The Pope arrived back in Rome Monday after a week-long tour of Brazil -- his first abroad as pontiff.

Pope Francis's predecessor, Benedict XVI, signed a document in 2005 that said men with deep-rooted homosexual tendencies should not be priests.

Francis said gay clergymen should be forgiven and their sins forgotten.

The Pope, however, condemned what he described as lobbying by gay people.

"The problem is not having this orientation. We must be brothers. The problem is lobbying by this orientation, or lobbies of greedy people, political lobbies, Masonic lobbies, so many lobbies. This is the worse problem," he said.