The Pope and homosexuality. Is he now open to only gay priests? The mainstream media hopes so.

The mainstream media believes comments by Pope Francis suggests he's now open to gay priests.  Or they wish.  In fact, his comments in no way supports that observation.

Here's what Pope Francis said:

But returning to your question more concretely: in this case [Ricca] I did the required investigation and we found nothing.  That is the first question.  Then you spoke of the gay lobby.  Agh… so much is written about the gay lobby.  I have yet to find on a Vatican identity card the word gay.  They say there are some gay people here.  I think that when we encounter a gay person, we must make the distinction between the fact of a person being gay and the fact of a lobby, because lobbies are not good.  They are bad.  If a person is gay and seeks the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge that person?  The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains this point beautifully but says, wait a moment, how does it say, it says, these persons must never be marginalized and “they must be integrated into society.”

The problem is not that one has this tendency; no, we must be brothers, this is the first matter.  There is another problem, another one: the problem is to form a lobby of those who have this tendency, a lobby of the greedy people, a lobby of politicians, a lobby of Masons, so many lobbies.  This is the most serious problem for me. And thank you so much for doing this question. Thank you very much!

What did he say and mean?   I see nothing even inferring he supports gay priests, only homosexual men serving as priests.

I think somebody like Cardinal Dolan would have a better take on the Pope's thinking.

Pope Francis’ comments about gays may have signaled a change in tone within the Catholic Church, but they did not reflect a break in church policy, a leading American Catholic cleric said Tuesday.

The church teaches to treat everyone — including gays — with dignity, even if they do not approve of the relationships they have, said Cardinal Timothy Dolan, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

“What the pope is saying is, don’t forget there’s another element to God’s teaching, namely that we treat everybody with dignity and respect, that we don’t judge their heart, that we love and respect them,” he told TODAY’s Matt Lauer.

On Monday, Pope Francis surprised church observers with his comments about homosexuality during a news conference.

“If a person is gay, and looks for the Lord and had goodwill, who am I to judge them?” he said.

Dolan said the pontiff’s comments didn’t surprise him, but everyone’s reaction did.

“This is no way could this be interpreted as a change in church doctrine or the church’s faith and morals. It is a change in tone," he said.

“It’s been a pretty clear teaching of the church based on the words of Jesus that we can’t judge people; we can judge actions,” he said.

 “Homosexual people deserve love respect and dignity, while homosexual acts are immoral,” Dolan said. 

“The church’s teaching, which is based on the Bible and God’s revelation, is that sexual love is reserved only between a man and woman in the life-long, life-giving relationship of marriage and any relations outside of that, hetero or homo, would be less than God’s intention," he said. "That hasn’t changed."