Catholics and other Christians not only must apologise to the gay community, they must ask forgiveness of God for ways they have discriminated against gay people or fostered hostility toward them, Pope Francis said.
"I think the Church not only must say it is sorry to the gay person it has offended, but also to the poor, to exploited women" and anyone whom the Church did not defend when it could, he told reporters at a press conference on the way back from Armenia yesterday.
Pope Francis was asked to comment on remarks reportedly made a few days previously by Cardinal Reinhard Marx, president of the German bishops' conference, that the Catholic Church must apologise to gay people for contributing to their marginalisation.
