Pope Francis recalls the fundamentals on American television

LGBT Union Blessings

Faced with the director of the CBS Evening News who questions him about the document Fiducia supplicans, which opens the blessing to same-sex couples, the Sovereign Pontiff shows himself to be an educator. The Pope explains that “the blessing is for all.” Thus, a priest can bless any individual, even if he is a sinner, but not the homosexual union as such. “This cannot be done because this is the sacrament. I can't. The Lord made it this way. But yes, bless each person,” because “the blessing is for everyone, for everyone,” he explains.

GPA

In this interview lasting more than an hour, the Pope recalls the fundamentals of the social thought of the Church, particularly on surrogacy (GPA). For him, the Church cannot authorize surrogacy, in particular because it is “a very hard business”. Where adoption is seen as a “hope”, surrogacy “has become a business”.

He also does not hesitate to say that “the Gospel is for everyone,” including sinners, and has clarified the Vatican position on a Church open to all. “If the Church places a custom at its door,” he concludes, “it ceases to be the Church of Christ.”

Female diaconate

In his mother tongue and faced with an interviewer with trivial questions, he is a lively pope who responds straightforwardly. As on the diaconate of women. Asked if “a little girl growing up as a Catholic today will have the opportunity to be a deacon and participate as a member of the clergy in the Church,” Francis answers “no.” And without procrastinating. “Women offer a great service as women, not as ministers (…) within the sacred order,” he continues. Which amounts to saying that the Pope does not rule out the possibility of one day seeing women deacons in the Church and of reshuffling the cards for a different form of permanent diaconate in the era of the exclusively male diaconate.

Immigration and the United States

Beyond more general questions about the Church and its changing doctrine over the years, Francis, as usual, took the opportunity to slip in political messages. As with the delicate subject of migrations. Denouncing a “globalization of indifference” towards migrants, the Bishop of Rome speaks of a “vile disease”. A social fact which pushes him to describe the attitude of the United States towards the migrants massed on their southern border as “pure madness”. “Closing the border and leaving them (the migrants) there is madness. Migrants must be welcomed,” the Pope thundered on CBS. And to insist that many people “wash their hands” like Pontius Pilate on this issue. Each case must therefore be “considered with humanity”.

Ecology

On ecology, the octogenarian is even more offensive. He calls scientists and experts who deny the climate emergency “stupid”. “Even if you show them (these scientists) research, they don’t believe it. For what? Because they don't understand the situation or because they have their own interests. But climate change exists.

Conservatism in the Church

But Francis also knows how to be intractable with his internal opponents: conservative Catholics, many of whose detractors are members of the American clergy. In prime time, the Pope did not hesitate to declare that for him a conservative is one who “clings to something and does not want to see beyond it”. An arrow fired in the direction of some of the American conservatives who are attacking the Church desired by the Argentine pope (blessing of homosexuals, responsibilities for the laity, etc.). Thus, these “backsliders” in the boat of Saint Peter have “a suicidal attitude”. And for good reason, “one thing is to take tradition into account, to consider situations of the past, but another is to lock oneself in a dogmatic box,” replies the Holy Father.