Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Pope supports same-sex civil unions
In landmark move, Francis calls for law to cover gay couples
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 feature-length documentary “Francesco,” which premiered at the Rome Film Festival. The film 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. “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 same-sex marriages. However, he had never come out publicly in favor of civil unions as pope, and no pontiff before him had, either.
Later Wednesday, questions arose about when Francis first made the remarks. The scene of his interview is identical to one from 2019 with Mexican broadcaster Televisa, but his comments about the need for legal protections for civil unions apparently never aired until the documentary.
The Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit who has sought to build bridges with gay Catholics, praised the 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.
But conservative Bishop Thomas Tobin, of Providence, Rhode Island, called for clarification.
“The pope’s statement clearly contradicts what has been the long-standing teaching of the church about same-sex unions,” he said. “The church cannot support the acceptance of objectively immoral relationships.”
Catholic teaching holds that gay people must be treated with dignity and respect but that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered.” A 2003 document from the Vatican’s doctrine office stated the church’s respect for gay people “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 that the pope’s
comments had created such a firestorm, saying Francis wasn’t trying to change doctrine but was expressing his belief gay people 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 to the main issues covered by the film.
One main character in the documentary is Juan Carlos Cruz, the Chilean survivor of clergy sexual
abuse whom Francis initially discredited during a 2018 visit to Chile.
Cruz, who is gay, said that during his first meetings with the pope in May 2018 after they patched things up, Francis assured him that God made Cruz gay. Cruz tells his own story throughout the film, chronicling both Francis’ evolution on understanding sexual abuse as well as to document the pope’s views on gay people.
Francis’ outreach dates to his first foreign trip in 2013, when he uttered the now-famous words
“Who am I to judge,“when asked during an airborne news conference returning 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 Embassy in Washington during a 2015 visit.
Francis, the former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was opposed to gay marriage when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires. Then, he launched what gay activists remember as a “war of God” against Argentina’s move to approve same-sex marriage.
The pope’s authorized biographer, Sergio Rubin, said at the time of his 2013 election that Bergoglio was politically wise enough to know the church couldn’t win a fight against gay marriage. Instead, Rubin said, Bergoglio urged his fellow bishops to lobby for gay civil unions.
It wasn’t until Bergoglio’s proposal was shot down by the conservative bishops’ conference that he publicly declared his opposition, and the church lost the issue altogether.
In the documentary, Francis essentially confirms Rubin’s account of what transpired. Of his belief in the need for legislation to protect gay couples in civil relationships, he said: “I stood up for that.”