Pope continues to impress

Pope Francis continues to impress. Stuff reports:

Pope Francis has reached out to gays, saying he won’t judge priests for their sexual orientation in a remarkably open and wide-ranging news conference as he returned from his first foreign trip.

“If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?” Francis asked. “We shouldn’t marginalise people for this. They must be integrated into society.”

Francis’ predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, signed a document in 2005 that said men who had deep-rooted homosexual tendencies should not be priests. Francis was much more conciliatory in his first news conference as pope, saying gay clergymen should be forgiven and their sins forgotten.

It’s only a change in tone, not policy, but a welcome one.