UNITED STATES
National Catholic Reporter
Jamie Manson | Jul. 31, 2013 Grace on the Margins
Full disclosure: I do not feel excited or hopeful about what Pope Francis said about women and gay priests during his epic press conference on the way home to Rome.
Now, wait. Before you click me off as a hater or an incorrigible pessimist or an angry feminist lesbian or another choice label, please understand this: I don’t dislike Pope Francis.
I think he has an authentic warmth. I appreciate his desire to be among the people. I laugh at some of his jokes, and there are themes in his sermons that genuinely move me. I share his desire to break down clericalism and the injustices of capitalism, and I believe wholeheartedly in his vision of ecological justice.
More substantively than even all of this, I share with him a deep passion for the poor and marginalized. Like Francis, I, too, have my most vivid encounters with Jesus among those who are homeless, mentally ill, incarcerated or suffering with addictions.
But Francis and I part ways on the topics of women’s equality and the full inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people in the church. The pope’s statements on the plane only reinforced the depth of my disagreement with him.
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