Pope Francis says Christians should apologise to gays for maltreating them and ask for forgiveness

POPE Francis has called on Christians and the Catholic Church to apologise to lesbians and gays for the way in which they have maltreated them over the decades as they have been discriminated against unjustly.

Keen to modernise the Catholic Church and make it more modern, the pope has sought to move it away from many of its conservative values that alienate a lot of people worldwide. In his latest attempt to bring the church into the 21st century, Pope Francis said gay people should not be discriminated against and should be respected and accompanied pastorally.

In an hour-long conversation with reporters on the plane taking him back to Rome from Armenia, the pontiff tended to agree with recent comments by a German Roman Catholic cardinal that the Church should apologise to gay people. He added that the church teaches that homosexuality is not sinful but homosexual acts are and that homosexuals should try to be chaste.

Pope Francis said: “I think that the church not only should apologise to a gay person whom it offended but it must also apologise to the poor as well and to the women who have been exploited and to children who have been exploited by being forced to work. It must apologise for having blessed so many weapons.”

“The questions is: if a person who has that condition, who has good will and who looks for God, who are we to judge?” Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said that the pope, by saying has that condition, did not imply a medical condition but a person in that situation as in Italian, the word condition can also mean situation.

Father Lombardi added: “We Christians have to apologise for so many things, not just for this treatment of gay people but we must ask for forgiveness. Forgiveeness is a word we forget so often.”

Since assuming office, Pope Francis has been hailed by many in the gay community for being the most merciful pope towards them in recent history while conservative Catholics have criticised him for making comments they say are ambiguous about sexual morality. According to the pope, he had heard that when some church officials had gone to his predecessor Pope Benedict to complain that he was too liberal, Benedict sent them packing.