Pope Francis has responded to issues ranging from abortion to pornography and child abuse in the Church, in the program Amen, Francis Responds, which will debut Wednesday, April 5 worldwide on the Disney+ platform.
Among the boys, between 20 and 25 years old, with whom he met in Rome, there are Catholic faithful, atheists and a Muslim, a victim of sexual abuse in a religious center in Spain, a Colombian porn actress or an Argentine activist in favor of abortion, which gives the pope the green handkerchief, symbol of the mobilizations in favor of its legalization in Argentina.
These were the most salient phrases of the pontiff during the meeting that took place in June last year, with the moderation of the Spaniard Jordi Évole, in a collaborative work space in the alternative district of Pigneto.
Immigration
“The migrant must be welcomed, accompanied, promoted and integrated”.
“The consciousness of exploitation, the ghost of slavery and colonialism are behind an immature immigration policy“.
“It seems that there are first and second class migrants, those who come from Ukraine, that big drama, they are better received than those who come from Africa”.
The past of the Church
“Accepting the past is difficult and sometimes embarrassing; consistency is what costs us the most as Christians, even in the Vatican, sometimes I find worldliness in the Vatican”.
“The reform of the Church must start from within and the Church must always be reformed, as cultures advance, needs change”.
Capitalism
“There is as much slavery today as in the past, in another way. A woman on the unemployment line, who is offered an eleven-hour job for six hundred euros a month, It is modern day slaverymarket slavery. Or a woman who can’t get pregnant with her so as not to fire her from her job, they take away her freedom to be a mother. There are modern forms of slavery that we Christians must denounce”.
The abortion
“The problem of abortion must be seen scientifically and with a certain coldness, any treatise on embryology teaches us that one month after conception the DNA and the drawings of the organs are already sketched, It’s not a bunch of cells that have come together, it’s a human life“.
“The question that must be asked, of morality, Is it permissible to eliminate a human life to solve a problem? Or if I go to a doctor, is it permissible to hire a hitman to kill a human life to solve a problem?”
“A woman who has an abortion cannot be left alone, she must be accompanied. But it is convenient to call things by their proper name. Accompanying is one thing and justifying the act is another”.
child abuse
One of the young people, Juan, talks about his experience of abuse in Spain, a case closed by the Vatican that Francis vows to reopen.
“These cases of child abuse do not prescribe in the Church (…), child abuse is a drama, not only in the Church, everywhere, just where you have to take care of people you destroy them”.
“I appreciate the courage to denounce him, it’s not easy and sometimes whoever denounces ends up being accused”.
“It may be that people (inside the Vatican) are playing foul, the policy is to clean up, Zero tolerance is Church policy“.
The role of women in the Church
“It is a theological problem, there are two lines in the Church, in the ministry there are men, and in motherhood, much more important, women”.
“The promotion of women is in line with their own vocation as women, not in a ministerial machismo, otherwise we would belittle women“.
When asked why a woman cannot be a priest: “Behind your desire for promotion you are showing a macho adherence, because you have a complex that a woman cannot be a priest; it cannot be dogmatically and women are deprived of the thing richer than he has”.
“(The Church) does not demean womenhe puts it first but where it should be, it is not better to be a priest than not to be one, it is very important to be a woman in the Church”.
Sexuality, porn and masturbation
“Pornography decreases, it does not increase, whoever uses pornography humanly decreases”.
“Sex is one of the beautiful things that God has given to human beings, expressing yourself sexually is a wealth“.
“The expression of love is the whole point of sexual activity; what takes you out of that direction, it diminishes you.”
“The catechism on sex is still in its infancy, we Christians have not had a mature catechism on sex and it is one of the beautiful things that God has done”.
Corruption
“The truth of the Church is on the periphery, in the center there are good, holy people, but also there is a lot of corruption. There is much harm in the ecclesiastical institution and abuse of power, it’s true.”
Source: Clarin
