Vatican City, December 6, 2021 – Thearchbishop of Paris, Msgr. Michel Aupetit, it was victim of “chatter”, but “a man whose fame has been taken away so publicly cannot rule” and “this is an injustice”. Like this Pope francesco he explained to reporters that he accepted resignation of the high prelate, accused of having had an affair with a woman, “not on the altar of truth but on the altar of hypocrisy”.
“It was a lack against the sixth commandment, but not total, of little caresses and massages he gave the secretary, this is the accusation – said the pontiff on the return flight from Greece -. This is sin but it is not the gravest sins, because the sins of the flesh are not the gravest“.” Aupetit is a sinner as I am, as was Peter the bishop on whom Jesus founded the Church and who had denied him – he added -. Why had the community of the time accepted a sinful bishop? It was a normal church, in which we were used to feeling all sinners, humble “.” We see – he noted again – that our Church is not used to saying a sinner bishop, we are used to saying that he is a saint, the bishop . The chatter grows and takes away the fame of a person “.
The Pope also said he was ready to go in Moscow for a meeting with the Patriarch Kyrill. “There are no protocols to dialogue with a brother, an Orthodox brother who is called Kyrill, Crysostomos, Ieronimos – continued Bergoglio -. And when we meet we don’t dance the minuet, we say things to each other, but as brothers”.
The pontiff then returned to the theme of migrants (“whoever builds walls loses the sense of history, of his own history. From when he was a slave to another country”) and on the EU Christmas document, defined as “an anachronism” (“Una fashion of watered-down secularism, distilled water “). Finally for the Pope the democracy in Europe is in danger because of populism and gods supranational governments. “Democracy is a treasure of civilization and must be guarded, not only by a higher entity but also in the country itself”.
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