Comments on gay marriage licences, abuse victims, women priests

While returning from his visit to the US, the pontiff tells reporters aboard the papal plane that anyone who prevents others from exercising their religious freedom is denying them a human right.

If a person does not allow others to be a conscientious objector, he denies a right…It is a human right and if a government official is a human person, he has that right. It is a human right.

He also says he says he understands the anger of people abused by clergy.

I met a woman who told me ‘when my mother found out that I had been abused, she became blasphemous, she lost her faith and she died an atheist’. I understand that woman. I understand her. I pray for them. And I don’t judge them.

Francis also rules out the idea of the Catholic church following the Anglican example of women priests.

Not because women don’t have the capacity. Look, in the church women are more important than men, because the church is a woman. It is ‘la’ [female] church, not ‘il’ [masculine] church. The church is the bride of Jesus Christ. And the Madonna is more important than popes and bishops and priests.