Endorse with love or reject and condemn?

An interview with Pope Francis appeared in the Jesuit magazine America and is getting a lot of notice in gay news sources. The post by Jim Burroway of Box Turtle Bulletin appears to be the most comprehensive, so it is his main points I'll highlight. I haven't read the full interview.

Francis explains some of his background, saying that he was thrust into leadership (within the Jesuits) before he was ready and without enough support. He found that an authoritarian style of leadership didn't work.

Burroway notes that lots of Catholic pew-sitters don't agree with the hierarchy. That leads to comments of Francis who says, "And all the faithful, considered as a whole, are infallible in matters of belief." Francis doesn't say or refute that he as pope is infallible, can't ever be wrong. But he is saying that the faithful, even when they appear to be straying from doctrine, are also not wrong. Perhaps God is leading the church in a new direction.

That important point leads to the next. Francis said,

The people of God want pastors, not clergy acting like bureaucrats or government officials. The bishops, particularly, must be able to support the movements of God among their people with patience, so that no one is left behind. But they must also be able to accompany the flock that has a flair for finding new paths.

A couple paragraphs later came the part that got the attention of gays:

A person once asked me, in a provocative manner, if I approved of homosexuality. I replied with another question: ‘Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?’ We must always consider the person. Here we enter into the mystery of the human being. In life, God accompanies persons, and we must accompany them, starting from their situation. It is necessary to accompany them with mercy. When that happens, the Holy Spirit inspires the priest to say the right thing.

And then:

The dogmatic and moral teachings of the church are not all equivalent. The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently.

What a wonderful breath of fresh air!

Burroway cautions us: No doctrine has changed. It still calls us "objectively disordered." American bishops and cardinals will likely still say nasty things about us. It make take quite a while for these ideas of Francis to filter down into the rest of the hierarchy. And it may not do that in the few years Francis is around. Even so, this could be the start of a momentous shift.

Alas, there are also groups such as the National Organization for Marriage, which has taken a great deal of Catholic money. Maggie Gallagher, a leader in that group, is quick to jump on what the Pope said -- in her usual logically twisted way. Perhaps gay leaders will be a bit more tolerant, a bit more considerate of the human, and not be so quick to judge us as hateful bigots. Sure, Maggie.