needed to say sorry for the way they’ve treated the gay community.
He said:
We Christians have to apologise for so many things, not just for this, but we must ask for forgiveness. Not just apologise – forgiveness. The questions is: if a person who has that condition, who has good will, and who looks for God, who are we to judge?
The Pope echoed the sentiments he made about homosexuality early on into his papacy, when he said: “‘Who am I to judge?”
This approach has somewhat prompted criticism from the Church’s more conservative members, but Francis also went on to say that the apology should also include other people who have faced discrimination.
He added:
I think that the Church not only should apologise to a gay person whom it offended but it must also apologise to the poor as well, to the women who have been exploited, to children who have been forced to work.
This is definitely a step in the right direction for relationships between the LGBT community and the Church to heal, but it has taken far too long to get here.
