pope Francis said five years ago, newcomer to the roman pontificate, which included homosexuals. “Who am I to judge them?”, it asked rhetorically. But the official position of your church on the subject has not changed. The rejection still stands. It reaffirms in a book-length interview that goes out today to the market with the title of ‘Pope Francis. The strength of the vocation. The consecrated life today’. This is a long conversation with the missionary, the claretians Fernando Prado Ayuso (Bilbao, 1969). Edited already in ten countries, the pontiff argentine reels in 120-page issues of great relevance in the life of the catholic Church.
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“Francis refused to address some burning questions and maybe a bit uncomfortable that I was considering,” says the author. For example, it shows “troubled” by the number of priests and religious who are gay. He also argues that his Church might be invaded by the “fashion” of homosexuality.
To prevent the entry of homosexuals in the consecrated life, Francis asks those responsible for the seminaries and novitiates to keep “the eyes open” and “identified candidates” who could develop “later” these trends”. The problem arises with those who already are. “The priests, religious and gay, there is that urge them to live fully and celibacy, and, above all, that are exquisitely responsible, taking care not to scandalize nor ever to their communities or to the holy faithful people of God living a double life. It is better that they leave the ministry or consecrated life rather than live a double life,” he says
The interview was held in the rooms of papal of the casa Santa Marta, in the heart of the Vatican, the afternoon nine of last August and lasted for more than four hours, sufficient time to deal with the Pope to sixty questions.
The force of the friars
“The religious life has died, to live the movement”, he said during the pontificate of John Paul II. Francis, a jesuit, denies care to the congregations classics. This rare interview with a missionary, the claretians is a step further. Also the fact that among the prelates of maximum confidence stand out a salesian, honduran cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga, and the claretian Aquilino Bocos Merino (Canillas de Esgueva. Valladolid. 1938), who became cardinal last may after the age of 80 years. It is not the only claretian distinguished outside of normal criteria. In 2014, he made a cardinal Fernando Sebastian Aguilar (Calatayud, 1929), which had already reached the age 84 years.
if there are limits which must not be exceeded in the training received by seminarians and religious, replies: “ Obvious. When there are candidates with neuroses and imbalances, heavy, difficult to manage or with therapeutic help, don’t accept them, or to the priesthood or to the consecrated life. There is that help them to be routed by another place, we must not abandon them. There is that guide, but not the we must admit. Keep in mind always that they are people who go to live in the service of the Church, the people of God. Let’s not forget that horizon. We have to take care that they are psychologically and affectively healthy. The issue of homosexuality is very serious. One must discern properly from the beginning with the candidates, if that is the case. We have to be demanding. In our societies it seems even that homosexuality is fashionable and that mentality, in any way, also influences the life of the Church.”
How to discern if a boy who asks to enter in a seminary is or is not homosexual? “It is something that worries me, because maybe in a moment not focused well. We need to discern seriously and listen to the voice of experience that also has the Church. When there is careful discernment in all of this, the problems grow. At the time, perhaps not face to face, but after they appear. I had here a bishop somewhat scandalized that told me that he had learned that in his diocese, a diocese very large, had several homosexual priests, and that he had had to deal with all of that, by intervening, before that nothing, in the formation, to form another clergy different. It is a reality that we cannot deny. In the consecrated life, there have also been cases cases. A religious told me that, in canonical visit to one of the provinces of his congregation, had been amazed. He saw that there were good guys students and even some religious already professed they were gay. He himself doubted of the issue and asked me if it was something bad. “In the end, he said, is not so serious; it is just an expression of affection.” This is a mistake. It is not only an expression of affection. In the consecrated life and the priestly life, that type of affection have no place”.
Francis also does not mince words to make clear their decision to tackle without embarrassment, with what the Vatican called a “zero tolerance” of sexual abuse of minors by clerics of all status and hierarchy. But on the subject does not add anything new to what is frequently said by the pontiff argentine since taking office, conscious of the disrepute that causes the problem to his confession. The interviewer underlines in conversation with THE COUNTRY. “The book has owners best, on issues that also concern the life of the Church and the consecrated life in particular, as they are the subject of the woman, the clericalism, the worldliness, the vocations and the aging of the consecrated life”. In Spain edit Publications Claretianas and their rights have been acquired already by fourteen international labels. Will also be published in China.
the updating of the themes, some gory, takes way to mark the agenda of the catholic Church in a few years that the episcopal conferences are reviewing their plans of training of the clergy in seminaries and universities. What he did two weeks ago the Spanish Episcopal Conference (EEC), which takes a couple of years debating a document on the issue. I was going to be adopted at the recent plenary assembly, but finally it was postponed by disagreements with some prelates. One of the issues debated is the decision to hire women to give a class to those aspiring to the priesthood.
