UNITED STATES
U.S. News and World Report
By ELIZABETH FLOCK
July 29, 2013
Gay and straight priests alike are cheering Pope Francis’s comments about homosexuality in the priesthood, saying gay priests make up a significant segment of the Catholic clergy and deserve papal recognition.
On a plane from Brazil Monday, Francis told reporters that, “if someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?”
It’s a comment that stands in stark contrast to the policy of Francis’s predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, who signed a document in 2005 that said men with strong gay tendencies should not be priests.
According to Father James Bretzke, a professor of moral theology at Boston College, Francis’s comments aren’t a fundamental change in the church’s teaching, but represent a much-needed shift in attitude that reflects the reality of the priesthood.
“It’s an empirical fact that lots of men are gay who are priests. And they are very good priests,” he says. “I would also observe that the numbers of gay men and women in the church ministry is probably larger than the general population, precisely because they are not seeking marriage.”
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