In a new documentary, Pope Francis has called for the creation of civil union laws for same-sex couples, in remarks that break from the Catholic Church’s official teaching and mark his clearest support to date for the issue.
Washington Post: In the documentary, according to the Catholic News Agency, Francis says same-sex couples should be “legally covered.”
“What we have to create is a civil union law,” he said.
Francis has long expressed an interest in outreach to the church’s LGBT followers, but his remarks have often stressed general understanding and welcoming — rather than substantive policies.
Priests in some parts of the world bless same-sex marriage, but that stance — and Francis’s new remarks — are a departure from official church teaching.
The documentary, “Francesco,” is premiering this week in Rome and later in the United States. The pope gave an interview to the filmmaker, Evgeny Afineevsky, saying that “homosexuals have a right to be a part of the family.”
“They’re children of God and have a right to a family,” the pope said. “Nobody should be thrown out, or be made miserable because of it.”
Francis, who became pope in 2013, gave earlier, oblique signals interpreted as openness to recognizing same-gender civil unions.
He has usually framed his comments in pragmatic, curious terms — as someone noticing the possible need for legal recognition for existing families, so they can access civil benefits such as heath care.
“This is the first time as pope he’s making such a clear statement,” the Rev. James Martin, a prominent Jesuit who has advocated for the church to more openly welcome LGBT members, said in a phone interview on Wednesday. “I think it’s a big step forward. In the past, even civil unions were frowned upon in many quarters of the church. He is putting his weight behind legal recognition of same-sex civil unions.”
Officially, the church teaches that homosexual sex acts are “disordered,” and Francis’s predecessor, Benedict XVI, called homosexuality an “intrinsic moral evil.”
Francis has not altered church doctrine, but he has pushed the church away from that stance, to the anger of conservatives, who accuse him of adjusting teaching for modern times.
Famously, Francis in 2013 said about somebody who is gay: “Who am I to judge?”
Francis has also spoken often about his ministry to gay and lesbian Catholics, saying they are loved by God and welcomed by the church.
“This is huge,” said David Gibson, director of Fordham University’s Center on Religion and Culture. “Looking behind all this, he’s basically saying, again, we’re not out here to be culture warriors. We’re not out here to pick fights. We are out here to build up the family.”
In 2003, the Vatican’s doctrinal office issued a document laying out the “problem of homosexual unions,” and said it was a duty to oppose such arrangements.
Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of DignityUSA, a national organization of Catholics dedicated to LGBTQ rights, said that while many feel Pope Francis has been open to allowing them their legal rights, other Catholic leaders have still pushed for policies opposing same-sex marriage and adoption rights in other countries.
She also noted that Francis had stopped short of advocating for legalized marriage for same-sex couples.
“Is this a confession that the world and legal communities are moving forward and the church is eons behind?” Duddy-Burke said. “Is it a step forward, or is it a way to avoid going all the way toward same-sex sacramental marriage? Because we’ve experienced a push pull from the church on this, we’ll hold our breath.”
According to a Religion News Service story from 2014, Francis — while still a cardinal in Argentina — tried to “negotiate with the Argentine government over the legalization of gay marriage and signaled he would be open to civil unions as an alternative.”
Francis made news that year when the Italian newspaper Corriere della Serra published an interview with him reiterating “the church’s teaching that marriage is between a man and a woman while acknowledging that governments want to adopt civil unions for gay couples and others to allow for economic and other benefits,” RNS reported.
In the interview, Francis said the churches in various countries must account for those reasons when formulating public policy positions. “We must consider different cases and evaluate each particular case,” Corriere della Serra quoted him as saying.
The interview triggered global interest and controversy. Some said Francis had outright endorsed civil unions.
The Vatican quickly clarified that Francis was speaking in general terms and that people “should not try to read more into the pope’s words than what has been stated,” RNS reported in 2014.
Italy was the last country in Western Europe — other than Vatican City — to offer same-sex couples legal rights, a position based on the Roman Catholic Church’s historic opposition to such unions.
Francis has a reputation of offering words open to interpretation.
In 2016, after the Vatican hosted a combative synod on the family, he said “there cannot be any confusion between the family willed by God and other kinds of unions.”
This has angered traditional Christians.
In 2015, New York Archbishop Tim Dolan was asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” if accepting civil unions would make him “uncomfortable,” Dolan said it would, because it could “water down” the traditional religious view of marriage,” the RNS story reported.