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Sunday, March 16, 2025

Pope, Anglican, Presbyterian minister denounce anti-gay laws 

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769 days ago
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The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby (right), Pope Francis (left), and the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland Iain Greenshields meet the journalists during an airborne press conference aboard the airplane directed to Rome, at the end of his pastoral visit to Congo and South Sudan, Sunday, Feb. 5, 2023. (Tiziana Fabi/Pool Photo Via AP)

The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby (right), Pope Francis (left), and the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland Iain Greenshields meet the journalists during an airborne press conference aboard the airplane directed to Rome, at the end of his pastoral visit to Congo and South Sudan, Sunday, Feb. 5, 2023. (Tiziana Fabi/Pool Photo Via AP)

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.

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