Tablet Staff
WINDSOR TERRACE — A statement by Pope Francis in a documentary film in which he endorses civil unions for same-sex couples has generated a great deal of buzz in the Catholic Church with religious leaders coming down on both sides of the issue.
The pope made the comments in “Francesco,” a documentary directed by Russian-American, and Oscar nominee filmmaker, Evgeny Afineevsky that premiered at the Rome Film Festival on Oct. 21.
“Homosexual people have the right to be in a family. They are children of God,” Pope Francis said in the documentary. “You can’t kick someone out of a family, nor make their life miserable for this. What we have to have is a civil union law. That way, they are legally covered.”
The remarks, delivered in Spanish by the pope, generated headlines worldwide after the film’s premiere. Pope Francis is the first pope to state support for civil unions for same-sex couples publicly.
John Allen, the editor of Crux, said that there isn’t anything new about the pope’s stand on civil unions for same-sex couples despite the media hype.
“It is completely consistent with things he has said both before and after his election to the papacy. This is really the pope repeating himself,” Allen told Current News on Oct. 21.
The pontiff’s view on civil unions does not represent a change in Catholic Church doctrine, according to Allen, because there is no church doctrine on civil unions. “What the Catholic Church has a dogma about is marriage. Sacramental marriage is exclusively a relationship between a man and a woman and is permanent,” he said.
The pontiff’s statement is “no shift from doctrine whatsoever,” Allen said, adding that the church’s view is that civil unions “a civic and secular question.”
Allen said the attention surrounding the pope’s statement is mostly hype. The filmmaker “very cleverly got the pope to repeat something he has said multiple times,” he said.
According to some leaders, the pope’s statements captured on film fly in the face of church teachings against homosexuality. Others embraced the pontiff’s view.
Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence, Rhode Island, was critical of the idea of civil unions.
“The Pope’s statement clearly contradicts what has been the long-standing teaching of the Church about same-sex unions,” the bishop said in a statement in which he called same-sex unions “objectively immoral relationships.”
Father Donald Paul Sullins, a sociology professor at the Catholic University of America, told the Associated Press that the pontiff’s statements in the documentary directly contradict the church’s most recent teachings on the matter.
He pointed to a document released by the Vatican in 2003 with the approval of St. John Paul II, which advocated for respect for homosexuals while at the same time warning that such respect cannot lead to acceptance of homosexual behavior or legal recognition of same-sex unions.
But Father James Martin, a well-known priest who is the editor-at-large of the Jesuit magazine America and has advocated for more acceptance of the LGBTQ community, tweeted that the Pope’s statements are momentous.
“First, he is saying them as Pope, not Archbishop of Buenos Aires,” Father Martin tweeted. “Second, he is clearly supporting, not simply tolerating, civil unions. Third, he is saying it on camera, not privately. Historic.”
Father Martin was referring to the fact that the Pontiff had expressed support for the LGBTQ community and civic unions during his days as an archbishop in Argentina.
The pontiff’s statement is “no shift from doctrine whatsoever,” Allen said, adding that the church’s view is that civil unions “a civic and secular question.”
Allen said the attention surrounding the pope’s statement is mostly hype. The filmmaker “very cleverly got the pope to repeat something he has said multiple times,” he said.
[Related: Pope Francis Has History of Defending Marriage, but Being Open to Some Civil Unions]