Pope Francis, who has defined his leadership of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Catholics along with his capability for forgiveness and openness, has led the Catholic Church on difficult and sometimes controversial issues during the last 11 years.
Francis has been more open and accepting than other previous leaders of the Catholic Church, making it more welcoming for LGBTQ+ people and girls. During a rare interview with CBS Evening News anchor and managing editor and 60 Minutes contributing correspondent Norah O’Donnell from his home within the Vatican guest house, Francis, 87, struck a nonjudgmental tone.
“The Gospel is for everybody,” Francis, who’s from Argentina, said in Spanish. “If the Church places a customs officer on the door, that isn’t any longer the church of Christ.”
“Who am I to guage?”
Pope Francis, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, put Catholics and the world on notice just months after he assumed leadership of the Catholic Church. During an impromptu July 2013 press conference aboard a plane, he struck a distinct tone from predecessor Pope Benedict XVI when discussing homosexuality.
“If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to guage?” Francis asked. “We shouldn’t marginalize people for this. They have to be integrated into society.”
60 Minutes
He didn’t stop there. Last yr, Pope Francis said laws that criminalize homosexuality are a “sin” and an “injustice.” He also decided to permit Catholic priests to bless members of same-sex couples. Still, he has not allowed blessings of the union itself.
“The blessing is for everybody, for everybody,” he said. “To bless a homosexual-type union, nevertheless, goes against the given right, against the law of the Church. But to bless everyone, why not? The blessing is for all. Some people were scandalized by this. But why?”
- Pope Francis: Interview Transcript
There are conservative bishops within the U.S. who oppose Francis’ latest efforts to revisit teachings and traditions.
Addressing an issue about their specific criticism of him, he told 60 Minutes, “Conservative is one who clings to something and doesn’t need to see beyond that. It is a suicidal attitude. Because one thing is to take tradition under consideration, to contemplate situations from the past, but quite one other is to be closed up inside a dogmatic box.”
Church’s policies on surrogacy
Pope Francis has placed more women in positions of power than any of his predecessors, but said he opposes allowing women to be ordained as priests or deacons. His devotion to traditional doctrine led John Allen, a longtime Vatican reporter and CBS News contributor, to notice that while Francis has modified the tune of the Church, the lyrics remain essentially the identical. This frustrates those that need to see Francis change church teachings on issues like Roman Catholic priests marrying, contraception, and surrogacy.
Pope Francis has called for surrogacy to be banned worldwide, calling the practice “deplorable” and saying an unborn child “can’t be changed into an object of trafficking.”
“In regard to surrogate motherhood, within the strictest sense of the term, no, it will not be authorized,” Francis said during his interview with 60 Minutes. “Sometimes surrogacy has change into a business, and that may be very bad. It may be very bad.”
For some women incapable of getting pregnant themselves, O’Donnell identified, surrogacy represents the hope and potential of becoming a mother.
“The other hope is adoption. I’d say that in each case the situation must be fastidiously and clearly considered, consulting medically after which morally as well,” Pope Francis said. “I feel there’s a general rule in these cases, but you’ve to enter each case particularly to evaluate the situation, so long as the moral principle will not be skirted.”
Urging consideration, compassion
Francis also called for careful and humane consideration of migrants. He jumped into the difficulty years ago, standing in solidarity with migrants during a U.S.-Mexico border Mass.
“The migrant must be received. Thereafter you see how you’ll take care of him. Maybe you’ve to send him back, I do not know, but each case should be considered humanely,” Francis said.
He encourages governments to construct bridges, not partitions. Francis told O’Donnell, who’s the granddaughter of Irish immigrants, that migration is something that makes a rustic grow.
60 Minutes
“They say that you simply Irish migrated and brought the whiskey, and that the Italians migrated and brought the mafia,” Francis said with fun. “It’s a joke. Don’t take it badly. Migrants sometimes suffer loads. They suffer loads.”
A number of months after becoming pope, Francis went to Lampedusa, a small Italian island near Africa, to satisfy migrants fleeing poverty and war. He talked concerning the globalization of indifference, a subject he still feels strongly about today. Francis criticizes individuals who see wars, injustice and crime and respond with indifference.
“Please, we’ve to get our hearts to feel again,” he said. “We cannot remain indifferent within the face of such human dramas. The globalization of indifference is a really ugly disease.”
Praying for peace amid Israel-Hamas war and war in Ukraine
Next weekend, Pope Francis will welcome tens of 1000’s of young people, including refugees of war, to the Vatican for the church’s first World Children’s Day. Francis shared a message for all warring countries: stop.
“Stop the war. You must discover a way of negotiating for peace. Strive for peace,” he said. “A negotiated peace is at all times higher than an countless war.”
Pope Francis has called for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in a lot of his sermons.
“What I can do is pray. I pray loads for peace. And also, to suggest, ‘Please, stop. Negotiate,'” Francis said.
With a lot to wish for, he has no plans to retire. Francis said the concept has never even occurred to him.
“Maybe if the day comes when my health can go no further, I could have to do it,” he said. “But it never occurred to me. Perhaps since the only infirmity I actually have is in my knee, and that’s getting a lot better.”
Francis told us, despite all its problems, he stays hopeful when he looks on the world and all of the people in it.
“You see tragedies, but you furthermore may see so many beautiful things. You see heroic moms, heroic men, men who’ve hopes and dreams, women who look to the longer term,” he said. “That gives me a variety of hope. People need to live. People forge ahead. And individuals are fundamentally good. We are all fundamentally good. Yes, there are some rogues and sinners, but the center itself is nice.”
Pope Francis sits down for a historic interview with CBS Evening News anchor and managing editor Norah O’Donnell in an hour-long special airing Monday, May 20 at 10 p.m. ET on CBS and streaming on Paramount+. In a wide-ranging conversation, Francis speaks about countries at war, his vision for the Catholic Church, his legacy, his hope for kids and more.
