The liberal media continue to have a field day with Pope Francis’s unconfirmed remarks to a Chilean victim of priestly sexual abuse.
Following a visit with Pope Francis, Juan Carlos Cruz, a former Catholic seminarian and current Episcopalian who was abused in the 1980s, beginning at age 17, by a homosexual priest in Chile, revealed that the Pope told him “that you are gay does not matter. God made you like that and he loves you like that and it doesn't matter to me.”
While the Pope’s alleged words could be interpreted in a way consistent with classic Catholic teaching that God and the Church “hate the sin, but love the sinner” (and Cruz himself subsequently told the Philadelphia Inquirer that he does not interpret the Pope’s words as portending a change in Church teaching), the preferred interpretation by the liberal media is decidedly that the Pope and the Catholic Church now essentially both “love the sin, and love the sinner.”
Perhaps the most illustrative example of the preferred liberal “sea change” take on the Pope’s remarks was at Telemundo, the Spanish-language sister network to NBC. There, a thoroughly one-sided report on Cruz’s neither Vatican confirmed nor denied papal revelation framed the Pope’s alleged remarks as an endorsement of the gay lifestyle, one that will ‘shake’ core Catholic beliefs about the structure and function of human sexuality.
Following the report, the entire four-member cast of Telemundo’s morning show, Un Nuevo Día, proceeded to herald the ‘pro-Gay’ Pope.
MARCO ANTONIO REGIL, HOST, UN NUEVO DÍA : That is how God made you. There is nothing wrong with your homosexuality. I believe Pope Francis is taking the same approach he has had since starting. He is a Pope who is centered on love.
RASHEL DÍAZ, HOST, UN NUEVO DÍA: Correct.
REGIL: He is centered on compassion. To me, this Pope Francis is very aligned with what is the essence of religion and Christianity. To want to be Christocentric is to be a being centered on love, compassion, and inclusion. Who am I to judge? It is something he had previously mentioned. The Chilean, Juan Carlos Cruz, who for years was sexually abused by a priest, visited the Vatican and for three days he privately met with the Supreme Pontiff.
DÍAZ: According to Cruz, Pope Francis told him last April that God had made him a homosexual and that his sexuality does not matter. The Pope’s words have generated hate, as we have heard, great controversy both inside and outside the heart of the Catholic Church. It is obvious the controversy is going to happen, because they have always been very strict with these thoughts.
Fellow host Adamari López went on to opine that the Pope’s alleged words “don’t jibe with the policy of the Catholic Church”, while host Héctor Sandarti took the opportunity to call on the Pope to “convoke a new Vatican Council to once again modernize the Church.”
Getting to the heart of his take on the matter, host Marco Antonio Regil, who prefaced his analysis by saying that as a kid he had “done his first communion” and “studied and read the Bible”, declared that Christ had not judged a woman who had been presented before Him for stoning after being caught in the act of adultery. However, Regil clearly forgot and omitted from his analysis that in that same passage, after her would-be executors left, Christ clearly admonished that same woman to “go and sin no more.”
RASHEL DIAZ: Remember that a lot of these reluctant attitudes to welcome everyone is what had made a lot of people distance themselves from the Church, and Pope Francis’ primary task since day one has been the complete opposite…
MARCO ANTONIO REGIL: Come on over here!
DÍAZ: …attracting everyone, towards that love of God.
REGIL: This is what I get out of it.
RASHEL DÍAZ: Me, too.
REGIL: When I was a kid I did my first communion, I studied and read the Bible, I was an altar server and everything. I will always remember the Bible passage where Christ doesn’t permit them to stone a woman for being a prostitute.
DIAZ: Correct, correct.
REGIL: and he loves and hugs her. He does not say you are right or you are wrong. He just focuses on love, and I think Pope Francis is doing the same thing.
HÉCTOR SANDARTI: Like he says, who am I to judge?
DIAZ: One hundred percent.
REGIL: Who are we? Our mission in life is to love, not to judge and look for what is right or wrong. So for that, cheers to Pope Francis!
It evidently did not occur to either reporter Gabriel Huerta or any of the hosts on Telemundo that, as St. Francis College philosophy professor Fr. John Perricone points out, “Hating the disease never means hating the patient. In fact, the most noble act of love is to comfort the afflicted by helping to cure his disease.”
Below is the complete transcript to the above-referenced segment, as aired on Telemundo’s Un Nuevo Día morning show on May 22, 2018:
Un Nuevo Día
05/22/2018
7:04:30 AM
PAULINA SODI, NEWS ANCHOR, TELEMUNDO: 'God made you that way and He loves you.' Those are the words, more or less, that supposedly Pope Francis privately told a homosexual man, who is the principal whistleblower of sexual abuses carried out by Chilean priests. Our colleague Gabriel Huerta has more details on the subject.
GABRIEL HUERTA, HOST, TELEMUNDO “God made you that way and He loves you that way” would be the words that Pope Francis presumptively said to Juan Carlos Cruz, a Chilean homosexual, during a private meeting in the Vatican. Words which have generated controversy both inside and outside the heart of the Church.
ALEJANDRO ESCOTO, FOUNDERS METROPOLITAN COMMUNITY CHURCH: I imagine that among conservative Catholics, the foundation of the beliefs will be shaken.
JUAN CARLOS CRUZ: I’ve been in touch with the Pope for a few weeks now.
HUERTA: Juan Carlos Cruz is a presumptive victim and the primary whistleblower of the sexual abuse scandals and cover-up by Catholic Church priests in Chile.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: God is a God of mercy. He cannot discriminate against anyone because the Lord is, I am telling you, how can I say? kind and merciful.
HUERTA: According to Cruz, the supposed comments were made by the Supreme Pontiff during a meeting they held in Rome in April of this year. The Vatican, nonetheless, has not confirmed or denied the reports, respecting its policy of not commenting on the Pope’s private meetings.
EMMA MENJIVAR: You cannot judge them. God is who will judge them. We, we are not anybody to judge.
ESCOTO: It is important because these are the private, personal opinions of Pope Francis, who has a lot of influence in the world.
HUERTA: For Reverend Alejandro Escoto, a minister at an inclusive church that welcomes the LGBTQ community in Los Angeles, it has to do with a background of great importance that in the future could be the key to open the doors of the Catholic Church to the gay community.
ESCOTO: The thinking of our church is that yes, God created us the way we are and God loves us the way we are. And as sons and daughters of God, we are part of that great diversity.
SODI: This was a report by Gabriel Huerta…and if it is alright, let’s go to our friends in the house, in the living room of the house, Marco, so you guys can keep talking about these controversial declarations by Pope Francis.
MARCO ANTONIO REGIL, HOST, UN NUEVO DÍA: It’s a controversy. I see this declaration as something very positive. It’s an alleged declaration the words of the Pope: “God made you like that.” Well, alleged declaration because the Vatican has not denied nor confirmed it, as was mentioned.
SODI: It was a private meeting.
REGIL: Exactly, a private meeting. That is how God made you. There is nothing wrong with your homosexuality. I believe Pope Francis is taking the same approach he has had since starting. He is a Pope who is centered on love.
RASHEL DÍAZ, HOST, UN NUEVO DÍA: Correct.
REGIL: He is centered on compassion. To me, this Pope Francis is very aligned with what is the essence of religion and Christianity. To want to be Christocentric is to be a being centered on love, compassion, and inclusion. Who am I to judge? It is something he had previously mentioned. The Chilean, Juan Carlos Ruíz, who for years was sexually abused by a priest, visited the Vatican and for three days he privately met with the Supreme Pontiff.
DÍAZ: According to Cruz, Pope Francis told him last April that God had made him a homosexual and that his sexuality does not matter. The Pope’s words have generated hate, as we have heard, great controversy both inside and outside the heart of the Catholic Church. It is obvious the controversy is going to happen, because they have always been very strict with these thoughts. Remember that it has not been confirmed whether these declarations are accurate or not. In what aspect. This apparently was a private encounter and it is not supposed to be made known, but personally I feel that for one we are not to judge and two, God is love, is acceptance, it does not matter where you come from and it’s important for that message to be transmitted, respected, and made known.
ADAMARI LÓPEZ, HOST, UN NUEVO DÍA: Of course, but we have to keep in mind that Pope Francis’ words, or rather the supposed words said by Pope Francis, don’t jibe with the policy of the Catholic Church, which for many years has defended marriage between a man and a woman, a heterosexual couple, and that everything else is not countenanced by the Catholic Church.
HÉCTOR SANDARTI, HOST, UN NUEVO DÍA: Now, as you have said Marco, this Pope Francis from the start has been one very given to opening possibilities…
DÍAZ: Totally.
SANDARTI: …doors, to begin to make the Church much closer to the people, being exclusive. But he cannot do it all alone. In other words, the truth, as you say, there are a number of Catholic Church dogmas that are impossible to change from one day to the next.
DÍAZ: Totally.
SANDARTI: I believe it would be this poor Pope’s turn to convoke a new Vatican Council to once again modernize the Church, like was done many years ago, and possibly we would be really pleased with this, but there has to be a balance between everything the Catholic doctrine has been for years and years, being respected and doing.
ADAMARI LÓPEZ: And we’ve taken big steps towards changes, for an opening, beginning with John Paul II, who I also believe began many changes, but Pope Francis has been one of a lot of inclusion and love among everyone.
DIAZ: Remember that a lot of these reluctant attitudes to welcome everyone is what had made a lot of people distance themselves from the Church, and Pope Francis’ primary task since day one has been the complete opposite…
REGIL: Come on over here!
DÍAZ: …attracting everyone, towards that love of God.
REGIL: This is what I get out of it.
DÍAZ: Me, too.
REGIL: When I was a kid I did my first communion, I studied and read the Bible, I was an altar server and everything. I will always remember the Bible passage where Christ doesn’t permit them to stone a woman for being a prostitute.
DIAZ: Correct, correct.
REGIL: and he loves and hugs her. He does not say you are right or you are wrong. He just focuses on love, and I think Pope Francis is doing the same thing.
SANDARTI: Like he says, who am I to judge?
DIAZ: One hundred percent.
REGIL: Who are we? Our mission in life is to love, not to judge and look for what is right or wrong. So for that, cheers to Pope Francis!
