LGBT News Pope Francis tells gay man: "God made you that way"

Unfortunately, Francis came along after the long pontificate of John Paul II and his right hand man, Benedict XVI; two Popes with a very narrow outlook, who, between them, embedded deeply conservative beliefs into the church and the minds of the faithful. It takes time and patience to reverse much of the damage they caused. It seems to me that Francis wishes to continue the reforms that began after the Second Vatican Council and ended in 1978 when John Paul II became Pope.

I think there is cause for optimism, but it will probably take longer than Pope Francis has. Much will depend on the character, strength and desire of his successor to pursue reforms.

 

Welp, the Pope gets it.

 

I can't believe that Catholics will wake up today and change their views and beliefs based on the pope's comment. Unfortunately I think it'll take the church officially changing its stance and followers to change their opinions or new followers to be open minded.
I'm glad he said it though.

 

I know a lot of conservative Catholics and unfortunately they don't really care what this pope thinks so it probably won't change their opinion on LGBT. Many of them don't consider him a 'real pope' because of his more liberal stance on things and breaking away from the usual beliefs of Catholicism. There's a certain amount of racism involved too since he's the first non-European pope in a really long time. Some are pretty much just hoping he dies soon so they can get a new pope that goes back to the conservative traditional beliefs.

 

I may be a bit pessimistic, but I'm personally betting that the next pope will be a return to the conservative type of pope. I guess it's my assumption that the people at a high enough level to make the selection are going to skew conservative. But...I'd be happy if I were proven wrong.

 

Possibly, but one of the complaints that has been levelled against Pope Francis is that he is filling the senior positions within the church with his own men. I think conservatives are worried that the next papal conclave will have strongly liberal tendencies and that's why they want Francis to die soon. I hope he carries on for years and sweeps away the backward thinking and closed attitudes that have caused so much pain.

 

I understand the constraints facing the Pope, both institutional and religious, that stop him from wholeheartedly embracing gay people. However, we ought not overstate the liberal tendencies of the Pope. He genuinely believes in deeply homophobic things. It is almost unthinkable that the Roman Catholic Church during his papacy will even remotely approach the sexual liberalism of the Church of England, let alone that of the Nordic Lutheran churches.

I think his greatest capacity for change is by leading Catholics away from the repression of and violence against sexual minorities, which is often covertly or even fairly openly condoned or tolerated by the Catholic Church in South/Central America and above all in Africa. He can try to advocate that general attitude even as he makes few or no concessions to LGBT people's status within the Church itself. That cultural push is very valuable and uses his religious power in a way largely independent of his doctrinal responsibilities to discourage homosexuality. I think he should do more explicitly on that level and draw that distinction between a new attitude of social toleration, but the status quo of spirtual/institutional exclusion, in a more public and clear manner. Not to do so is to speak two different languages to different audiences with little more effect than doublespeak - he needs to target the audience of conservative Catholics through clerical channels and explain how both social inclusion and religious exclusion should be practiced. I'm not sure he has the political and social power to do so.

While the conservative hardliners look at him as a borderline Protestant, the outlook for sexual minorities within the RCC is not encouraging and we should acknowledge that.

 

Yes. I don't follow him closely, but I've had that impression, too. Wikipedia says this:

As bishop and Pope, Francis restated the Church's principle: that homosexual practice is intrinsically immoral, but that every homosexual person deserves respect and love.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Francis#LGBT_issues​

Which sounds like the fundamentalist "hate the sin, but love the sinner" BS.

I have to wonder if a lot of the love of Pope Francis isn't because he seems slightly better than his predecessor.

 

Frankie's an extreme radical leftist and that's not good. All those who've insisted that being gay is a choice and have pushed pushed pushed for this to be the unanimous position will have to disagree with Frankie here. In view of the RCC's massive long-term abuse scandals, I think he looks rather cheap answering a victim of it thus. Hey, we're talking Chile!