Both US presidential candidates espouse anti-life views, pope says (Page 6 ) | September 16, 2024

“The sexual abuse of children, of minors, is a crime,” he said.

After answering two other questions, Pope Francis returned to the topic of Abbé Pierre to tell the reporter, “I don’t know when the Vatican came to know about it. I don’t know because I wasn’t here, and I never thought to research it, but certainly after his death — that is certain.”

On the Vatican’s relationship with China, the pope said, “I am content with the dialogue with China. The results are good. Also, on the nomination of bishops, the work is going forward with goodwill.”

In 2018, the Vatican and the government of China signed an agreement outlining procedures for ensuring Catholic bishops are elected by the Catholic community in China and approved by the pope before their ordinations or installations. The provisional, two-year agreement, already renewed in 2020 and 2022, is up for renewal in October.

The text has never been made public, but the Vatican has complained a couple times in the past six years when China named or transferred bishops in apparent violation of the accord.

The pope also said he welcomed China’s efforts to encourage a peaceful settlement of the fighting in the Gaza Strip.

“I call the parish in Gaza every day, every day,” he said; inside the compound of Holy Family Parish, some 600 people — Christians and Muslims — have taken shelter.

Pope Francis said he could not judge whether Israel’s reaction to the Hamas invasion in October is excessive, “but, please, when you see the bodies of children who have been killed — when you see that because of a presumption that there are some guerrillas there they bomb a school — it’s awful, awful.”

“Sometimes,” he said, “a war is just too much, too much.”

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