Vatican Clarifi es Francis’ Comments on Civil Unions
Nothing to see here, Secretariat of State argues, saying no change in view of gay sex
BY PAUL SCHINDLER
The Vatican, over the past
week, moved to clarify
comments by Pope
Francis in which he
endorsed civil union laws and appeared
to defend the right of samesex
couples to form families.
According to Reuters, the Vatican
Secretariat of State, in an
“explanatory note” to its ambassadors
around the world, argued
that Francis’ comments, which appeared
in the documentary “Francesco”
that premiered at a Rome
fi lm festival on October 21, were
taken out of context and did not
signal a change in Church doctrine
on gay and lesbian people or
on marriage equality.
That note from the Vatican was
then shared with bishops, and was
fi rst reported by Austen Ivereigh, a
papal biographer. Since then, the
Vatican ambassador to Mexico has
shared it on Facebook, and the
Vatican verifi ed its authenticity on
November 2.
The Vatican asserts that Francis’
comments in the fi lm — which
director Evgeny Afi neevsky found
in unaired footage from a 2019 interview
with the pope by Mexico’s
Televisa — spliced together responses
to two different questions
and omitted critical portions of his
answers.
According to the Catholic News
Agency, Francis, in the fi lm, said,
➤ CHURCH & STATE, from p.12
representing LGBTQ youth organizations
in their amicus brief in the
case, said that she hoped Catholic
Social Services would “take seriously
the guidance from the Pope.”
But she said the high court justices
“should not be affected” by the pronouncements
of Francis any more
that by those of the more conservative
Pope Benedict XVI.
Father Bernárd Lynch, an out
gay priest, therapist, and theologian,
now lives in his native Catholic
Ireland where abortion and
same-sex marriage were legalized
The Vatican has now put out an “explanatory note” contextualizing comments about civil unions and
same-sex families that Pope Francis is seen making in a new fi lm.
““Homosexuals have a right to be a
part of the family. They’re children
of God and have a right to a family.
Nobody should be thrown out, or
be made miserable because of it.”
The Vatican’s explanatory note
stated that Francis was talking
about the rights of gay and lesbian
people to be accepted by their own
families, not to form families – perhaps
with children — themselves.
The note also pointed to the
omission of a key phrase in Francis’
comments to Televisa — that
“it is an incongruence to speak of
homosexual marriage.”
“It is clear that Pope Francis
was referring to certain state provisions
and certainly not the doctrine
by referendum, but he pointed out
that doesn’t mean people have to
believe they are “moral.” He added,
“What the pope says is important,
but is not ‘the word of God.’”
Lynch said he would say to
Catholic Social Services, “You have
no right to impose your morality on
anybody. You are bound by the law
of the land.” He added that when
religious people start saying they
are not bound by civil law, “there’s
no difference between that and
Sharia law.”
Separation of church and state
had been a longstanding American
principle and quality — allowing
VATICAN HANDOUT VIA REUTERS
of the Church, which he has
reaffi rmed numerous times over
the years,” read the note from the
Vatican Secretariat of State.
To a certain degree, the Vatican
exaggerated the degree to
which Francis’ comments might
have been misconstrued. Nobody
thought that the pope had endorsed
marriage equality in his
statement — and reporting in October
also noted that he had signaled
support for civil unions instead
of marriage equality in 2010
as Argentina debated the issue,
while he was archbishop of Buenos
Aires. The LGBTQ community and
its allies have for decades made a
clear distinction between marriage
organized religion to thrive in
contrast to the ways in which it
has withered in many countries
in Europe with state religions. An
increasingly conservative Supreme
Court has been chipping away at
that separation in recent years —
most startlingly in its 2014 Hobby
Lobby ruling that found that the
closely held private company could
claim a religious exemption from
complying with the contraceptive
coverage requirements of the Affordable
Care Act.
Evan Wolfson, pioneer in the
fi ght for same-sex marriage since
the 1980s and counsel in this case
RELIGION
equality and civil unions.
The distinction over whether
Francis was endorsing the right of
same-sex couple to form families
or simply bolstering the dignity of
gay and lesbian people within their
biological families of birth is more
signifi cant. It is likely in that context
that the Vatican argued that
the pope’s statement signaled no
change in Church doctrine about
gay people.
Francis’ predecessor, Pope Benedict
XVI, in a letter titled “The Pastoral
Care of Homosexuals” that
he wrote on behalf of Pope John
Paul II decades before he himself
became pontiff, said gay people’s
inclinations are not sinful, but “it
is a more or less strong tendency
ordered toward an intrinsic moral
evil and thus the inclination itself
must be seen as an objective disorder.”
Though Francis, throughout
his papacy, has hinted at a more
accepting view of gay and lesbian
people, he has shown considerably
less understanding of transgender
people.
A 2017 book entitled “Politics
and Society” quotes the pope as
saying that the concept of marriage
equality arises out of “gender
ideology. In books also, children
are learning that they can choose
their own sex. Why is sex, being a
woman or a man, a choice and not
a fact of nature? This favors this
mistake.
for the National Women’s Law Center
and 35 additional organizations
that fi led an amicus brief, said,
“You are entitled to believe what
you want. The problem is that you
can’t have law where everyone gets
to impose their own religious beliefs
— or beliefs cloaked in religion
— as a special exemption from following
the law.
Wolfson worries about Justices
Barrett, Samuel Alito, and Clarence
Thomas. “They are intolerant
and extreme” on these issues, he
said. “But we have to be hopeful. If
we lose this case we have to keep
fi ghting.
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