Pope Francis: Church should apologize to gays, other marginalized groups

(Image credit: Tiziana Fabi/AFP/Getty Images)

last updated 27 June 2016

Pope Francis said Sunday that gay people and others who have been marginalized by the Christian church deserve an apology.

"I believe that the church not only should apologize to the person who is gay whom it has offended, but has to apologize to the poor, to exploited women, to children exploited for labor," he said. "It has to ask forgiveness for having blessed many weapons." The pontiff made his remarks aboard a plane on his way back to the Vatican from Armenia, after he was asked by a reporter if he agreed with comments made by one of his advisers, German Cardinal Reinhard Marx, who following the deadly shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando said the church owes an apology to gays.

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

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