Pope Francis’ remarks on civil union legislation in a documentary last month were taken out of context and did not indicate a shift in Church doctrine on homosexuality or approval for same-sex marriage, the Vatican reported in a statement.
The documentary, Francesco, premiered on October 21 at the Rome Film Festival. It made news for a statement in which the Pope claims that homosexuals have the privilege to be in a family. Also, there should be civil union laws to protect homosexuals.
The Pope’s remarks, as depicted, attracted praise from the liberals and called for an immediate explanation from the conservatives.
But last week, the Vatican Secretariat of State provided guidelines to its ambassadors across the globe. This comes as an attempt to clarify the Pope’s comments.
It alleged that the documentary pieced together sections of an old interview. It was thereby deleting the background and questions of the interviewer.
“More than a year earlier, during an interview, Pope Francis addressed two separate questions at two different times. There were both edited and released in the above-mentioned documentary as a single response without sufficient contextualization. Therefore, contributing to misunderstanding, the guidance reads.
Before the film premiere, producer Evgeny Afineevsky assured reporters that he had interviewed the Pope. He reiterated after the premiere that the video emerged from an interview with the Pope with an interpreter in attendance.
However, the remarks seem to come from an interview with Mexican network Televisa in May 2019. Besides, the interview never aired. However, the Vatican did not confirm or refute it – it only said that the comments had been taken from an interview in 2019.
Pope Francis said in the interview that homosexual persons have the right to be in a family. They are children of God who have a right to a home.
PopeFrancis did not endorse same-sex civil union
The Vatican report claimed that the remarks applied to parents of homosexual children and that they did not deserve to suffer discrimination.
Francis did not endorse the right of gay couples to adopt children. Meanwhile, the location of the quote in the documentary made it appear as he did.
Pope Francis addressed a separate question later in the 2019 interview by saying: All we have to build is a law of civil union. The constitution protects them in that sense. I stand up for that.
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The guidance notes that Pope Francis when he was Archbishop of Buenos Aires, clarified his stance in 2010. He rejected same-sex marriage but welcomed expanding gay couples’ legal protection.
The documentary leaves out clips from the same interview in which Francis said talking about gay marriage is an incongruity.
“It is evident that Pope Francis referred to some provisions of the State, and definitely not the Church’s doctrine. Besides, he has consistently reasserted this through the years,” the Vatican note reported.
The remarks made by Francis generated controversy in part because the Vatican Doctrine Office released a paper in 2003 banning the recognition of civil unions.
