After same-sex blessing ruling, pope decries inflexible ideologies

Pope Francis on Thursday warned against inflexible ideological positions that can hinder the Church from seeing reality and moving forward, speaking days after a declaration allowing blessings of same-sex couples that conservatives have condemned.
Francis, who turned 87 on Sunday, made his comments in his traditional Christmas greetings to members of the Curia, the Vatican’s central administration.
In the early years of his papacy, Francis made the Christmas greetings an occasion for blistering critiques of the bureaucracy, highlighting what at the time he called its “illnesses” and “diseases”.
On Thursday he mentioned the continuing debate between progressives and conservatives 60 years after the Second Vatican Council, which ushered the Church into the modern world.