This is a shocking statement.
Nearly two months after deciding to authorize the blessing of same-sex couples, while reaffirming his opposition to homosexual marriage, Pope Francis responded to the disapproval expressed in particular by several episcopal conferences.
“No one is scandalized if I give a blessing to a businessman who perhaps exploits people: and that is a very serious sin.
Whereas this happens if I give it to a homosexual.... It's hypocrisy!
The heart of the text is hospitality
,” he declared in an interview with the weekly
Credere
, relayed by
La Stampa
.
On January 4, the Pope published a note in which he revised the terms of his polemical decision, leaving the choice to the bishops whether or not to apply this “declaration” of the dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, entitled “Fiducia supplicans”. dated December 18.
African and French bishops against
blessing homosexual couples
The outcry was not long in coming.
“We, African bishops, do not consider it appropriate for Africa to bless homosexual unions or same-sex couples
,” replied, on January 11, the president of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar, Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo, archbishop of Kinshasa (DRC).
The day before, the French bishops published a press release in which they rejected opening blessings to homosexual couples while saying they were in favor of blessing homosexual people.