IRELAND
Irish Times
Patsy McGarry
A leading cardinal has said the Catholic Church should apologise to the gay community for its scandalous and terrible treatment of them, which had not changed until “very recently”.
Speaking in Dublin, Cardinal Reinhard Marx said: “The history of homosexuals in our societies is very bad because we’ve done a lot to marginalise [them].”
As church and society “we’ve also to say ‘sorry, sorry’ ”.
The German cardinal is a member of the council of nine cardinals chosen by Pope Francis to advise him.
Until “very recently”, the church, but also society at large, had been “very negative about gay people . . . it was the whole society. It was a scandal and terrible,” he told The Irish Times after speaking at a conference held in Trinity College.
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