It’s great that the media have finally found a pope that they like, but if they were sincere they would report on statements made by Pope Francis that don’t quite fit the narrative they have spun about him.
The teachings of the Church generally lean toward the liberal side on social and economic matters, and generally lean conservative on cultural and moral issues. In this regard, Pope Francis is no different from his predecessors. But one would never know this by reading mainstream media accounts of him.
Pope Francis has made many comments on issues the media have either ignored or underreported. Below is a list of some of the pope’s strongest statements.
Abortion
- “It is God who gives life. Let us respect and love human life, especially vulnerable life in a mother’s womb.”
- “A pregnant woman isn’t carrying a toothbrush in her belly, or a tumor…We are in the presence of a human being.”
Anti-Catholicism
- “The world does not tolerate the divinity of Christ. It doesn’t tolerate the announcement of the Gospel. It does not tolerate the Beatitudes. And we have persecutions: with words, with insults, the things that they said about Christians in the early centuries, the condemnations, imprisonment…But we easily forget. We think of the many Christians, 60 years ago, in the labor camps, in the camps of the Nazis, of the communists: So many of them! For being Christians! And even today…But [people say] ‘today we are better educated and these things no longer exist.’ Yes they do!…They are condemned for having a Bible. They can’t wear a crucifix.”
Catholic Dissidents
- “Those with alternative teachings and doctrines [have] a partial belonging to the church. [They] have one foot outside the church. They rent the church.”
Catholics and Politics
- “A good Catholic meddles in politics, offering the best of himself, so that those who govern can govern.”
Euthanasia
- “A civilization whose technological advancements do not seek to protect the most vulnerable, from conception until natural death, fails to live up to its responsibility.”
False Compassion
- “The dominant thinking sometimes suggests a ‘false compassion,’ that which believes that it is: helpful to women to promote abortion; an act of dignity to obtain euthanasia; a scientific breakthrough to ‘produce’ a child and to consider it to be a right rather than a gift to welcome; or to use human lives as guinea pigs presumably to save others. Instead, the compassion of the Gospel is that which accompanies in times of need, that is, the compassion of the Good Samaritan, who ‘sees,’ ‘has compassion,’ approaches and provides concrete help.”
Freedom of Expression (Charlie Hebdo)
- “If someone says a curse word against my mother, he can expect a punch. It’s normal. It’s normal. You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others.”
Gay Marriage
- “At stake is the identity and survival of the family: father, mother, and children.”
- “At stake are the lives of many children who will be discriminated against in advance, and deprived of their human development given by a father and a mother and willed by God. At stake is the total rejection of God’s law engraved in our hearts.”
Gays
- “If someone is gay and is searching for the Lord and has good will, then who am I to judge him?”
- “You have to distinguish between the fact of a person being gay, and the fact of a lobby. The problem isn’t the orientation. The problem is making a lobby.”
Gender Ideology
- “I ask myself, if the so-called gender theory is not, at the same time, an expression of frustration and resignation, which seeks to cancel out sexual difference because it no longer knows how to confront it. Yes, we risk taking a step backwards.”
- “The crisis of the family is a social reality. Then there are ideological colonizations of the family, modes and proposals from Europe and also from overseas. The error of the human mind that is gender theory creates a lot of confusion.”
- “Gender ideology is demonic!”
Marriage and the Family
- “Children have a right to grow up in a family with a father and a mother capable of creating a suitable environment for the child’s development and emotional maturity.”
Marxism
- “The Marxist ideology is wrong.”
Priestly Sexual Abuse
- “On this path, the Church has done much, perhaps more than all others. The Catholic Church is perhaps the only public institution that has moved with transparency and responsibility. No one has done more, and yet the Church is the only one that is being attacked.”
Women
- “We cannot forget the irreplaceable role of women in the family. The qualities of gentleness, of particular sensitivity and tenderness, which is abundant in the female soul, represent not only a genuine force for the life of families, for the irradiation of a climate of peace and harmony, but also a reality without which the human vocation would be unfeasible.”
Women Priests
- “The Church has spoken and said: ‘No.’ John Paul II said it, but with a definitive formulation. That door is closed.”
