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Pope Francis is in favor of civil laws recognizing homosexual unions. After commenting in 2013 that “who was he to judge a gay man” and having numerous gestures of opening during the pontificate towards same-sex couples, Jorge Mario Bergoglio goes one step further in the interview that appears in the documentary ‘ Francesco ‘, premiered this Wednesday at the Rome Film Festival and directed by the Russian-born filmmaker Evgeny Afineevsky.
Homosexual people have the right to be in a family, they are children of God, they have the right to a family. No one can be thrown out of a family, or make life miserable for that. What we have to do is a law of civil coexistence, they have the right to be legally covered. I defended that ”, commented the pontiff in Afineevsky’s documentary.
(In context: Pope Francis calls for civil union law for same-sex couples)
The tape offers the testimony of Andrea Rubera, a homosexual Italian with three children who wrote a letter to Francisco and whom he later called by phone to encourage him to take the children to the parish. “We did it and we are doing very well,” explained Rubera, whose family has been on a “spiritual journey” for three years in a Catholic community in Rome.
The pontiff invited him to be “transparent” with his circumstances in the parish, also warning him that “not everyone was going to agree.”
God had made him gay and loved him like that
Afineevsky also interviewed Juan Carlos Cruz, victim of sexual abuse in Chile by a priest, whom Francis received in May 2018 at the Vatican and whom he asked for forgiveness for not having believed at first.
Cruz, to whom the Pope told him that “God had made him gay and loved him like that,” as he said after meeting with him, He detailed in the documentary how Bergoglio was opening his eyes to the magnitude of the problem of ecclesial pedophilia in Chile.
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It is not the first time that the Pope shows himself in this line in front of the gay unions, although he had never expressed himself so clearly.
In an interview in 2014 with the ‘Corriere della Sera’ he said that it was necessary to assess “according to the cases”, while in 2017, in a book-interview with the sociologist Dominique Wolton, he commented: “Marriage is the union of a man with a woman. This is the precise term. Let’s call same-sex unions ‘civil union’ ”.
Marriage is the union of a man with a woman. This is the precise term. Let’s call same-sex unions ‘civil union’
When he was archbishop of Buenos Aires, Bergoglio showed his support for homosexual civil unions, always making a clear difference with marriage, although he had never done so in such a resounding way since he was elected Pope in 2013.
Already in 2014, the pontiff was studying how the Catholic Church should respond to this question, according to Cardinal Timothy Dolan, archbishop of New York.
In an interview with the television channel NBC, he explained that Pope Francis thought that the Church should reflect on “the reasons” that had led some countries to legalize civil unions for gay couples.
In favor of the recognition of civil unions, several cardinals have spoken in recent years, including the Italian Gualtiero Bassetti, president of the Italian Episcopal Conference, and Bishop Marcello Semeraro, very close to Pope Francis and who has just been appointed head of the Congregation for Saints.
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Pope Francis last a celebration in the Vatican. (File photo)
American Jesuit James Martin, author of A Bridge to Build. A new relationship between the Church and LGTB people, described the Pope’s pronouncement as “historic”, first of all because he does it as pontiff and no longer as archbishop of Rome. “Second, because it clearly supports and not only tolerates civil unions. And third, because he says it in front of the camera, not privately, “Martin said on social media.
It must be remembered, however, that the words of Pope Francis are not part of a magisterial text, rather they were produced in an interview in which he addressed many other issues.
The truth is that with his words, the Argentine pope again addressed an issue that divides the Church and about which he has referred on several occasions with a more open mind.
Respect for homosexuals
“Since the beginning of the pontificate, the Pope has spoken of respect for homosexuals and has been against their discrimination. The news today is that he defends as Pope a law for civil unions ”, the Vaticanist Vania de Luca explained to Rainews.
The Pope’s statements represent a breakthrough in relation to an official document of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (the guardian of dogma in the Vatican) of 2003, which opposes the “legal recognition of homosexual unions,” many observers recalled.
Signed then by the German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, future Pope Benedict XVI, the document states: “To legally recognize homosexual unions or assimilate them to a marriage would mean not only approving deviant behavior and therefore making it a model in today’s society, but also hid fundamental values that belong to the common heritage of humanity ”.
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For the Vaticanist Jesús Bastante, from the specialized page Religión Digital, the support of the Argentine pontiff to civil unions between people of the same sex “represents a drastic change in the official position of the Vatican – and its predecessors – on the matter.”
Several organizations around the world for the defense of homosexuals applauded the words of the Latin American Pope. “That the Pope is in favor of civil unions is revolutionary news for the doctrine of the Church. We support the many gay and lesbian Catholic believers in the face of a historic step of such magnitude, ”the Italian organization GayLib wrote in a statement.
DARIUS MINOR *
For the time
ROME
* With AFP
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