By Our Reporter,
VATICAN:
Pope Francis has said that sex outside of marriage is not the most serious sin.
The leader of the Catholic church made the remarks during a press conference aboard a flight back to Vatican from Greece on Monday when he was asked about resignation of the Archbishop of Paris, Michel Aupetit, who a French Magazine claimed engaged in an intimate relationship with a woman.
Discussing Aupetit’s case, Pope Francis said: “I wonder what he did that was so serious that he had to resign. What did he do? … If we don’t know the accusation, we cannot condemn.”
The pope said that Aupetit was accused of a fault against the sixth commandment, of “small caresses and massages that he gave to the secretary.”
The Pope added;
“It was a failing on his part, a failing against the sixth commandment, but not a total one. There is sin there but not the worst kind… sins of the flesh are not the most serious.”
He rather said that pride and hatred were “the most serious” of sins.
Aupetit has firmly denied that he had a relationship with the woman in question.
“My behavior towards her may have been ambiguous, thus suggesting the existence between us of an intimate relationship and sexual relations, which I strongly refute … I decided not to see her again and I informed her,” he said to Le Point.
