VATICAN CITY
National Catholic Reporter
Joshua J. McElwee | Mar. 5, 2014 NCR Today
ROME Pope Francis has marked the first anniversary of his pontificate with a wide-ranging interview touching on his views on a host of topics, including the role of women in the Catholic church, the ongoing clergy sexual abuse crisis, and possible changes to the church’s family pastoral practices.
Published Wednesday simultaneously in Italy and Argentina, the interview seems to find the pontiff walking a bit of a tightrope — expressing support for church teachings that have sometimes divided Catholics but also calling for mercy and consideration in their application.
Speaking on the church’s prohibition on the use of artificial contraception, for example, Francis says a lot depends on how you consider Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical Humanae Vitae, which reaffirmed the ban. But, Francis also says, Paul was a “genius” in making the decision.
“It all depends on how you interpreted Humanae Vitae,” states Francis in the interview, published in Italy by the daily Corriere della Sera. “The same Paul VI, in the end, recommended to confessors much mercy, attention to concrete situations.”
Pope Paul, states Francis: “Had the courage to stand against the majority, to defend the moral discipline, to exercise cultural restraint.”
“The question is not that of changing the doctrine, but to go deep and to ensure that pastoral care takes into account situations and what is possible for people,” the pontiff continues.
Wednesday’s interview, published in Spanish by the Argentinian paper La Nación, was conducted by Ferruccio de Bortoli, the editor-in-chief of the Italian paper. It is the last of several lengthy the interviews the pontiff has granted in the year since his election as pope on March 13, 2013.
The interview contains some of the pope’s only public words on the sexual abuse crisis, which continues to roil dioceses across the world. Asked about the subject, Francis replies: “I want to say two things.”
“The cases of abuse are awful because they leave profound wounds,” he states. “Benedict XVI was very courageous and has opened a way. On this way the church has done so much. Perhaps most of all.”
“The statistics of the phenomenon of violence against children are staggering, but show clearly that the vast majority of abuse happens in the family setting and neighborhood,” he continues.
“The Catholic church is maybe the only public institution to have moved with transparency and responsibility,” he states. “No one else has done more. Yet the church is the only one to be attacked.”
In the nearly 3,000-word exchange the pope also touches on a number of personal subjects, calling himself “a man who laughs, cries, sleeps peacefully, and has friends like everyone else. A normal person.”
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