Liberal news outlets cooed and conservative ones bemoaned the news yesterday that Pope Francis has apparently softened on the hard-line doctrinal policies of his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI. "Not Even the Pope Likes the Church's Obsession with Abortion," said the
New York Times. "Coolest Pope Ever Urges Catholics to Chill Out About Abortion and Gays," was Jezebel's headline. And true enough, that's how it sounded. Yesterday, Francis spoke with Rev. Antonio Spadaro, of the Italian Jesuit journal La Civiltà Cattolica, and decried the church's "obsession" with abortion and homosexuality. "It is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time," he said. "The dogmatic and moral teachings of the church are not all equivalent. The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently."
Photo: Via The New York Times.