Pope Francis says by virtue of its very definition, marriage can only be between a man and a woman, Pope Francis said this in a new book-length interview.
“We cannot change it. This is the nature of things,” not just in the Church, but in human history, he said in a series of interviews with Dominique Wolton, a 70-year-old French sociologist and expert in media and political communication.
The interview which is published in French, a 417-page book, Politique et Société (“Politics and Society”) will be released on September 6. though Catholic News Service obtained an advance copy, and excerpts appeared online.
On the true nature of marriage as well as gender, there is “critical confusion at the moment”, the Pope said.
Responding to questions about marriage for same-sex couples, the Pope said, “Let’s call this ‘civil unions.’ We do not joke around with truth.”
He also said teaching children that they can choose their gender, plays a part in fostering such mistakes about the truth or facts of nature.
The Pope encouraged researchers to study the subject of gender and marriage.
The Pontiff said his decision to give all priests permanent permission to grant absolution to those who confess to having procured an abortion was not meant to trivialise this serious and grave sin.
“Abortion continues to be “murder of an innocent person. But if there is sin, forgiveness must be facilitated,” he said. So often a woman who never forgets her aborted child “cries for years without having the courage to go see a priest”.
“Do you have any idea the number of people who can finally breathe?” he asked, adding how important it was these women can find the Lord’s forgiveness and never commit this sin again.
Pope Francis said the biggest threat in the world is money. In St Matthew’s Gospel, when Jesus talked about people’s love and loyalty being torn between two things, he didn’t say it was between “your wife or God”, it was choosing between God or money.
“It’s clear. They are two things opposed to each other,” he said.
When asked why people do not listen to this message even though it has been clearly condemned by the Church since the time of the Gospels, the Pope said it is because some people prefer to speak only about sexual morality.
“There is a great danger for preachers, lecturers, to fall into mediocrity,” which is condemning only those forms of immorality that fall “below the belt”, he said.
“But the other sins that are the most serious: hatred, envy, pride, vanity, killing another, taking away a life … these are really not talked about that much,” he said.
“The most minor sins are the sins of the flesh,” he said, because the flesh is weak. “The most dangerous sins are those of the mind”, and confessors should spend more time asking if a person prays, reads the Gospel and seeks the Lord.
One temptation the Church has always been vulnerable to, the Pope said, is being defensive because it is scared.
Where in the Gospels does the Lord say that we need to seek security? Instead he said, ‘Risk, go ahead, forgive and evangelise.’”
Another temptation, he said, is to seek uniformity with rules, for example, in the debate concerning his apostolic exhortation on the family, Amoris Laetitia.
“When I talk about families in difficulty, I say, ‘Welcome, accompany, discern, integrate …’ and then everyone will see the doors open. In reality, what happens is you hear people say, ‘They cannot receive Communion.’ ‘They cannot do this and that.’”
That temptation of the Church to emphasise “no, no and no” and what is prohibited is the same “drama Jesus [experienced] with the Pharisees.”
This closed, fundamentalist mindset like Jesus faced is “the battle I lead today with the exhortation”.
Jesus followed “another logic” that went beyond prohibitions as he did not adhere to customs – like not touching lepers and stoning adulterers – that had become like commandments, he said.
Church leaders are used to “frozen norms” and “fixed standards”, but when they ask, “‘Can we give Communion to divorcees?’ I reply, ‘Speak with the divorced man and woman, welcome, accompany, integrate and discern”, which opens a path and a way of communication to lead people to Christ.
Encountering Christ is what leads people onto a path of living a moral life, he said.
When asked about the Church’s “just war” theory, the Pope said the issue should be looked into because “no war is just.
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