In a brief press conference on the plane returning from Belgium, Pope Francis answered questions including one on Israel’s targeted killings in Lebanon and Gaza, and others related to his meeting with abuse victims in Brussels, the role of women in society and the reason why he thinks the former Belgian King Baudouin should be canonized.

I always talk about the dignity of women,’ he said on his flight back to Rome. ‘An abortion is a homicide,’ he said, adding, ‘The doctors who carry this out are hitmen.’ He also spoke of the ‘responsibility to help the abused and to take care of them

A woman is more important than a man, but it is terrible when a woman wants to be a man: No, she is a woman,” the pope had said in Belgium.