Pope Francis made an extremely peculiar remark about gay people yesterday: “If they accept the Lord and have good will, who am I to judge them?” The pundits and Vaticanistas went into a frenzy of speculation as to whether this signaled his intention to change the Church’s policies in any number of areas. My interest was more in the phrasing that the pontiff chose: “who am I to judge them?”

Who is he? He is the guy with the Keys to the Kingdom. He lives in Rome; he must have seen the crossed keys that are displayed nearly everywhere. There must be at least one hundred sets of them in St. Peter’s Basilica alone. According to the most central doctrine — bar none — of the Catholic Church the pope, and only the pope, possesses the authority to determine the requirements for eternal salvation. The words of Matthew XVI encircle the dome of St. Peter’s: “I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Other opinions are immaterial. “Roma locuta est, causa finita est.”

The Church has never made a big issue of homosexuality. No pope has ever come down as hard on gays as, say, the nineteenth-century popes did on the Freemasons. So, the inclusive tone of Pope Francis’s message did not surprise me, but I found the wording to be absolutely astounding. I have read a considerable amount about every single pope, and I can never recall even one of them who expressed the slightest doubt that he had the authority to condemn a set of acts, a lifestyle, or a specific person. I also cannot remember any pope who considered “good will” as an overwhelmingly mitigating factor when exercising his pontifical judgments.

It is inconceivable that Pope Francis does not know the official interpretation of Matthew XVI. It is the sole basis for the canonizations that he recently announced. So, the only conclusion that seems reasonable is that this pope considers himself qualified to judge that at least two men were worthy of eternal salvation, but he does not feel that that his authority allows him to condemn actions done with “good will.” Pope Urban VI, for one, certainly felt no such reluctance. He formally excommunicated King Charles of Naples three times a day for several years.