‘Sin is sin’: Pope Francis offers cautious support for transgender believers but warns against ‘indoctrination’ in schools

Pope Francis says Jesus would never turn away transgender faithful and that priests today should accompany them spiritually, even if they undergo sex change operations, sin and repent.

“These people must be accompanied as Jesus accompanied them,” he said.

Francis drew a firm distinction between the need for priests to minister to transgender Catholics and what he called the “nasty” tendency of schools to “indoctrinate” children with the idea that their gender is something that can be picked and chosen and changed.

“It’s one thing if a person has this tendency and also changes sex. It’s another thing to teach this in school to change mentalities. This is what I call ‘ideological colonisation,’” Francis said.

As he has on previous foreign trips, Francis lashed out at the so-called “gender theory” during a visit this weekend to the former Soviet republic of Georgia. Francis has denounced for example how donors, including in his native Argentina, have conditioned their assistance to schools to using certain textbooks that espouse gender theory.

On Saturday in Tbilisi, Francis cited it as one of the threats that are causing a “world war against marriage” and an example of the “ideological colonisation” that is corrupting many parts of the world.

Francis was asked on Sunday en route home aboard the papal plane how, given his firm denunciation of gender theory, he would minister to Catholics who had struggled all their lives feeling that their bodies physically didn’t match their gender or sexual orientation.

Francis said he had ministered to such Catholics as a priest, bishop and now pope.