New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
Pope backs civil unions
Pope Francis became the first pontiff to endorse same-sex civil unions, sparking cheers from gay Catholics and demands for clarification from conservatives.
ROME — Pope Francis became the first pontiff to endorse same-sex civil unions in comments for a documentary that premiered Wednesday, sparking cheers from gay Catholics and demands for clarification from conservatives, given the Vatican’s official teaching on the issue.
The papal thumbs-up came midway through the featurelength documentary “Francesco,“which premiered at the Rome Film Festival. The film, which features fresh interviews with the pope, delves into issues Francis cares about most, including the environment, poverty, migration, racial and income inequality, and the people most affected by discrimination.
“Homosexual people have the right to be in a family. They are children of God,” Francis said in one of his sit-down interviews for the film. “You can’t kick someone out of a family, nor make their life miserable for this. What we have to have is a civil union law; that way they are legally covered.”
While serving as archbishop of Buenos Aires, Francis endorsed civil unions for gay couples as an alternative to samesex marriages. However, he had never come out publicly in favor of civil unions as pope, and no pontiff before him had, either.
The Jesuit priest who has been at the forefront in seeking to build bridges with gays in the church, the Rev. 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,“Martin said in a statement.
However, the conservative bishop of Providence, R.I., Thomas Tobin, immediately called for clarification. “The pope’s statement clearly contradicts what has been the longstanding teaching of the church about same-sex unions,“Tobin said in a statement. “The church cannot support the acceptance of objectively immoral relationships.“
Catholic teaching holds that gays must be treated with dignity and respect but that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered.” A 2003 document from the Vatican’s doctrine office stated that the church’s respect for gays
“cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behavior or to legal recognition of homosexual unions.”
Doing so, the Vatican reasoned, would not only condone “deviant behavior,“but create an equivalence to marriage, which the church holds is an indissoluble union between man and woman.
That document was signed by the then-prefect of the office, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the future Pope Benedict XVI and Francis’ predecessor.
Director Evgeny Afineevsky, who is gay, expressed surprise after the premiere Wednesday that the pope’s comments on civil unions had created such a firestorm, saying Francis wasn’t trying to change doctrine but was merely expressing his belief that gays should enjoy the same rights as heterosexuals.
“The world needs positivity right now, the world needs to care about climate change, care about refugees and migration, borders, walls, family separation,“Afineevsky said, urging attention be paid to the main issues covered by the film.
Francis’ outreach to gays dates to his first foreign trip in 2013, when he uttered the nowfamous words “Who am I to judge,“when asked during an airborne news conference returning home from Rio de Janiero about a purportedly gay priest.
Since then, he has ministered to gays and transsexual prostitutes, and welcomed people in gay partnerships into his inner circle. One of them was his former student, Yayo Grassi, who along with his partner visited Francis at the Vatican’s Washington D.C. embassy during the pope’s 2015 visit to the U.S
The Vatican publicized that encounter, making video and photos of it available, after Francis was ambushed during that same visit by his then-ambassador, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, who invited the anti-gay marriage activist Kim Davis to meet with the pope.
News of the Davis audience made headlines at the time and was viewed by conservatives as a papal stamp of approval for Davis, who was jailed for refusing to issue same-sex marriage licenses. The Vatican, however, vigorously sought to downplay it, with the Vatican spokesman saying the meeting by no means indicated Francis’ support for her or her position on gay marriage.