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Gay people should be integrated into society instead of being ostracized, Pope Francis told journalists after his week-long trip to Brazil. Answering a question about reports of homosexuals in the clergy, the pope answered, "If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?"

In what's being called an unusually broad and candid news conference, Pope Francis took questions from reporters for more than an hour as he flew from Brazil to the Vatican; his plane landed Monday.

One question centered on recent reports in Italian media that accused the Vatican Bank's Monsignor Battista Ricca of conducting an affair with a Swiss army captain. In response, Pope Francis said that he looked into the reports, but found nothing to support the allegations.

The pope also used the occasion to expand on his June remarks about a "gay lobby" in the Vatican, clarifying that "he was against all lobbies, not just gay ones," the Italian news agency ANSA reports.

"Being gay is a tendency. The problem is the lobby," ANSA quotes the pontiff saying. "The lobby is unacceptable, the gay one, the political one, the Masonic one."

The pope's view of gays is being seen as diverging from his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI. As the AP reminds us, Benedict "signed a document in 2005 that said men with deep-rooted homosexual tendencies should not be priests. Francis was much more conciliatory, saying gay clergymen should be forgiven and their sins forgotten."

"The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains this very well," Pope Francis said, according to the BBC. "It says they should not be marginalized because of this but that they must be integrated into society."

During the news conference on the 12-hour flight home, the pope also addressed a less serious question: What did he have in the black bag he carried during his trip?

The AP reports:

"'The keys to the atomic bomb weren't in it,' Francis quipped. Rather, he said, the bag merely contained a razor, his breviary prayer book, his agenda and a book on St. Terese of Lisieux, to whom he is particularly devoted.

"'It's normal' to carry a bag when traveling, he said. 'We have to get use to this being normal, this normalcy of life,' for a pope, he added."

Russian President Vladimir Putin hasn't been shy about showing off his macho — and often shirtless — side.

There was that picture with the gun ...

the one with the tiger cub ...

On whether he has seen everything there is to see on the farm

"Well, there are days when I wonder that, but the fact is that there's an endless variation. And the weather patterns are never the same; the way the pastures are grazed is never the same. Odd things happen. ... Basically, there's always an errand or a task or a burden that leads you out onto the land. And the moment you get onto the land, everything changes in front of you, no matter what you think you've seen before."

On advice to aspiring writers

"The simplest way to put it, I think, is to make sure you're keeping your language as simple, as straightforward as possible, and to trust the reader. And by that I mean trust that the reader's perceptions resemble your own perceptions. ...

"So many young people I meet are just as perceptive about the world around them as I or any other writer happens to be, but they don't believe that their perceptions actually matter because nobody's really taught them that they do. And acquiring that conviction, that what you notice really makes a difference and can be communicated in a way that makes a difference, is really a huge step forward."

Read an excerpt of More Scenes from the Rural Life

As the ailing Nelson Mandela turned 95 this month, the international community celebrated his legacy and rooted for his recovery.

Just to the north in Zimbabwe, President Robert Mugabe, 89, is running for re-election this week. He's looking to extend his 33 years in power, which have been marked by authoritarian rule, economic collapse and international isolation.

These two men have shaped their neighboring countries in dramatically different ways. Mandela is a global icon in a country often cited as a land of hope. Mugabe is a widely seen as pariah in a country that has endured a precipitous decline.

Their global reputations could hardly be more different. With both men in the news, we took a look at their legacies, and two things stand out.

First, before Mandela and Mugabe came to power, they had remarkably similar biographies. Second, neither South Africa's successes under Mandela nor Zimbabwe's failings under Mugabe were foregone conclusions.

Parallel Lives

First, the similarities between the two men. Martin Meredith, a British author who has written biographies of both men, sums them up this way:

"Both were born in an era when white power prevailed throughout Africa, Mandela in 1918, Mugabe in 1924. Both were products of the Christian mission school system, Mandela of the Methodist variety, Mugabe of the Catholic. Both attended the same university, Fort Hare in South Africa. Both emerged as members of the small African professional elite, Mandela a lawyer, Mugabe a teacher. Both were drawn into the struggle against white minority rule, Mandela in South Africa, Mugabe in neighboring Rhodesia. Both advocated violence to bring down white-run regimes. Both endured long terms of imprisonment, Mandela, 27 years, Mugabe, 11 years."