Pope Francis, who is the head of the Catholic Church, the bishop of Rome and the sovereign of the Vatican City State, has in a new documentary praised the virtues of sex, describing it as "one of the beautiful things that God has given to the human person". He has also affirmed he knows what ‘non-binary’ meant and has welcomed the people of the LGBTQ community to the church.
The comments are from a Disney+ documentary called “The Pope: Answers”, released on Wednesday, where the 86-year-old pontiff was captured answering some curious questions in a 4-hour discussion he had last year in Rome with 10 people in their early 20s, according to a Reuters report. The youths quizzed him on subjects around LGBT rights, abortion, porn, sex, as well as faith and sex abuse within the Catholic Church, the report said.
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The remarks were reportedly published by L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican’s official newspaper, which described the Q&A session as an "open and sincere dialogue".
"Sex is one of the beautiful things that God has given to the human person," Pope Francis said in the documentary, and added, “To express yourself sexually is a richness. So anything that detracts from real sexual expression lessens you and depletes this richness."
In one of the simpler questions, Pope Francis was asked if he knew what 'Tinder' was. "It's funny, young people have an eagerness to meet and that's a good thing," he replied to the question.
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The Pope also spoke about the LGBTQ community and their relationship with the catholic church. He said, “All persons are the children of God, all persons. God does not reject anybody, God is a father. And I have no right to expel anyone from the Church.”
According to a report by The Independent, the Pope made similar remarks in 2020, in a documentary titled “Francesco”, when he called for the recognition of civil union laws to provide legal protection for same-sex couples.
He had called gay and lesbian people “children of God and have a right to a family” and said that “nobody should be thrown out, or be made miserable because of it”.
