Pope: Christians should apologize to LGBT

ROME – Pope Francis said Sunday that Christians and the Roman Catholic Church should apologize to gay people and seek their forgiveness for the way they have been treated.

Speaking to reporters as he flew back to Rome from Armenia, the pope was asked if he agreed with comments by German Cardinal Reinhard Marx that the Church needed to say sorry for the way it has treated the gay community.

“We Christians have to apologize for so many things, not just for this (treatment of gay people), but we must ask for forgiveness. Not just apologize – forgiveness,” he said.

“The question is: If a person who has that condition, who has good will and who looks for God, who are we to judge?” the pope added, repeating his famous “Who am I to judge?” remark about homosexuality made early in his papacy.

That comment was one of the first indications that the Vatican under Pope Francis’ leadership would take a more conciliatory approach to the gay community, but also prompted criticism from the Church’s more conservative members.

Francis expanded his apology to also include other people who have faced discrimination.

“I think that the Church not only should apologize... to a gay person whom it offended but it must also apologize to the poor as well, to the women who have been exploited, to children who have been forced to work.”

The comments come just two weeks after the Orlando massacre at a gay nightclub in which 49 people were killed.

At the time the Holy See condemned the attack as a “homicidal folly and senseless hatred.”

Forgiveness with justice

In Manila, a priest administering to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community said forgiveness must be coupled with justice.

“Thank you, Pope Francis, but forgiveness is coupled with justice,” Reverend Crescencio Agbayani, a minister at the LGBT Community Church, stressed in a text message to The STAR.

Agbayani expressed his gratitude for the pope’s statement in a phone interview yesterday, saying his words “caused joy” to him and probably to the LGBT community.

While grateful, he also stressed that aside from saying sorry, the Church must exercise “acceptance and tolerance” of its LGBT members.

“We hope that the Church will be truthful in its apology, that aside from saying sorry, they will also accept us,” he said.

For its part, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines said the pope’s gesture showed his humility.

“The humility of the pope is once again evident when he apologized for the church’s treatment of the LBGT,” said CBCP Public Affairs Committee executive secretary Fr. Jerome Secillano yesterday.

“What the apology implies is that homosexuals should be treated with respect and compassion and with high regard for their dignity as human beings,” he said.

Agbayani stressed his hopes for the Church to finally accept its LGBT members and allow same-sex unions inside the church.

He felt that the pope’s statement was “compassionate,” saying, “I think he said that because the number of members of the Church is already dwindling.”

He also said he hopes the Catholic Church in the Philippines would follow suit after the pope expressed such sentiment.

He also believed that religions, particularly the Catholic Church and other major faiths, should “open their doors” to the LGBT community.

“The church should open its doors to the LGBT, because if not they would lose members,” Agbayani said last Saturday at the Metro Manila Pride Festival.

“We do the ministry primarily because churches are closing the doors” for the LGBT, he added. – Ghio Ong, Romina Cabrera, Evelyn Macairan