Martin published the pope’s Spanish-language letter and an English translation on the website of Outreach on Jan. 27. Martin is the editor of Outreach, which describes itself as “an LGBT Catholic resource” operating under the auspices of America Media.
In an interview published Jan. 25 by AP, Pope Francis said, “Being homosexual is not a crime. It’s not a crime. Yes, but it’s a sin. Fine, but first let’s distinguish between a sin and a crime.”
The Outreach article posited that the pope’s comment that, “yes, but it’s a sin,” was intended to be from a hypothetical interlocutor to whom Pope Francis was responding.
In his Jan. 27 letter, Pope Francis ascribed the confusing statement to the conversational tone of the interview.
“It is understandable that there would not be such precise definitions,” he said.
The pope also noted that the AP interview was “not the first time that I speak of homosexuality and of homosexual persons.”
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