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The Catholic church and other Christian communities must apologize to gay people and to many groups they have let down or offended throughout history, Pope Francis has said. In a press conference Sunday on the flight back to Rome after his weekend trip to Armenia, the pontiff said bluntly: "The church must say it's sorry for not having comported itself well many times, many times." "I believe that the church not only must say it's sorry ... to this person that is gay that it has offended," said the pope. "But it must say it's sorry to the poor, also,...

ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE (Reuters) - Pope Francis said on Sunday that Christians and the Roman Catholic Church should seek forgiveness from homosexuals for the way they had treated them. Speaking to reporters aboard the plane taking him back to Rome from Armenia, he also said the Church should ask forgiveness for the way it has treated women, for turning a blind eye to child labor and for "blessing so many weapons" in the past. In the hour-long freewheeling conversation that has become a trademark of his international travels, Francis was asked if he agreed with recent comments by...

The world should never forget or minimize the Ottoman-era slaughter of Armenians, Pope Francis declared Saturday even as he urged Armenians to infuse their collective memory with love so they can find peace and reconcile with Turkey. Turkey, though, didn’t budge. In its first reaction to Francis’ recognition of the 1915 “genocide,” Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Nurettin Canikli called the comments “greatly unfortunate” and said they bore the hallmarks of the “mentality of the Crusades.” Francis began his second day in Armenia by paying his respects at the country’s imposing genocide memorial and greeting descendants of survivors of the 1915...

Our friend Ann Barnhardt has sent up a flare this week, declaring, like Italian journalist Antonio Socci, her belief that Jorge Mario Bergoglio is not Pope Francis, that his election was invalid and he is an antipope, mainly because Pope Benedict XVI is still lawfully the pope. She has presented as her evidence Bergoglio’s “heresies, blasphemies and antichristological actions,” as well as a canonical detail that, she correctly points out, no one is yet talking about. She has asked for responses. Now, no one will accuse me of being a Francis apologist, but I cannot really completely agree with Ann’s...

Pope Francis has said the "great majority" of Catholic marriages being celebrated today are invalid because couples do not fully realize it is a lifetime commitment, drawing sharp criticism from Church conservatives. The pope, who has come under fire before for making spontaneous comments about doctrinal matters, was speaking at a question-and-answer session with priests, nuns and parish workers on Thursday night in a Rome basilica. "We are living in a provisional culture," Francis said in response to a man who spoke of "the crisis of marriage" and asked how the Church could better prepare young couples. "Because of this,...

A representative of the Holy See, in an intervention at the World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva last week, welcomed Sustainable Development Goal 3 and all its targets, despite target 7 calling for “universal access to sexual and reproductive health care services.” These terms are defined as including abortion and contraception by many powerful governments and agencies. Monsignor Jean-Marie Musivi Mupendawatu, secretary to the Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Health Care Workers told the WHA that the Holy See commended the report on health in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which includes the United Nations’ Sustainable Development...

For Francis, the right interpretation of “Amoris Laetitia” is not that of the prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, but that of the Austrian cardinal. Here, for the first time, is his complete text by Sandro Magister ROME, May 30, 2016 – The prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith is still the same, German cardinal Gerhard L. Müller. Who diligently continues to carry out his task, most recently with the monumental address he gave in Oviedo on May 4 for a correct understanding of “Amoris Laetitia,” in harmony with the previous magisterium...

ope Francis honored American actors George Clooney and Richard Gere and actress Salma Hayek on Sunday, awarding them the “Olive Medal” for peace at a Vatican event. The Vatican event was organized to promote the work of a foundation called Scholas Occurrentes (schools of encounter), which Clooney praised as “a wonderful program” that enables “many different religions to speak of inclusion, because we know that hatred and fundamentalist attitudes are learned and inculcated.” It wasn’t clear from reports what the celebrities had actually done to merit the medals, although George Clooney is well known as a liberal activist and successful...

But his address took a turn toward the propaganda style when, minutes into his remarks, he said, “Migrants are not a danger – they are in danger,” and then called on the children to repeat after and with him: “They are not a danger – they are in danger,” Breitbart reported. During his remarks, the pope also invited the children to recite a Hail Mary prayer out loud with him, to honor those who’ve died at sea during their refugee flights. He also carried what he said was the life jacket of a drowned Syrian girl, age 6, who lost...

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis embraced the grand imam of Cairo's Al-Azhar Mosque at the Vatican on Monday in a historic encounter both sides hope will lead to greater understanding and dialogue between the two faiths. The first Vatican meeting between the leader of the world's Catholics and the highest authority in Sunni Islam marks the culmination of a significant improvement in relations between the two faiths since Francis took office in 2013. "Our meeting is the message," Francis said in a brief comment at the start of his meeting with Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb, shortly after he had hugged and...

Typically, for the Bear, this is not short. You may find it entertaining, however. It wraps up several issues that have been occupying the Bear's mind lately as he grapples with the why and the how of what he is doing. Pope Francis: Finally, a Smiling Face to the Horror For decades we have had to sit and watch helplessly as the Church was consumed by preventable scandal and ceaseless innovation. The enemy was hard to get a fix on. He seemed to be everywhere and nowhere, and his name was Legion. But it was clear that somehow the schwerpunkt...

When Pope Francis met with Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb on Monday, he told him that “our meeting is the message“. So precisely what kind of “message” was Pope Francis attempting to convey? Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb is the Grand Imam of Cairo’s Al-Azhar Mosque, and some have described him as “the highest figure in Sunni Islam“. The Daily Mail said that the meeting between these two men was a “historic bid to reopen dialogue between the two churches”, and as you will see below this is yet another in a long series of attempts by Pope Francis to build bridges between Catholicism...

The longtime personal secretary to Pope-emeritus Benedict XVI has spoken of a "dramatic struggle" at the conclave of 2005, and insisted that the former Pontiff did not resign because of the "Vatileaks" scandal. Speaking at the launch of a book about Pope Benedict, Archbishop Georg Gänswein-- who continues to act as secretary to the retired Pontiff, while also serving as prefect of the pontifical household-- said that the "Vatileaks" scandal had "little or nothing" to do with the Pontiff's decision to resign. He said that Benedict XVI was motivated by his realization that he was growing weaker. By resigning, Archbishop...

Pope Francis startled many Catholics this week by likening Jesus' admonition to his apostles to go forth and preach the Gospel to Mohamed's call for Muslims to wage jihad against unbelievers, calling both "incitements to conquest." "In a way, beheading someone or blowing them up may be less intrusive than Jesus' command to 'love thy neighbor' or to 'turn the other cheek,'" Francis said. "The jihadi attacks the body, but the Christian missionary invades the soul. Even the most grievous injury to the flesh is transitory. But changing a person's soul persists beyond his temporary Earthly existence." Francis went on...

    (CN) — Pope Francis condemned the sin of "living off the blood of the people" while criticizing immoral employers for not providing health care for their employees, calling them "true leeches."     During his homily on Thursday, the pontiff brought up a hypothetical situation in which a business employs a worker from September to June but does not provide health care coverage.     "Exploitation of people today is a true slavery," he said. "We thought that slaves do not exist anymore. They exist. It's true, people don't go to Africa to take them and then sell them in America, no. But it's in our...

Pope To Commission Study To Find More Ways He Can Confuse People May 12, 2016 by Admin Pope Francis said today that he would set up a commission to study whether or not he can find more ways to confuse and frustrate the living crap out of people, revealing an openness to re-examining the church’s long-held insistence on not speaking off-the-cuff. His move was hailed as a breakthrough by those in the media who have clamored for years to be given more stuff to speculate on, and who cite research showing that a pope whose speeches were scripted and thought...

Coming back to the migrant issue, the worst form of welcome is to ‘ghettoize’them. On the contrary, it’s necessary to integrate them. . This integration is all the more necessary today since, as a result of a selfish search for well-being, Europe is experiencing the grave problem of a declining birth rate.

Islam and Christianity share the "same idea of conquest", and for that reason, Islam should not be viewed as a threat, said Pope Francis in a newspaper interview this week. "It is true that the idea of conquest is inherent in the soul of Islam," he conceded to the French Catholic newspaper La Croix. "However, it is also possible to interpret the objective in Matthew's Gospel, where Jesus sends his disciples to all nations, in terms of the same idea of conquest." Ostensibly, the Pope was drawing a parallel between the Islamic "conquest" known as jihad, a holy war or...

In an interview on Tuesday with the French magazine La Croix, Francis minimized the difference between Islam and Christianity, arguing that the religions share a concept of subjugation.Today, I don't think that there is a fear of Islam as such but of ISIS and its war of conquest, which is partly drawn from Islam. It is true that the idea of conquest is inherent in the soul of Islam. However, it is also possible to interpret the objective in Matthew's Gospel, where Jesus sends his disciples to all nations, in terms of the same idea of conquest.

Archbishop Bruno Forte, Pope Bergoglio’s handpicked Special Secretary for both sessions of the Phony Synod, is a supremely arrogant man. For only supreme arrogance could explain his reported insertion into the midterm report of Phony Synod 2014 (with Francis’s full approval) those infamous statements about “valuing” the “homosexual orientation” and recognizing that “homosexual unions” can provide “precious support in the life of the partners” as they habitually engage in sodomy. And only supreme arrogance could explain Bruno’s matter-of-fact revelation of what we have long known anyway: that the entire “synodal process” was stage-managed by Francis to advance his pet project...