The Pope denounced on the plane returning from Central Africa that the death of Benedict XVI “has been instrumentalized” by “unethical people”.
“I believe that Benedict’s death has been instrumentalized by people who want to take the water to their own mill. And those who instrumentalize such a good person, so pious, I would almost say a Holy Father of the Church, I would say that they are unethical people, they are party people not of the Church… you see it everywhere, the tendency to turn theological positions into parties. These things will fall on their own, or if they don’t fall they will go on as has happened so many times in the history of the Church”, the Pontiff assured in the traditional press conference in the plane after concluding his 40th apostolic journey that has taken him to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and South Sudan.
In the same way, Francis assured that the Pope emeritus “was not a bitter person” for what he has done as pontiff and even revealed that the Pope emeritus commissioned four theologians to reflect on civil unions of same-sex couples.
“He was always by my side, he supported me and if I had any difficulty, he would tell me and we would talk. There were no problems. Once I talked about gay marriage, about the fact that marriage is a sacrament and that we cannot make a sacrament, but that there is a possibility to secure property through civil law, which started in France… anyone can make a civil union, not necessarily a couple. Retired old ladies, for example… because you can gain a lot of things. A person who thinks he is a great theologian, through a friend of Pope Benedict, went to him and filed the complaint against me. Benedict was not frightened, he called four cardinal theologians of the first rank and told them: explain this to me and they explained it to me. And that’s how the story ended,” the Pontiff told journalists.
In this way, he considered that some “of the stories that are told, that Benedict was bitter because of what the new Pope did, are “tall tales”.
His words come after Georg Gänswein, personal secretary of the Pope Emeritus for almost 20 years, published the book ‘Nothing but the truth, my life next to Benedict XVI’ (Piemme), the same week of the death of Benedict XVI, generating some controversy by talking about his relationship with the Argentine Pope, the different sensibilities of both and comparing, for example, his decision to live in Santa Marta and not in the papal apartments.
On the other hand, he reiterated that it is an “injustice” to criminalize homosexuals or for parents to throw people with this sexual orientation out of the house.
“Children with this orientation have the right to stay at home, they cannot be thrown out of the house,” he has pointed out after assuring that the criminalization of homosexuality “is a question that should not be allowed to pass.” “The estimate is that, more or less, fifty countries, in one way or another, carry out this criminalization – tell me more, but let’s say at least fifty – and even some of these – I think there are ten, have the death penalty (for homosexuals) – this is not right, people with homosexual tendencies are children of God, God loves them, God accompanies them,” he has indicated.
The Pontiff answered questions from journalists together with the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, and the moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, Ian Greenshields. During the interview, he also spoke of his health conditions at a time when he is forced to move around in a wheelchair because of severe pain in his right knee due to osteoarthritis. “Not like at the beginning of the pontificate, this knee bothers, but it’s going slowly, then we’ll see,” he assured.
NO PREVIEW OF A VISIT TO SPAIN He also revealed his international agenda planned for the coming months. “I think India will be next year. I’m going to Marseille on September 23, and there is a possibility that I will fly to Mongolia from Marseille, but it’s not definite yet, it’s possible. Another one this year that I can’t remember. Lisbon,” he listed. Thus, he pointed out that his criterion is “to visit the smallest countries in Europe”.
“They will tell me: ‘But you went to France’. No, I went to Strasbourg; I will go to Marseille, not France. The smallest, the smallest. To get to know a little bit of the hidden Europe, the one that has so much culture, but is not known. To accompany the countries, for example, Albania, which was the first, which is the country that suffered the cruelest dictatorship in history,” he said.
He also denounced that “the whole world is at war” and “in self-destruction” after lamenting that the “globalization of indifference is present everywhere”.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
