Francis says God loves homosexuals "as they are" in new memoir

"Expanding defense of the 2023 document approving blessing of same-sex couples, Pope Francis attested that such blessings are for 'people' but 'not the relationships.'

'It is the people who are blessed, not the relationships,' Pope Francis said of the blessings authorized by the controversial document Fiducia Supplicans.

Francis’ comments, found in his newly released memoir Hope, expand on his prior defense of the highly controversial document he signed that stated priests could offer blessings to couples of the same sex... according to Francis in his memoir Hope, Fiducia’s approval of same-sex blessings 'arises from the wish not to ascribe one situation or one condition to the entire life of those who seek to be illuminated and accompanied with a blessing.'

'Everyone in the Church is invited, including people who are divorced, including people who are homosexual, including people who are transgender,' he added, drawing on his now regular encounters with groups of transgender individuals at the Vatican. 'The first time that a group of transgender people came to the Vatican, they left in tears, moved because I had taken their hands, had kissed them … As if I had done something exceptional for them. But they are daughters of God!'

It is unclear if Francis was referring to biological women or men who live as 'transgender women' when he made this remark...

Shortly before Fiducia Supplicans’ release, Francis issued another document with his CDF prefect, Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, about transgender individuals. In an apparent violation of canon law and established Church teaching, the pair wrote that transgender people who had undergone a 'sex change' could be godparents at baptism.

Alluding to this text, Francis wrote in Hope that transgender individuals 'can receive baptism on the same conditions as other believers and can perform the responsibilities of godparents on the same conditions as others, and likewise be witnesses to a marriage.'

'No provision of canonical law forbids it,' he claimed...

In 2016, Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia infamously contained a passage allowing for the divorced and 'remarried' to approach and receive Holy Communion. After widespread consternation and requests for clarification from leading lay theologians and cardinals, Francis then affirmed to the bishops of Buenos Aires that this was indeed the intention of the document and that there were 'no other interpretations.'"