Anouar Majid interviewed by Radio Sawa on Pope Francis' statements on women and gays

Anouar Majid, Ph.D., UNE vice president for global affairs and director of the Center for Global Humanities, was interviewed for a July 30, 2013 story on the Arabic-language Radio Sawa on Pope Francis' recent statements about women in the church and gays.

Pope Francis in an impromptu news conference on a plane as he was leaving Brazil to return to Rome, said "If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has goodwill, who am I to judge?"  He also commented that "Women in the church are more important than bishops and priests," just as "Mary is more important than the apostles." Continuing, the pope said the church needed to develop a theology that addressed the role of women. But, he clearly stated, those roles would never include the ordained ministry.

In the Radio Sawa story, Majid is quoted as saying that like a number of Protestant faiths and parts of Judaism, the Catholic Church is coming to terms with the diversity of lifestyles in modern life, albeit ever so slowly and hesitantly.

Radio Sawa is operated by the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Inc., a U.S.-funded agency.

Majid is the author of five critically acclaimed books on Islam and the West, including Islam and America: Building a Future without Prejudice, and a novel, Si Yussef, which has been the focus of much scholarly and critical interest. He is the editor of the magazine TingisRedux.