In a documentary film released in October, 2020 Pope Francis made statements about same-sex civil unions which were widely reported and sometimes misinterpreted as an endorsement of same-sex marriage.
This is what the Pope actually said in the film: “Homosexual people have the right to be in a family. They are children of God and have a right to a family. Nobody should be thrown out or be made miserable over it. What we have to have is a civil union law—that way they are legally covered. I supported that.”
As journalist Colleen Dulle explained in America magazine, “The pope’s words in the film are an endorsement of civil union protections for same-sex couples, in that the pope publicly expressed support for them. But as the pope has often said, this does not mean that he believes that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry. On a number of occasions, Francis has warned against threats to the institution of marriage and described marriage as ‘between a man and a woman.’ Accepting gay family members or accommodating same-sex partnerships in civil law, he said, ‘does not mean approving of homosexual acts.’”
Subsequent to release of the documentary, the Vatican clarified the Pope’s comments in a letter to bishops throughout the world. The clarification explained that the documentary had actually combined statements made by the Pope on different occasions and in different contexts.
First and foremost, the Vatican said, the Pope “referred in a pastoral manner to the need, within the family, for a son or daughter with a homosexual orientation to never be discriminated against.”
In response to a second question, the Pope affirmed his previous support for legislation in his native Argentina legalizing same-sex unions (or "civil cohabitating" in the original Spanish). While “it is incongruent to speak of homosexual marriage,” the Pope said, “we must enact a law of civil cohabitation; they have the right to be protect legally.”
The Vatican’s clarification quoted from an interview in 2014 in which the Holy Father said "Marriage is between a man and a woman. Secular States want to justify civil unions in order to regularize the various situations of cohabitation, driven by the necessity to regularize economic matters between persons, such as ensuring health care…. This relates to various forms of cohabitation agreement [which] must be examined and evaluated, according to their circumstances."
Referring to the Pope's comments in the documentary, the clarification stated: ”It is therefore clear that Pope Francis was referring to particular State provisions, and not certainly to the doctrine of the Church, which as been reiterated on numerous occasions over the years.”
Nonetheless, the British Catholic priest and theologian James Alison, himself a gay man, said the Pope’s comments were significant “in part because the Holy Father is clearly representing such civil unions as a good and desirable thing, to be actively promoted, rather than a lesser evil. And second, because he affirms the rightness of same-sex couples forming a family and being part of the family of the church.”
In an article for U.S. Catholic magazine, Jacob Kohlhaas, a professor of moral theology at Loras College in Dubuque, said the Pope’s perspective on the issue “is unique and suggests a different moral perspective for thinking about civil unions. Previous considerations by the [Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith] identified the issues primarily as a threat to heterosexual marriage and state approval of immoral sexual behavior. Francis approaches the issue through concern for the rights and well-being of individuals within same-sex relationships.”
Although the Pope’s comments are the private view of the pope and not a reformulation of Catholic teaching, Kohlhaas wrote, they “open a door to thinking about this issue in a new way that could ultimately lead to revisions in the Catholic Church’s official position. If such revisions were to occur, they would not seem to constitute a contradiction of existing teaching but rather authentic development based on new information and additional moral considerations.”
Learn More
> The Conflict of Interpretations Over What Pope Francis Said
[Last Update: 11.11.2020]