Vatican City: Pope Francis minced no words in his praise for virtues of sex in a documentary released on Wednesday.
The 86-year-old pontiff said sex is one of the ‘beautiful things that God has given to the human person’, according to Reuters.
The official Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, published the remarks he had made in the Disney production of the documentary "The Pope Answers".
The documentary is based on a meeting the Pope had last year in Rome with 10 youngsters in their early 20s.
The young people sought Francis’ opinions on a variety of topics ranging from abortion to porn, LGBT rights, sex, and faith to sex abuse within Catholic Church.
Describing sex a beautiful thing, Pope added that expressing oneself sexually is a richness.
However, referring to masturbation he said ‘anything that distracts from real sexual expression lessens you and depletes this richness’.
When asked if he knew what a ‘non-binary person’ is, Pope answered in the affirmative adding that Catholic Church must welcome LGBT people.
"All persons are the children of God, all persons. God does not reject anybody, God is a father. And I have no right to expel anyone from the Church," he was quoted as saying.
As with abortion, Pope asked priests to be "merciful" towards women who have terminated a pregnancy. However, Pope stressed that abortion remains unacceptable.