Pope Francis: ‘Who Am I To Judge?’ Gay Priests (Video)

Pope Francis I held an impromptu press conference on his flight back from World Youth Day in Brazil, and when asked about his earlier comments about the Vatican’s “gay lobby,” said of gay clerics, “I have yet to find anyone who has a business card that says he is gay,” and asked, “who am I to judge?”

LOOK: Pope Francis Admits There Is A Vatican ‘Gay Lobby’

“They say they exist,” the 76-year old pontiff continued. “If someone is gay, who searches for the Lord and has goodwill, who am I to judge?” he added, as NBC News reports:

“The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains this very well. It says they should not be marginalized because of this (orientation) but that they must be integrated into society.”

“The problem is not having this orientation. We must be brothers. The problem is lobbying by this orientation, or lobbies of greedy people, political lobbies, Masonic lobbies, so many lobbies. This is the worse problem,” he said.

The Pope said he had stayed away from the issue of gay marriage and also abortion on his week-long trip to Brazil because he wanted to stay positive.
Francis discussed a range of issues during the press conference, admitting that the church had not done enough to develop “the theology of women in the church.”
He said that the church had spoken on the issue of women priests and expressed itself clearly on the issue of abortion, but he added that important female biblical figures had been overlooked.

“Mary is more important than the apostles,” he said. “One must think about women in the church. We have not done enough theology on this.”

UPDATE: This article has been updated for clarity.

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