Pope Fran­cis, the head of the An­gli­can Com­mu­nion and top Pres­by­ter­ian min­is­ter to­geth­er de­nounced the crim­i­nal­iza­tion of ho­mo­sex­u­al­i­ty on Sun­day and said gay peo­ple should be wel­comed by their church­es.

The three Chris­t­ian lead­ers spoke out on LGBTQ rights dur­ing an un­prece­dent­ed joint air­borne news con­fer­ence re­turn­ing home from South Su­dan, where they took part in a three-day ec­u­meni­cal pil­grim­age to try to nudge the young coun­try’s peace process for­ward.

They were asked about Fran­cis’ re­cent com­ments to The As­so­ci­at­ed Press, in which he de­clared that laws that crim­i­nal­ize gay peo­ple were “un­just” and that “be­ing ho­mo­sex­u­al is not a crime.”

South Su­dan is one of 67 coun­tries that crim­i­nal­izes ho­mo­sex­u­al­i­ty, 11 of them with the death penal­ty. LGBTQ ad­vo­cates say even where such laws are not ap­plied, they con­tribute to a cli­mate of ha­rass­ment, dis­crim­i­na­tion and vi­o­lence.

Fran­cis re­ferred his Jan. 24 com­ments to the AP and re­peat­ed that such laws are “un­just.” He al­so re­peat­ed pre­vi­ous com­ments that par­ents should nev­er throw their gay chil­dren out of the house.

“To con­demn some­one like this is a sin,” he said. “Crim­i­nal­iz­ing peo­ple with ho­mo­sex­u­al ten­den­cies is an in­jus­tice.”

“Peo­ple with ho­mo­sex­u­al ten­den­cies are chil­dren of God. God Loves them. God ac­com­pa­nies them,” he added.

The Arch­bish­op of Can­ter­bury, Justin Wel­by, re­called that LGBTQ rights were very much on the cur­rent agen­da of the Church of Eng­land, and said he would quote the pope’s own words when the is­sue is dis­cussed at the church’s up­com­ing Gen­er­al Syn­od.

“I wish I had spo­ken as elo­quent­ly and clear­ly as the pope. I en­tire­ly agree with every word he said,” Wel­by said.

Re­cent­ly, the Church of Eng­land de­cid­ed to al­low bless­ings for same-sex civ­il mar­riages but said same-sex cou­ples could not mar­ry in its church­es. The Vat­i­can for­bids both gay mar­riage and bless­ings for same-sex unions.

Wel­by told re­porters that the is­sue of crim­i­nal­iza­tion had been tak­en up at two pre­vi­ous Lam­beth Con­fer­ences of the broad­er An­gli­can Com­mu­nion, which in­cludes church­es in Africa and the Mid­dle East where such an­ti-gay laws are most com­mon and of­ten en­joy sup­port by con­ser­v­a­tive bish­ops.

The broad­er Lam­beth Con­fer­ence has come out twice op­pos­ing crim­i­nal­iza­tion, “But it has not re­al­ly changed many peo­ple’s minds,” Wel­by said.

The Rt. Rev. Iain Green­shields, the Pres­by­ter­ian mod­er­a­tor of the Church of Scot­land who al­so par­tic­i­pat­ed in the pil­grim­age and news con­fer­ence, of­fered an ob­ser­va­tion.

“There is nowhere in my read­ing of the four Gospels where I see Je­sus turn­ing any­one away,” he said. “There is nowhere in the four Gospels where I see any­thing oth­er than Je­sus ex­press­ing love to whomev­er he meets.

“And as Chris­tians, that is the on­ly ex­pres­sion that we can pos­si­bly give to any hu­man be­ing, in any cir­cum­stance.”

The Church of Scot­land al­lows same-sex mar­riages. Catholic teach­ing holds that gay peo­ple must be treat­ed with dig­ni­ty and re­spect, but that ho­mo­sex­u­al acts are “in­trin­si­cal­ly dis­or­dered.” —ABOARD THE PA­PAL PLANE (AP)

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Sto­ry by NICOLE WIN­FIELD | As­so­ci­at­ed Press. As­so­ci­at­ed Press re­li­gion cov­er­age re­ceives sup­port through the AP’s col­lab­o­ra­tion with The Con­ver­sa­tion US, with fund­ing from Lil­ly En­dow­ment Inc. The AP is sole­ly re­spon­si­ble for this con­tent.