Catholic leader says church should welcome gays, divorcees

Pope Francis has enjoined the Catholic Church to embrace and welcome gay and divorced members while also recognising the positive sides of the church’s disagreement over these topics.

The pontiff in an interview with Argentine newspaper, La Nacion, said that the Church must welcome divorced Catholics and support families of homosexuals, and that debate about the issues is a good thing. The Pope talked about the discord his reform-minded papacy has triggered, saying that it is a “good sign” if no “hidden mumbling when there is disagreement” is observed.

“Resistance is now evidentand that is a good sign for me…It’s healthy to get things out into the open,” the Pope said in the interview that was published on Sunday, December 7.

Speaking about the divorced, Pope Francis said that integration is important while communion alone is not solution. “The solution is integration. They have not been excommunicated, true. But they cannot be godfathers to any child being baptized, mass readings are not for divorcees, they cannot give communion, they cannot teach Sunday school, there are about seven things that they cannot do…Thus, let us open the doors a bit more.”

The comments were the pope's first since the end of the synod, or meeting of bishops, in October where they disagreed strongly regarding the treatment of divorced and remarried Catholics and homosexuals.

One group called for acceptance of gay couples and for remarried Catholics to be able to take communion. More traditional church leaders criticised such changes.

Pope Francis however said that the synod did not discuss officiating gay marriages, but that the bishops should support "a family that has a homosexual son or daughter... (and consider) how can they raise him or her."