Laws that criminalize LGBTQIA+ people are a sin, says Pope Francis

Pope Francis defined laws that criminalize LGBTQIA+ people in the world of a sin and injustice, stating that God loves and accompanies those who are attracted to and love someone of the same sex.

The speech was given in an interview aboard the papal plane, at the end of the trip to the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Sudan, and received the consent of two other leaders who accompanied Francis — Justin Welby, of the Anglican Church, and Iain Greenshields , of the Church of Scotland.

At the end of January, the pope was the target of criticism for reinforcing, in an interview with the Associated Press agency, the doctrinal position that treats homosexuality as a sin. “Being homosexual is not a crime,” he said. “It’s not a crime. Yes, but it’s a sin. Okay, but first let’s distinguish between a sin and a crime. It’s also a sin not to show charity to your neighbor.” He later tried to tone down the comments.

Earlier this Sunday (5), in his farewell address to the African continent, Francis asked the people of South Sudan to resist the “poison of hatred” and put an end to the “blind fury of violence” so that peace could be achieved. . The country has a history of bloody conflicts that have left thousands dead in recent years.

In his last public engagement before returning to the Vatican, Francis held an open-air mass at the mausoleum of South Sudan’s liberation leader John Garang, who died in 2005. According to the Vatican, 100,000 people attended the ceremony in Juba, the capital of the African country.

Before his visit to South Sudan, Francis passed through the Republic of Congo, making the initial stop on a tour of the African continent and marking the convergence of interests of the Catholic Church in the region —the look at refugees and natural resources, the movement towards to countries treated as peripheral and the interlocution with young Catholics to contain the decline of faithful.

In Juba, the 86-year-old pope delivered the homily around the themes that dominated his trip to the world’s newest nation, reconciliation and forgiveness, and urged the faithful to end the “blind fury of violence”. The crowd received Francisco with enthusiasm, singing and drumming, and interrupting the ceremony several times with applause and shouts.

South Sudan, which is predominantly Christian, seceded from traditionally Muslim Sudan in 2010. Years later, however, it plunged into civil war between supporters of two rival faction leaders, Salva Kiir and Riek Machar, who killed about 400 thousand people. Despite a 2018 peace deal between the two main antagonists, fighting continues to kill and displace civilians.

The UN and the international community accuse South Sudan’s leaders of stoking violence, stifling political freedoms and embezzling public money. The personal armies of Salva Kiir and Riek Machar are also accused of war crimes.

At the end of Mass in Juba, in his farewell speech before heading to the airport, the pope thanked the people of South Sudan for their show of affection.

“Dear brothers and sisters, I return to Rome with you even closer to my heart,” he said. “Never lose hope. And don’t miss any opportunity to build peace. May hope and peace dwell among you. May hope and peace dwell in South Sudan.”

In 2019, in a landmark gesture of his papacy, Francis knelt to kiss the feet of the country’s two warring leaders during a meeting at the Vatican. “As a brother, I ask you to keep the peace,” the pontiff said at the time.

Kiir, now president of the country, recalled the episode in a speech after Francisco arrived in the capital this Friday (3). “That rare gesture of humility was not in vain,” he said, adding that he would resume dialogue with armed groups that had not signed the ceasefire.

Francis made another appeal to build “good human relations as a way to contain the corruption of evil, the disease of division, the filth of fraudulent business and the plague of injustice”.

The pope’s trip had been repeatedly postponed due to instability in the region. On the eve of his arrival, a rural area of ​​Central Equatoria, the same state in which the capital is located, was the scene of a massacre. Militia members killed six members of a pastoralist community, who retaliated by taking the lives of 21 civilians in a nearby area, including five children and a pregnant woman.

The episode mirrors the violence that plagues the youngest nation in the world, where disputes between rival communities are still frequent.

South Sudan has some of the largest crude oil reserves in sub-Saharan Africa, but a 2021 UN report said the country’s leaders have embezzled “vast sums of money and other wealth” from public coffers and resources. The government rejected the report and denied allegations of widespread corruption.

The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury and leader of the Church of England, and Iain Greenshields, Moderator of the Church of Scotland, accompanied the pope during his visit to South Sudan.

The union between the three religious leaders, unprecedented abroad, represents the three most influential faiths in the predominantly Christian African country. The three left the capital of South Sudan on the same flight scheduled to arrive in Rome late Sunday afternoon.

At the start of his African trip, the pope visited the Democratic Republic of Congo, home to the continent’s largest Roman Catholic community, where he celebrated Mass for a million people and heard stories of wounded people from the war in the eastern part of the country.

“It is a tragedy that these lands and the entire African continent continue to face various forms of exploitation. The poison of greed has stained its diamonds with blood,” said the pontiff on the day of his arrival, on Tuesday (31), referring to the region rich in minerals, eternal source of conflicts between governments, militias and foreign interests.

Francisco’s trip is also part of a time of increasing bloody episodes in the former colony of Belgium, which is witnessing continuous wars over disputes over minerals such as coltan, used in electronic products.

“Hands off the Democratic Republic of Congo! Hands off Africa! Stop suffocating Africa! It is not a mine or a field to be exploited. Let Africa be the protagonist of your destiny,” Francis said in an impassioned speech. .