Gates Hopeful Pope Will Change Church Teaching

14.07.2017

Melinda Gates has said she is “optimistic” Pope Francis will change Church teaching on contraception.

The wife of billionaire Bill Gates, who was brought up as a Catholic, said she had “agreed to disagree” with the Church on the issue, claiming that contraception is “one of the greatest anti-poverty innovations the world has ever known.”

In a BBC interview, Gates said her charity, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, works “very extensively with the Catholic Church” and has had “many discussions with them, because we have a shared mission around social justice and anti-poverty”.

“I think what this Pope sees is that if we are going to lift people out of poverty, you have to do the right thing for women, and so we have agreed at this point to disagree,” she said.

She added that Pope Francis has not changed Church teaching “yet”, but “these things take time”. She said she was “optimistic” the Church would change its teaching “over time”.

The Gates Foundation recently co-hosted an international summit in London on the issue of access to family planning and contraception in the developing world.

The Catholic Herald. July 11.