[ad_1]
The Pope called for the legalization of the “civil union” (Grzigors Galazka / Getty)
Pope Francis defended the right of same-sex couples to live within a “civil union” that protected them legally, describing them as “children of God.”
“Homosexuals have the right to live as a family. They are children of God and have the right to form a family,” the Argentine Pope declared in a documentary about his life screened this Wednesday at the Rome Film Festival.
“What is needed is a civil union law,” he said in the documentary titled “Francesco” and directed by Evgeny Avinevsky. “They have the right to have legal coverage. I defended it.”
Since his election as Pope, Francis has already proposed on several occasions the idea of a civil union between related persons of the same sex. His biographer Austin Iverie said Jorge Bergoglio defended this legal protection while still Archbishop of Buenos Aires in the context of a heated 2010 debate in his country about the legalization of same-sex marriage.
In the documentary released on Wednesday, he defended with more forcefulness and freedom for this type of civil unions. His comments in Spanish on the film follow the testimony of a gay Catholic with three children, who asked him in a letter if they should go to church. The pope then called him on the phone to advise him to be transparent about the life he chose and to take his children to church.
The Pope showed an open attitude towards homosexuals, stressing that they should be received with respect in Catholic churches and advising their parents not to reject them. However, he remains firmly against his “marriage”.
In a book that included interviews prepared by French sociologist Dominique Walton and published in 2017, Pope Francis said: “Let’s put things as they are: marriage is between a man and a woman. This is the exact term. He added: “Marriage is a historical word. Humanity has known it since time immemorial, and not only in the Church, it is between a man and a woman. We cannot change it this way.”
(Brush from France)
[ad_2]
