Aboard the papal plane
AP
Pope Francis, the head of the Anglican Communion and top Presbyterian minister together denounced the criminalisation 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.
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, on Sunday, 5th February, 2023. PICTURE: Tiziana Fabi/Pool Photo Via AP.
They were asked about Francis’ recent comments to The Associated Press, in which he declared that laws that criminalise gay people were “unjust” and that “being homosexual is not a crime.”
POPE PLANNING INDIA, MONGOLIA TRIPS AFTER LISBON, MARSEILLE
Pope Francis said Sunday he is planning to visit India next year and is studying a possible trip to Mongolia later in 2023 in what would be a first for a pope.
Francis outlined his upcoming travel schedule during his flight back to Rome from South Sudan.
He confirmed that he would be in Lisbon, Portugal for World Youth Day the first week of August and would participate in a 23rd September meeting of Mediterranean bishops in Marseille, France.
He said there was “the possibility” that he would fly from Marseille to Mongolia, which would be a first for a pope.
Looking further ahead, Francis said he thought he would visit India in 2024, after plans for a trip in 2017 fell apart.
While aboard the papal plane, the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and the Moderator of the Church of Scotland, the Rt Rev Iain Greenshields, took part in his airborne news conference, during which they were asked if they would be willing to join Francis on future trips too.
Welby said he would be “delighted to” if it might be helpful, joking that the papal plane was “the best airline I’ve ever flown on.”
Greenshields also was keen but noted his mandate ends in May.
In a nod to the nearly all-male Vatican delegation that accompanies Francis on his foreign trips, Greenshields pointed out that he would be replaced by “a very capable woman” as moderator of the Church of Scotland, the Rev. Sally Foster-Fulton, an American. The Church of Scotland has had ordained female ministers since the 1960s.
“She would be delighted to do the same thing,” he said.
The Vatican delegation, made up mostly of cardinals and bishops, traditionally only includes one woman: a protocol expert in the Vatican secretariat of state. On this trip, Francis also invited as his personal guest a Congolese nun.
South Sudan is one of 67 countries that criminalises 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 24th January 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 criminalisation 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 criminalisation, “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.”
