Pope says Atheists Who Do Good Are Redeemed, Vatican Backpedals

What 's a "Yooper" ?

If so, what good do u c ?

This guy is starting to make the catholic church look good again. Someone has to stop him

If he continues like this, I wouldn't be surprised if someone in the Vatican poisoned his tea, the way they did with John Paul I.

Pope Francis, in the first extensive interview of his six-month-old papacy, said that the Roman Catholic church had grown "obsessed" with preaching about abortion, gay marriage and contraception, and that he has chosen not to speak of those issues despite recriminations from some critics.

In remarkably blunt language, Francis sought to set a new tone for the church, saying it should be a "home for all" and not a "small chapel" focused on doctrine, orthodoxy and a limited agenda of moral teachings.

"It is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time," the pope told the Rev. Antonio Spadaro, a fellow Jesuit and editor in chief of La Civilta Cattolica, the Italian Jesuit journal whose content is routinely approved by the Vatican. "The dogmatic and moral teachings of the church are not all equivalent. The church's pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently.

"We have to find a new balance," the pope continued, "otherwise even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards, losing the freshness and fragrance of the Gospel."

The interview was conducted during three meetings in August in the pope's spartan quarters in Casa Santa Marta, the Vatican guesthouse. Francis has chosen to live there rather than in what he said were more isolated quarters at the Apostolic Palace, home to many of his predecessors.

It really is a remarkable statement for the Pope to make.