On October 13, 2015, Bishop Robert Barron did what most Traditional Catholics have been waiting for someone among the prelature to do: he clarified what Pope Francis has often been quoted, and most always misinterpreted, as saying concerning mercy and inclusivity, and being judgmental about sin itself.
Here are two excerpts from the essay, which was published in the National Catholic Register, that could not be clearer:
In speaking of mercy and inclusivity, he is decidedly not declaring that "I'm okay and you're okay." He is calling people to conversion. As my mentor, Cardinal Francis George, said, "All are welcome in the Church, but on Christ's terms and not their own."Nowhere has the confusion on this score been greater than in relation to the Pope's famous remark regarding a priest with a homosexual orientation, "Who am I to judge?" I would wager that 95% of those who took in those words understood them to mean that, as far as Pope Francis is concerned, homosexual activity is not really sinful. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Pope was responding to a hypothetical involving a priest with same sex attraction, who had fallen in the past and who is now endeavoring to live in accord with the moral law, a sinner, in a word, who has been looked upon by the face of mercy.
You can read the entire essay by clicking HERE.
