He reminded me that in the Eastern Catholic Churches it is allowed for a priest to be married. “There is no contradiction in this,” declared the head of the church.
To Infobae’s question whether celibacy can be revoked, Pope Francis answered yes. He stated that in the Western Church, celibacy is considered a “temporary, temporary requirement”, as opposed to, for example, the “eternal” priestly vocation.
However, he expressed doubt that more men would devote their lives to the priesthood if they were allowed to marry.
The head of the Catholic Church also spoke about the situation of gays. He stated that God – as the Gospel proclaims – welcomes everyone in his church, including gays.
Jesus gave a great answer to this question: everyone, everyone come in,” he said. “When there weren’t enough guests at the wedding, he said: go out to the crossroads and invite everyone in. Good people, bad, old, young: everyone. This is the church of sinners. I don’t know where the church of saints is, we are all sinners here. And who am I to judge someone if they have good intentions? However, if you’d rather join the devil’s gang, well, we have to protect ourselves. Nowadays, this question is examined with a magnifying glass, but I believe that we must look at the essence of the Gospel: Jesus calls everyone
– he emphasized.
In the interview, Pope Francis also spoke about the problems of the South American region and compared the leadership of Nicaragua to the former Nazi and communist dictatorships.
The 86-year-old head of the church said in relation to the treatment of the Catholic bishop Rolando Álvarez, who sharply criticized the Nicaraguan government, that it seems to him as if “they want to bring over the communist dictatorship of 1917 or the Hitler dictatorship of 1935”.
In February, the bishop of Matagalpa was sentenced to 26 years in prison and stripped of his Nicaraguan citizenship after refusing to board a plane that was transporting political prisoners from the Central American country to the United States. 222 political prisoners left Nicaragua on the plane.
Without naming Daniel Ortega, the Marxist guerilla-turned-president of the Latin American country, Pope Francis declared that he could only consider the leader of Nicaragua to be an unbalanced person. “We have an imprisoned bishop who is a very determined and capable person. He stood up for his faith and vocation, he did not accept exile,” emphasized the head of the Catholic Church, who spoke publicly about Álvarez for the first time.
Daniel Ortega says his jailed opponents and others were behind a series of street protests in 2018 that he says were a plot to topple him. Tens of thousands have fled into exile since Nicaraguan security forces crushed anti-government protests.
In the interview, Pope Francis also spoke about the internal political crisis in Venezuela. As he said, the historical circumstances will force the political forces to change the current course of the dialogue. “I never rule out any possible good solution. On the contrary, I encourage everyone to propose such,” he emphasized. The government of President Nicolás Maduro and the opposition are currently looking for a way out of the internal political crisis that has dragged on for years. The leadership in Caracas, on the other hand, makes the possible agreement dependent on the lifting of American and EU sanctions.