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Francis: 'People Should Not Be Defined Only By Their Sexual Tendencies'
huffingtonpost.com
"Just a few months after his election, Pope Francis uttered a sentence that sent shockwaves through the global Catholic Church.
During a routine press conference onboard the papal airplane in July 2013, a reporter asked for the pope's thoughts on gay priests working at the Vatican.
'If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?' Francis responded.
Those five words -- 'Who am I to judge?' -- subsequently became one of Francis' most powerful and hotly debated statements.
Francis revisits that famous exchange in a new book titled The Name of God is Mercy, according to The National Catholic Reporter, which viewed an advance copy of the text. Scheduled for release on Tuesday, the book contains a series of conversations that the Pope had with Vatican journalist Andrea Tornielli.
At one point in the book, which outlines Francis' thoughts on the importance of mercy, Tornielli brought up the pope's famous quote.
Francis explained that the quote simply paraphrased centuries-old doctrine of the Catholic Church, which teaches that while homosexual acts are 'intrinsically disordered,' lesbian and gay people should be 'accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity.'
He emphasized that sexual orientation is just one aspect of a person's life.
'Before all else comes the individual person, in his wholeness and dignity,' he wrote in the book. 'And people should not be defined only by their sexual tendencies: let us not forget that God loves all his creatures and we are destined to receive his infinite love.'"
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