The Pope, The Gay Lobby & How The Media Got it Wrong

So what the Pope was saying is that if a person struggles with an attraction to a person of the same sex, that isn’t the sin. Where the sin comes in is when the struggle is acted upon. Any sex outside of marriage, is a sin, in keeping with Scripture and Church policy. To quote Fr. Jonathan Morris, who wrote an opinion piece for Fox News . “Pope Francis simply and compassionately reiterated Biblical teaching. The Bible and the Catholic Church… teach it is a sin to have homosexual sex because it goes against the laws of God’s nature, specifically his plan for human sexuality.” But, that we are not to be cruel and unloving to those who sin: “When Pope Francis says ‘who am I to judge’ he is saying … that active homosexuals deserve the same kindness, love, and mercy that all of us sinners would hope to receive from God and from others.”

Does that mean we allow sin and not call it out when we see it? Absolutely not. Does that mean we must “accept” the act of homosexuality as “ok”? Absolutely not. What it means is that Christians should lovingly and compassionately tell the sinner “what you are doing is wrong, but God loves and will forgive you” and remind them that Christ said “go and sin no more”? That is what we are called to do. Of course, for us the problem comes in when society has deemed any mention of “gay” and “wrong” as hate speech, but that is another topic for another day.

The Pope was right. Every person, born or unborn, gay or straight, was made in the image of God and is therefore deserving unconditional respect and love. Don’t let the “Father of Lies” twist what God calls us to do into unconditional acceptance of sin.

Image: Pope Francis; author: Christoph Wagener; Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license