Pope Francis: Gay couples can’t make real families and abortions are like the Holocaust
Pope Francis (VINCENZO PINTO/AFP/Getty)
Pope Francis has condemned same-sex parents and abortion in a series of scathing comments.
It had been hoped that the Pope was in the process of softening the Catholic Church’s position on LGBT rights, particularly as it was just last month that he told Juan Carlos Cruz, a gay survivor of sexual abuse by a prominent Chilean priest: “God made you like this and loves you like this and I don’t care.”
However, during unscripted remarks at Forum delle Famiglie, an Italian group for Catholic families, he closed the door on the idea of same-sex couples forming a family within the Church.
Pope Francis gives a weekly general audience at St Peter’s square (TIZIANA FABI/AFP/Getty)
“It is painful to say this today: People speak of varied families, of various kinds of family,” but “the family [as] man and woman in the image of God is the only one,” he said, according to ANSA News Agency.
The leader of the Catholic Church also compared abortion of seriously ill foetuses to the Holocaust, saying: “In the last century, the entire world was scandalised by what the Nazis did to ensure the purity of the race.
“Today we do the same, but with white gloves.”
Some had hoped the Pope was softening his views on LGBT issues (FILIPPO MONTEFORTE/AFP/Getty)
The Pope also praised spouses who stay with unfaithful partners, hoping for them to stop cheating on them instead of asking for a divorce.
“Many women – but even men sometimes do it [with wives] – wait in silence, looking the other way, waiting for their husband to become faithful again,” he said.
This, he added, was “the sanctity that forgives all out of love.”
Conspiracy theorist and alt-right host Alex Jones, whose InfoWars YouTube channel has 2.3 million subscribers, went on an alarming rant after the Pope’s more accepting comments last month, in which he said that the pontiff was a “piranha,” “paedophile” and “creepazoid.”
Jones laughs maniacally (The Alex Jones Channel/youtube)
Jones then told his followers that the pontiff was “as close as you’re gonna get to Satan in the flesh.”
Olympic medallist Adam Rippon praised the Pope after those remarks, lending to the idea that the Catholic head was on the right path, with the winner of Dancing with the Stars calling his stance “so awesome.”
Adam Rippon (Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty)
But the Pope gave notice that he wasn’t upturning thousands of years of Church doctrine just days after speaking to Cruz, when he reportedly used a private meeting to warn bishops in Italy that they should reject any applicants to the priesthood who they suspect might be gay.
This was unsurprising to those following closely, seeing as in 2016, the Vatican reaffirmed its ban on gay priests that has been in place since 2005, stating that if you “practice homosexuality” you will not be welcome as a priest.
Pope Francis greets nuns (TIZIANA FABI/AFP/Getty)
The statement said: “The Church, while profoundly respecting the persons in question, cannot admit to the seminary or to holy orders those who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called ‘gay culture.’
“Such persons, in fact, find themselves in a situation that gravely hinders them from relating correctly to men and women.
“One must in no way overlook the negative consequences that can derive from the ordination of persons with deep-seated homosexual tendencies.”
