He wrote a letter apologizing for the pain suffered by the victims and said that lay Catholics must be involved in efforts to eliminate abuse and its cover-up. However, just hours later, at a press conference, he responded to a question about what parents should do if their children showed "homosexual tendencies."

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But toward the end of the visit, shortly before boarding the plane, an explosive letter from the former Vatican nuncio to the United States was leaked, accusing Francis of covering up the sexual abuse perpetrated by the former archbishop of Washington. The eleven-page letter was written Carlo Maria Viganò. There, he asserts that the Pope knew of the sexual abuse allegations against Cardinal Theodore McCarrick since 2013. From the plane, Francis declined to answer questions on the matter but did respond to a journalist who asked him what parents should do if their children showed "homosexual tendencies."

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“I would tell them, first of all, to pray, not to condemn, to dialogue, to understand, to give space to their son or daughter,” the Pope responded. He added: “When this manifests itself in childhood, there are many things that can be done through psychiatry to see what the situation is. It’s another matter when this manifests itself after the age of 20,” said Jorge Bergoglio. “I will never say that silence is a remedy. Ignoring your son or daughter with homosexual tendencies is a failing of fatherhood or motherhood,” reported the EFE news agency.

Once again: homosexuality is not curable, it is not an illness

His words caused an immediate uproar, and numerous LGBT organizations came out to condemn him. Since 1990, the World Health Organization has removed homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses, and this year, in addition, It also eliminated transsexuality. ]]>