Pope Francis' In-Flight Press Conference from Azerbaijan

by Pope Francis

Pope Francis: Good evening and thank you very much for your work and your help. It’s true, it was a short trip, three days, but you have had a lot of work. I am at your disposition and I thank you very much for the work, and ask what you would like.

Greg Burke, Holy See press officer: Thank you, Holy Father. The first question goes to Georgia, the television presenter Ketevan Kardava.

Ketevan Kardava, Georgian Public Broadcaster: Thank you very much. Thank you, Holy Father, for your first trip to Georgia. For me it was very important to cover this visit and to follow your visit in my country. All of us citizens of Georgia are touched by your speech, and especially your photo with the Georgian Patriarch was shared thousands and thousands of times on social media. It was an encouraging visit for our very small Catholic community. After your meeting with the Georgian Patriarch, do you see grounds for future cooperation and constructive dialogue between you and the Orthodox about the doctrine we have? You told us that we have much in common, that what unites us is more than what divides. Thank you very much, I await for your answer.

Pope Francis: I had two surprises in Georgia. One, Georgia: I've never imagined so much culture, so much faith, so much Christianity…It is a believing people and an ancient Christian culture! A people of so many martyrs. I discovered something that I didn’t know: the breadth of the Georgian faith. The second surprise was the patriarch: he is a man of God. This man has moved me. I many times have found that I left with the heart and moved and full of the sensitivity of having found a man of God, truly a man of God. And on the things that unite us and separate us, I say: don’t make us discuss things of doctrine, leave this to the theologians. They know better than we do. They discuss, and if they are good, they are good, they have good will, the theologians on one side and the other, (but) what must the people do? Pray for each other, this is important: prayer. And second: do things together. Are there poor? We work together with the poor. There is this and that problem: we can do it together, we do together. Are there migrants? We do things together ... we do good things for others, together. This we can do and this is the path of ecumenism. Not only the way of doctrine, this is the last, it comes in last. But we begin to walk together. And with good will we can do this, you MUST do it. Today ecumenism is to be done by walking together, praying for each other, and that theologians continue to talk to each other, to study each other ... I do not know ... but Georgia is wonderful, it is a land I didn’t expect, a Christian nation, but in the marrow, eh!

Tassilo Forchheimer, ARD/BR-Radio: Holy Father, after speaking with all those who can change Azerbaijan's terrible history, what needs to happen between Armenia and Azerbaijan, what needs to happen for the arrival of a lasting peace that safeguards human rights? What are the problems and what role might His Holiness have in this?

Pope Francis: I have twice, in two discourses, spoken about this. In the last, I spoke of the role of religions in helping with this. I believe that the one way is dialogue, a sincere dialogue without things held under the table. Sincere and face to face. A sincere negotiation. And if you cannot arrive at this, but have the courage to go to an international tribunal, go to The Hague, for example, and submit to an international judgement. I do not see another path! The other way is war, and war always destroys; with war all is lost. And Christians also pray, pray for peace, because these hearts … this path of dialogue, of negotiation or of going to an international tribunal, but they can’t have problems like this. Think that the three Caucasus nations have problems: Georgia also has a problem with Russia, I don't know much, but it's greater … but it has a problem that can grow, it's an unknown. And Armenia is a nation with open borders, it has problems with Azerbaijan and should go to an international tribunal if dialogue and negotiation is a no-go. There is no other path. And prayer, prayer for peace.

Maria Elena Ribezzo, La Presse: Your Holiness, good evening. Yesterday you spoke of a ‘world war’ going on against marriage and in this war you used very strong words against divorce, you said it dirties the image of God, while in previous months during the synod there was talk of a welcome towards divorced persons. I wanted to know if these approaches are reconciled and how.

Pope Francis: Yes. Everything I said yesterday, with other words, because yesterday I spoke off-the-cuff and a was little hot, are in Amoris laetitia, everything! When speaking of marriage as the union of man and woman as God made it, as an image of God and man and woman, the image of God is not man, it is man with the woman together, they are one flesh when they join in marriage: this is the truth. It is true that in this culture conflicts and many problems are not well managed and even philosophies of today: I do this and when I get tired I do another, then I do a third, then I do a fourth, and this is the ‘world war’ you spoke of against marriage. We must be careful not to let these ideas enter. But first, marriage is the image of God, man and woman, one flesh. When you destroy that, you dirty or disfigure the image of God. Then Amoris laetitiatalks about how to deal with these cases, how to treat families’ wounds, and mercy enters there. There is a beautiful prayer of the Church that we prayed last week. It said this: God who so marvelously has created the world and the more marvelously recreated it (i.e., with redemption, with mercy). The wounded marriage, the wounded couple, have to do with mercy. The principle is that, but human weaknesses exist, sins exist, and weakness never has the last word, sin does not have the last word. Mercy has the last word. I like to tell, I do not know if I told you, because I repeat it so much ... in the Church of Santa Maria Maddalena - I told you or no? - There is a beautiful capital, but it is more or less from the thirteenth century. Medieval cathedrals were catechesis with sculptures. And in a part of the capital there is Judas hanged with his tongue out and eyes (bulging) out, and on the other side of the capital there is Jesus the Good Shepherd who takes (Judas) and carries him with him. And if you look closely, the face of Jesus, the lips of Jesus are sad on the one hand, but with a small smile of understanding in the other. They understood what mercy is ... with Judas, huh! For this Amoris laetitia speaks of marriage, the foundation of marriage, as it is ... but then come the problems, how to educate their children ... and in Chapter Eight, when the problems come, how do you solve them? Solve it with four criteria: welcome wounded families, accompany, discern each case and integrate and do it again. This would work in a second, in this wonderful recreation that the Lord has made with redemption. And if you take just one side it does not go! Amoris laetitia -- I mean -- they all go to the eighth chapter. No, no ... you have to read from beginning to end. And where is the center? It depends on everyone. For me the center, the core of Amoris laetitia is Chapter IV, serving for the whole life, but you have to read it all and re-read it all and discuss it all. It's all a collection. But there is sin, there is a break, but there is also mercy, redemption and care. I explained myself well on this, right?

Josh McElwee, National Catholic Reporter: Thank you, Holy Father. In that same speech yesterday in Georgia, you spoke, as in so many other countries about gender theory, saying that it is a great enemy and a threat against marriage. But, I would like to ask you, what would you say to someone who has struggled with their sexuality for years and feels that there is truly a problem of biology, that his aspect doesn't correspond to what he or she feels is their sexual identity. You, as a pastor and minister, how would you accompany these people?

Pope Francis: First of all: in my life as a priest and bishop, even as Pope, I have accompanied people with homosexual tendencies, I have also met homosexual persons, accompanied them, brought them closer to the Lord, as an apostle, and I have never abandoned them. People must be accompanied as Jesus accompanies them, when a person who has this condition arrives before Jesus, Jesus surely doesn't tell them 'go away because you are homosexual.' What I said is that wickedness which today is done in the indoctrination of gender theory...a French father told me that he was speaking with his children at the table, he and his wife were Catholics, 'rosewater Catholics,' but Catholics! And he asked his 10-year-old son: 'What do you want to be when you grow up?'- 'a girl.' The father realized that at school they were teaching him gender theory, and this is against the natural things. One thing is that a person has this tendency, this condition and even changes their sex, but it's another thing to teach this in line in schools in order to change the mentality. This is what I call ideological colonization. Last year I received a letter from a Spaniard who told me his story as a child, a young man, he was a girl, a girl who suffered so much because he felt he felt like a boy, but was physically a girl. He told his mother and the mom…(the girl) was around 22 years old said that she would like to do the surgical intervention and all of those things. And the mother said not to do it while she was still alive. She was elderly and she died soon after. She had the surgery and an employee of a ministry in the city of Spain went to the bishop, who accompanied (this person) a lot. Good bishop. I spent time accompanying this man. Then (the man) got married, he changed his civil identity, got married and wrote me a letter saying that for him it would be a consolation to come with his wife, he who was she, but him! I received them: they were happy and in the neighborhood where he lived there was an elderly priest in his 80s, an elderly pastor who left the parish and helped the sisters in the parish. And there was the new (priest). When the new one he would yell from the sidewalk: 'you'll go to hell!' When (the new priest) came across the old one, he would say: 'How long has it been since you confessed? Come, come, let's to so that I can confess you and you can receive communion.' Understood?

© Libreria Editrice Vaticana 2016

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