Pope Francis called “welcoming” homosexuals in the Church but asked “prudence” about his eventual entry into the seminaries, during a meeting this Tuesday with priests at the Salesian University of Rome.
The pontiff met behind closed doors with around 200 priests, with between 11 and 39 years of ordination, to talk about “the current situation in Europe and the world” and the wars in the Holy Land or Ukraine, among other crises, according to a statement from the Holy See.
In the end, the pope returned to the question of presence of homosexuals in seminaries, two weeks after having to apologize for having stated in a meeting with bishops that there is “a lot of faggot” in these ecclesiastical institutions.
“At the end, the Pope spoke of danger of ideologies in the Church and has returned to the issue of admitting people with homosexual tendencies to seminaries,” the note reads.
Pope Francis during his Christmas greeting.
Photo:EFE
The pope, he adds, defended “the need to welcome them and accompany them in the Church” and requested “the prudential indication of the Dicastery for the Clergy regarding their entry” into the seminaries.
Likewise, Francisco addressed topics such as “the enormous investments in weapons, contraceptives, veterinary expenses and cosmetic surgery.”
‘Our job as priests is to go in search of these people’
“In that sense, he urged work in social teaching of the Church, to a greater effort for the common good, for peace and, in times of non-commitment and abstentionism, for politics as the ‘highest form of charity,'” reads the Vatican statement.
He also encouraged the priests to “accompany with closeness, compassion and tenderness” to suffering people and the elderly and has asked religious congregations to have buildings to help in Rome’s “residential emergency.”
And he also warned of the increase in drugs, of “the tragedy of loneliness.”
“Our job as priests is to go in search of these people,” he said.
EFE
