The Vatican’s recent decision to start blessing gay couples is about blessing individual people and not LGBT groups, Pope Francis said Saturday amid a backlash against the move by conservatives and African bishops. The measure on the blessings of gay couples concerns “people, not organisations”, Francis said at a closed-door meeting with the Roman clergy, according to sources present. “If the LGBT association comes, no, the people always”. He then explained why the measure will not be adopted in Africa: ‘The culture does not accept it’. But he added: ‘We bless people, not sin’, ‘perhaps they come as couples or as people’.