Leslie Kelly--Pope Francis on gays: "Who am I to judge?"

Lately, this comment has been going around on Tumblr, the only social site I actually invest time in, and it would seem that Pope Francis has made himself pretty popular with it. On his flight back from Brazil, where he'd spent the week celebrating World Youth Day, the newest Pope made a few choice comments over what are usually very controversial topics for the church, including homosexuality, women's place in the eyes of the church, abortion, and divorce. Of gays and lesbians, he's claimed that he will not judge them if they are good people searching for God, which of course is pretty huge in and of itself. This is coming from the representative of a church that has actively banned the priesthood from gays and historically has always condemned homosexuality. That's a valid, albeit singular, reason for Francis' popularity, especially on a site like Tumblr, but that's not all he said on that flight. On the subject of women, he acknowledged that their role in the church should grow, but the idea of ordaining them as priests...well, sorry, bub, but apparently that ship has sailed. *deep sigh* Personally, I'm a bit too much of a feminist to get overly lovestruck with Pope Francis, who conveniently had nothing to say about abortion and nothing all that interesting to add to the question of divorce. I realize that this is already a much more liberal Catholic Church than we're used to, but at the same time...who on Earth said you can just pick and choose who you're going to see as your equal? I'm fairly certain that's not the kind of thing the original message of Christianity was going for. To read the article, go here.