By Free Republic | Created at 2025-01-20 04:04:14 | Updated at 2025-01-20 08:32:43
4 hours ago
[Catholic Caucus] In New Book, Pope Francis Repeats Message of Welcome to LGBTQ+ People
New Ways Ministry ^ | January 17, 2025 | Jeromiah Taylor
Posted on 01/19/2025 7:52:27 PM PST by ebb tide
Pope Francis’ new book, Hope: The Autobiography released this week in the United States on Jan. 14, directly addresses the pontiff’s record on LGBTQ+ issues, reports America.
The book’s front cover
In Hope the Holy Father restates his support for Fiducia Supplicans,the 2023 Vatican document allowing pastoral blessings of individuals in same sex relationships,by once again stating:
“It is the people who are blessed, not the relationships.It arises from the wish not to ascribe one situation or one condition to the entire life of those who seek to be illuminated and accompanied with a blessing. He adds that “Everyone in the Church is invited, including people who are divorced, including people who are homosexual, including people who are transgender.”
Alluding to Fiducia‘s hostile reception from a number of bishops around the globe, Francis repeated a frequently expressed frustration of his that Catholics reserve special animus for sexual sins, while hypocritically indulging others:
“It is strange that nobody worries about the blessing of an entrepreneur who exploits people, and this is a grave sin, or about someone who pollutes our common home, while there’s a public scandal if the pope blesses a divorced woman or a homosexual.
“Opposition to pastoral open-mindedness often uncovers these hypocrisies.”
The Holy Father reminded the faithful that there is indeed a “hierarchy” of Catholic truths, saying that “sexual sins tend to cause more of an outcry from some people,” but that they are “really not the most serious (sins). They are human sins, of the flesh. The most serious, on the contrary, are the sins that have more ‘angelicity,’ that dress themselves in another guise: pride, hatred, falsehood, fraud, abuse of power.”
Francis also dealt with his record on transgender issues, which some have called ambivalent. He avoids philosophical treatments of the topic, like those contained in Dignitas Infinita, the 2024 Vatican document that condemned medical gender transition. Instead, he oriented himself pastorally, sharing with readers his recollection of the “first time” he met with transgender Catholics at the Vatican:
“They left in tears, moved because I had taken their hands, had kissed them. As if I had done something exceptional for them. But they are daughters of God! They can receive baptism on the same conditions as other believers and can perform the responsibilities of godparents on the same conditions as others, and likewise be witnesses to a marriage. No provision of canonical law forbids it.”
Finally, on the topic of same-gender relationships, Pope Francis wrote:
“Homosexuality is not a crime, it is a human fact. [LGBTQ+ people] are not ‘children of a lesser god.’ God the Father loves them with the same unconditional love, He loves them as they are, and He accompanies them in the same way that He does with all of us: being close by, merciful, and tender.”
He also reiterated his general message that the church should welcome all people:
“All are invited. Everyone. And so: Everyone inside. Good and bad, young and old, healthy and sick. For this is the Lord’s plan.
“It is our task as pastors to take others by the hand, to accompany them, to help them to discern, and not to exclude them,. And to pardon: to treat others with the same mercy that the Lord reserves for us.”
TOPICS: Catholic; Moral Issues; Theology
KEYWORDS: apostatepope; frankenchurch; homos
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Frankenchurch Homo Barf Alert
Homos and trans are welcome; traditional Catholics are not welcome.
1 posted on 01/19/2025 7:52:27 PM PST by ebb tide
To: ebb tide
The “Holy Father” is neither holy nor a father.
Discuss.
2 posted on 01/19/2025 7:58:25 PM PST by TXBlair (We will not forget Benghazi.)
To: Al Hitan; Fedora; irishjuggler; Jaded; kalee; markomalley; miele man; Mrs. Don-o; ...
Ping
ABUSE OF POWER: Pope Accused of Violating Religious Freedom
And what pearls of wisdom are contained in this precious legacy? Well, the one getting most media attention at the moment is the Pope’s scathing abuse of traditional Catholics…
Because more piling on the “rigid,” “backward” folks who favor the Church’s ancient rite of worship is JUST THE THING to foster unity in this quick-triggered, hate-fueled world.
Just listen to these soothing words from Pope Francis concerning the priests who vest up according to the rubrics of the Latin Rite: “These ways of dressing up sometimes conceal mental imbalance, emotional deviation, behavioral difficulties, a personal problem that may be exploited.”
Ahhhhh, such a man of mercy.
3 posted on 01/19/2025 7:58:25 PM PST by ebb tide (The Synodal "church" is not the Catholic Church.)
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