While the Pope was speaking in his own characteristic way, he agreed completely with Pope Benedict XVI’s teachings and decisions

What Did the Pope Really Say 

about Gays in the Priesthood?

by Fr. Regis Scanlon, O.F.M. Cap

Very few popes give off-the-cuff interviews to reporters to begin with, and even less joke and have fun with the reporters. So, when Pope Francis did just that as he returned from World Youth Day, it was a stunner. It wasn’t so much that he said he “does not judge gays”—after all, the meaning itself can be taken as solid Catholic doctrine, that we are never to judge the person, only the sin—but the fact that, in context, there was also the possibility he was saying something far different.

Could his words be taken as suggesting a reversal of the teaching of his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI who stated in 2005 that homosexuality was “a strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil” and an “objective disorder”—and who ruled that men with “deep-seated homosexual tendencies” should not become priests?

The “progressive” media certainly hoped so. The New York Times suggested that the Pope’s wordsmeant that “he would not judge priests for their sexual orientation” and that the he struck “a more compassionate tone than his predecessor” merely by using the term “gay” instead of homosexual.

Thomas Reese of the National Catholic Reporter went further and stated that in the interview “Pope Francis made clear that being gay is not an impediment for ordination.”

But I will argue that while the Pope was speaking in his own characteristic way, he agreed completely with Pope Benedict XVI’s teachings and decisions on homosexuality and the priesthood.

A large part of the problem in figuring out the Pope’s meaning is due to the nuance of language and the wishful interpretations of those, like the New York Times and the National Catholic Reporter, who wish to see homosexuality accepted in the Church and the priesthood.

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