After making a visit to Armenia in order to encourage us to never forget the terrible genocide that occurred, Pope Francis boarded a plane and took questions from reporters. One of the reporters asked the Pope about his thoughts on the words of Cardinal Rienhard Marx.

While speaking at Trinity College in Dublin, Marx stated, “The history of homosexuals in our societies is very bad, because we’ve done a lot to marginalize [them].” He then went on to explain that the church should apologize to gay people.

When asked about the Cardinal’s remarks, Pope Francis said, “I believe that the church not only should apologize to the person who is gay whom it has offended, but has to apologize to the poor, to exploited women, to children exploited for labor; it has to ask forgiveness for having blessed many weapons."

Then, in an extremely empathetic and articulate manner, Pope Francis repeated a previous statement he made in 2013, “If a person who has that condition, who has good will, and who looks for God, who are we to judge.” Basically he’s saying that even if someone embodies a way of life we don’t agree with, as long as they are good willed people, we have no right to judge them.

Now, the Catholic Church and Christians in general have not always been known for extending a hand to gay people. However, these remarks by such an incredible leader could shape a new way of thinking. When you do something wrong, you apologize. In this case, there is a lot to apologize for.