Sleeping With Someone Outside Your Marriage Is Not A Big Sin – Pope Francis says
Pope Francis has stated that intercourse outside marriage is “not the most serious sin.” The 84-year-old pope said this during a question and answer session with reporters on a flight back to Italy from Greece on Monday,
He said; “Sins of the flesh are not the most serious.” The pontiff added that pride and hatred are “the most serious”.
Francis made the statement in response to a question about the Archbishop of Paris Michel Aupetit’s “ambiguous” relationship with a woman.
The Pope was also asked about the resignation of the Archbishop of Paris, Michel Aupetit, who offered to step down earlier this month after a French magazine claimed he had engaged in an intimate relationship with a woman.
Traditionally, Archbishops and higher members of the Catholic Church follow clerical celibacy, which means they abstain from sex. The Archbishop denied the affair, and said: “I poorly handled the situation with a person who was in contact many times with me.”
He said Aupetit had been condemned by ‘public opinion, rumours. But what did he do? We know nothing’.
The Pope, who accepted the Archbishop’s resignation, said “it was a failing on his part, a failing against the sixth commandment, but not a total one.”
He added: ‘Aupetit is a sinner. As I am, as was Peter, the bishop on whom Christ founded his Church.’
The sixth commandment says “you shall not commit adultery”, which applies to people having sex outside of their marriages but the Pope suggested it could apply to priests who don’t stay celibate. During the flight, the Pope said he removed the Archbishop due to “gossip”.
