Major news outlets have reported late Monday night that Catholic Pope Francis has reached out to gays, saying he won’t judge priests for their sexual orientation.
“If a person is gay, seeks God and has goodwill, who am I to judge?” Francis said at a press conference. “They should not be marginalized.”
Also, according to the National Catholic Reporter, the pope argued for the importance of women in the church, yet said John Paul II “definitively … closed the door” to women priests. “On the ordination of women, the church has spoken and said no. John Paul II, in a definitive formulation, said that door is closed.”
“A church without women would be like the apostolic college without Mary,” the Reporter quoted the pope as saying. “The Madonna is more important than the apostles, and the church herself is feminine, the spouse of Christ and a mother.”