Pope Francis said parents should not ignore signs of homosexuality in their children (AFP Photo/Gregorio BORGIA) |
Vatican City (AFP) - The Vatican on Monday rolled back on Pope Francis' recommendation that parents seek psychiatric help for children who show homosexual tendencies.
The pope
made the comments to journalists as he was flying back to Rome from Ireland,
but the Vatican later removed his phrase from its official account, saying he
had not meant to suggest that homosexuality was a mental illness.
Francis was
asked by a journalist what he would say to parents who observe homosexual
traits in their children.
"When
it shows itself from childhood, there is a lot that can be done through
psychiatry, to see how things are. It is something else if it shows itself
after 20 years," he said.
The pope
added that ignoring a child who showed homosexual tendencies was an "error
of fatherhood or motherhood".
However
when the Vatican later published the pope's answer, the reference to psychiatry
had been removed.
When asked
why, a Vatican spokeswoman told AFP it had been done in order to not
"change the thoughts of the Holy Father".
"When
the pope referred to 'psychiatry', it is clear that he was doing it to
highlight an example of 'things that can be done'. But with that word he didn't
mean to say that it (homosexuality) was a 'mental illness'," she said.
Francis'
trip to Ireland was fraught with controversy amid accusations that he ignored
sexual abuse allegations against prominent US cardinal Theodore McCarrick.
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