Pope Francis spoke out against the criminalization of homosexuality, critiqued the use of guns by civilians and admitted to his own mishandling of the sexual abuse crisis in a wide-ranging interview with The Associated Press.
Pope Francis criticized laws that criminalize homosexuality as “unjust,” saying God loves all his children just as they are and called on Catholic bishops who support the laws to welcome LGBTQ people into the church.
The pope warned there's a risk that a reform process in the German Catholic Church over calls for married priests and other possible liberalizing reforms might become harmfully "ideological."
Pope Francis says he hasn't even considered issuing norms to regulate future papal resignations and plans to continue for as long as he can as bishop of Rome, despite a wave of attacks by some top-ranking cardinals and bishops.
In his many articles for America over the years (his first appeared in 1968), Archbishop John Quinn tackled issues ranging from synodality to sex abuse to the priest shortage to abortion. Do those sound familiar today?
We must examine the contradictions in a church of inclusion and shared belonging that have been identified by the voices of the people of God in our nation and discern in synodality a pathway for moving beyond them.