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In a documentary that premiered this Wednesday in Rome, Pope Francis encouraged the passage of civil union laws for gay couples, moving away from the position of the Vatican’s doctrinal office and the position of its predecessors.
The Pope’s words are collected in a fragment of the documentary that reflects on pastoral care for those who identify as LGBT (lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transsexuals).
“Gay people have the right to be in the familyThey are children of God, they have the right to a family. No one can be thrown out of the family, or make life impossible for that, ”Pope Francis said in the film, about his approach to pastoral care.
Then, in words likely to cause controversy among Catholics, Pope Francis spoke directly on the issue of civil unions for homosexual couples.
“What we have to do is a law of civil coexistence. They have the right to be legally covered, ”Pope Francis said. “I defended that.”
Statements appear in “Francesco”, a documentary about the life and ministry of Pope Francis that premiered this October 21 at the Rome Film Festival and would premiere in North America this Sunday. The film is directed by the Russian Evgeny Afineevsky.
The film presents the approach of Pope Francis to various social problems, as well as the pastoral ministry towards those who live, in the words of the pontiff, “in the existential peripheries”.
Including interviews with Vatican figures such as Cardinal Luis Tagle and other collaborators of the Pope, “Francesco” focuses on the defense of the Holy Father towards migrants and refugees, the poor, their work on the issue of clergy sexual abuse, the role of women in society, and the position of Catholics and others towards those who identify as LGBT.
The film addresses the pastoral reach of Pope Francis towards those who identify as LGBT, including a story of the Holy Father encouraging a homosexual couple of Italian men to bring their children to his parish, which, according to one of them, was very beneficial for minors.
Filmmaker Evgeny Afineevsky told CNA, the English language agency of the ACI Group, that the Pope gave the statements on civil unions in an interview he conducted.
The Pope’s direct encouragement on civil union laws represents a change from the perspective of his predecessors, as well as his own more circumspect attitude on this issue in the past.
In 2010, when he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires (Argentina), Pope Francisco opposed efforts to legalize the so-called homosexual “marriage”. While Sergio Rubin, the pope’s future biographer, suggested that Francis supported the idea of civil unions as a way to prevent open adoption by gay marriages in Argentina, Miguel Woites, director of the Argentine Catholic news agency AICA, dismissed that claim in 2013, calling it false.
In the book “On Heaven and Earth”, Pope Francis did not directly reject the possibility of civil unionsBut he said the laws that liken gay relationships to marriage are “an anthropological regression,” and he expressed concern that if gay couples are allowed to adopt, “there could be boys affected. Every person needs a male father and a female mother to help shape their identity ”.
“To legally recognize homosexual unions or equate them to marriage, would not only mean endorse deviant behavior and make it a model for today’s society, but also obfuscate fundamental values that belong to the common heritage of humanity. The Church cannot stop defending such values, for the good of men and of all society, “added the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, warning that the support of politicians for such unions is” gravely immoral. “
Homosexual unions do not comply even in the remote analog sense the tasks for which the marriage and the family deserve specific and qualified recognition. On the contrary, there are sufficient reasons to affirm that such unions are harmful for the correct development of human society, especially if their effective impact on the social fabric increases ”, the document reads.
The Holy See press office did not respond to questions from CNA about the Pope’s remarks in the film.
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