Pope's quotes: Never abandon anyone

A quote from Pope Francis:

"Firstly, during my life as a priest and as a bishop I have accompanied people with homosexual tendencies or practices. I have accompanied them and brought them closer to the Lord. Some cannot, but I have accompanied them and never abandoned anyone. This must be done. People must be accompanied as Jesus accompanied them. When a person in this condition presents him or herself before Jesus, He does not say, "Go away, you are homosexual!" No. What I referred to is the wickedness that today results from indoctrination in gender theory. I heard from a French father who was speaking with his children at the table … and asked his ten year-old son, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" "A girl!" ... The father realised that the schoolbooks taught gender theory, and this goes against nature. It is one thing that a person has this tendency, this option; and even those who change sex. It is another thing to teach along this line in schools, to change the mentality. This I would call "ideological colonisation." Last year I received a letter from a Spanish man who told me his history as a child and as a youth. He was a girl, and suffered greatly, because he felt he was a boy but physically he was a girl. … He underwent the operation. … The bishop accompanied him greatly. … Then he got married, he changed his identity, and he wrote me the letter to say that for him it would be a consolation to come with his wife. … And so I received them, and they were very happy. … Life is life, and things must be taken as they come. Sin is sin. Tendencies or hormonal imbalances cause many problems and this doesn’t mean to say, "Oh well, it’s all the same" … no, no it isn’t. But it is necessary to welcome each case, to accompany, to discern, and to integrate. This is what Jesus would do today. … I wish to be clear. It is a moral question. It is a problem. It is a human problem. And it must be resolved as is possible, always with God's mercy, with the truth, as we have said in the case of marriage."

— Return flight from Pope Francis' apostolic trip to Georgia and Azerbaijan, Oct. 3, 2016

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