Pope Francis endorses same-sex civil partnerships

Pope Francis has endorsed same-sex civil unions for the first time since he became pontiff during an interview for the feature-length documentary Francesco, which had its premiere at the Rome Film Festival yesterday.

Pope Francis has endorsed same-sex civil unions for the first time as pontiff while being interviewed for the feature- length documentary Francesco, which had its premiere at the Rome Film Festival yesterday.

The pa pal thumbs-up comes midway through the film, which delves into issues such as the environment, poverty, migration, racial and income inequality, and the people most affected by discrimination.

While serving as archbishop of Buenos Aires, Francis endorsed civil unions for gay couples as an alternative to same-sex marriages but he had never publicly backed civil unions as pope.

"Homosexual people have the right to be in a family," he said in one of his sit-down interviews for the film.

"They are children of God. What we have to have is a civil union law, that way they are legally covered."

The Jesuit priest who has been at the forefront in seeking to build bridges with homosexuals in the Church, the Reverend James Martin, praised the Pope' s comments as" a major step forward in the church's support for LGBT people".

"The Pope's speaking positively about civil unions also sends a strong message to places where the Church has opposed such laws," he said in a statement.

One of the main people in the documentary is Juan Carlos Cruz, the Chilean survivor of clergy sexual abuse who Francis initially discredited.

Mr Cruz, who is gay, said that during his first meetings in

Chile with the Pope in May 2018, Francis told him God made him gay.

He tells his own story in snippets throughout the film, chronicling both Francis' evolution on understanding sexual abuse as well as to document the Pope's views on gay people.

Director Evgeny Afineevsky had remarkable access to cardinals, the Vatican television archives and the Pope himself.

He said he negotiated his way in through persistence and deliveries of Argentine mate tea and Alfajores cookies that he got to the Pope via some well-connected Argentines in Rome.

Afineevsky said in an interview ahead of the premiere: "Listen, when you are in the Vatican, the only way to achieve something is to break the rule and then to say I'm sorry'."