THE
P RTAL
January 2019
Page 24
What is it about
Francis and gays?
Geoffrey Kirk shares his wonderings with us
T he LGBT
lobby was delighted with his off-the-cuff pronouncement to a
young gay man: ’Who am I to judge?’ And yet a book-length interview has
now appeared in which Francis encourages vigilance in excluding openly gay
candidates for ordination and roundly condemns gay activity among the clergy. Meanwhile Fr James Martin
LBGTSJ continues to have Francis’s backing for his advocacy of gay rights, as witness his invitation to speak
at the Dublin celebration of the family.
Considering Francis’s enthusiasm for ‘Synodality’ and
for greater autonomy for local Bishops’ Conferences
(emerging, as by Papal fiat, from the recent Synod on
Youth) this was strange to say the least. Considering
these mixed messages, and recalling the way which
the final reports of these Roman Synods seem to have
Then it emerged that Francis was elevating to the been written by Papal apparatchiks before the Synods
cardinalate a protégé of McCarrick, a man (Joseph have even met, a world-wide gathering of Chairmen
Tobin) who has hit the press more than once for of Episcopal Conferences seems an expensive way for
sharing his home with an Italian actor half his age, the Holy Father to reveal what his mind really is on
given to exposing his six-pack to photographers. You the matter.
might call all these ‘confusing signs’.
But then there are the accusations (by Archbishop
Vigano and others) that the Pope was aware of the
activities of ex-Cardinal McCarrick (which had been
an open secret in the US for some time) and continued
to give him full support.
Then there was the matter of the abrupt intervention
in the affairs of the American Bishops’ Conference.
Its Chair, Archbishop DiNardo, was opening the
Conference when an intervention came from Rome
forbidding the bishops even to discuss the proposals
before them for dealing with the abuse crisis. That, said
the missive, should be left until the conference of Chairs
of Bishops’ Conferences convened for next February.
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