VATICAN CITY -- Pope Francis, in a 50-minute address to journalists on his flight back from Baku, talked about his compassion for homosexuals, and the ‘condition’ of homosexuality, in contrast to his opposition to gender theory, Vatican sources said Monday.

 “I have accompanied, in my life as a priest, bishop, even as Pope, people with homosexual tendencies, and even those who practice homosexuality. I have accompanied them, and have brought them closer to God: some cannot, but I have accompanied them and never abandoned them,” the pontiff told reporters on his special jetliner while returning from a trip to Georgia and the Caucasus region.

 “People should be accompanied in the way that Jesus accompanied them. When someone who has this condition arrives to Jesus, Jesus would surely not say ‘go away because you are homosexual,’” Francis added.

 He then told the story of a Spanish transsexual who wrote to him last year with a story of suffering, and how the pope then received him in the Vatican.

 However, the head of the Holy See then went on to state his opposition gender theory. He condemned “the ill that happens today with this indoctrination of gender theory -- it is against the natural way.”

 nkd