“This is the first time as pope he’s making such a clear statement,” the Rev. James Martin, a prominent Jesuit who has advocated for the church to more openly welcome LGBT members, said in a phone interview Wednesday. “I think it’s a big step forward. In the past, even civil unions were frowned upon in many quarters of the church. He is putting his weight behind legal recognition of same-sex civil unions.”
In “Francesco,” a documentary that touches on several of the pope’s trademark issues, from migration to the environment, Francis does not indicate any openness to extending marriage to same-sex couples, but says “homosexuals have a right to be a part of the family.”
“They’re children of God and have a right to a family,” the pope says in his interview with the filmmaker, Evgeny Afineevsky. “Nobody should be thrown out, or be made miserable because of it.”
“This is huge,” said David Gibson, director of Fordham University’s Center on Religion and Culture. “Looking behind all this, [Francis is] basically saying, again, ‘We’re not out here to be culture warriors. We’re not out here to pick fights. We are out here to build up the family.’ ”
Officially, the church teaches that homosexual sex acts are “disordered.” Francis’s predecessor, Benedict XVI, called homosexuality an “intrinsic moral evil.” In 2003, under John Paul II, the church issued a lengthy document laying out the “problem of homosexual unions.” The document, issued by the Vatican’s doctrinal office, said that “legal recognition of homosexual unions or placing them on the same level as marriage” would amount to “the approval of deviant behaviour.”
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