Originally published in Christian Headlines
The Vatican says a new documentary that implied Pope Francis changed Catholic doctrine on same-sex couples took his words out of context and deleted a critical comment.
The documentary, Francesco, showed the pope telling an interviewer, “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.” Pope Francis also said, “What we have to create is a civil union law. That way they are legally covered.”
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But the Vatican Secretariat of State, in a note to papal representatives (“nuncios”) around the world, said the documentary had spliced together his comments from multiple questions, Catholic News Service reported.
The comments were “edited and published as a single answer without the necessary contextualisation,” the Vatican said.
In the first comment, Pope Francis was discussing the necessity of homosexuals to be accepted and loved by their families, the note said.
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The documentary cut out a quote where Pope Francis said “it is an incongruence to speak of homosexual marriage” the Vatican said, according to Reuters.
“It is clear that Pope Francis was referring to certain state provisions and certainly not the doctrine of the Church, which he has reaffirmed numerous times over the years,” the Vatican said.
The film’s director, Evgeny Afineevsky, was not granted an interview with Pope Francis but instead used comments from a 2019 interview with Mexico’s Televisa network, the Vatican said.
The Vatican note also referenced a quote from Pope Francis in 2014 in which he said, “Marriage is between a man and a woman. Secular states want to validate civil unions to regulate different situations of cohabitation, driven by the need to regulate economic aspects between people, such as ensuring health care. These are cohabitation pacts of various kinds, of which I could not list the different forms.”
Confusion continues: The heading denies that ‘the Pope opposes same-sex marriage’. In other words, the Pope approves same-sex marriage .Then in the second paragraph the Pope approves civil unions to care for same-sex couples. Paragraph six says the Pope is against homosexual marriage. Why? Because (last paragraph) “Marriage is between a man and a woman”. It seems that he is trying to find a way for same-sex couple to co-habit without calling it ‘marriage’. But this is a secular ‘solution’, incompatible with Scripture. How confused can he get? Any sin makes the sensitive conscience ‘miserable’. The truly loving way is to bring the sinner to repentance, and consider a fully wholesome heterosexual marriage (1 Corinthians 6:9-11 and v18,19).
Thank you for this article. I had read the article referred to and was taken aback at what it purported the Pope to have said. Reading the above we can rest assured that the Pope does not condone same sex marriages but has love and compassion for those struggling with same sex attraction.