‘They are also children of God’: Pope Francis speaks out in favor of gay marriage

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The representative of the Catholic Church assures that homosexuals are also children of God and have the right to family

Pope Francis was first in favor of a law on civil unions for homosexuals, in the documentary “Francesco” by director Evgeny Afineevsky that premiered today at the Rome Film Festival.

Homosexuals have the right to be in a family. What should be there is a civil union law, that way they are legally covered “, says the pontiff in one of the sentences throughout the documentary.

El afiche del documental

In the two-hour event, interviews with personalities, friends of the pope, and others are mixed with trips by the pope, parts of the speeches that the pontiff has made on different occasions, off-words from Francis, and some on camera.

“I have met with him about five times, always depending on his schedule, we have also had two interviews on camera,” says the director, so it is not clear when Francisco advocates these civil unions for homosexuals, such as an alternative to a marriage that the Church rejects.

One of the interviewees is Chilean sexual abuse victim and activist Juan Carlos Cruz, who talks to the pope about these abuses and about his perception of gays.

The director of the documentary highlighted, in an interview with Efe, Francisco’s evolution in relation to the scourge of abuse and his ability to “learn from his mistakes.”

One of those mistakes, which the pope later recognized, is when in 2018 he did not believe the victims of sexual abuse by priests in Chile and asked for evidence, angry, but shortly after he asked for forgiveness, received the victims in Rome and did resign the Chilean bishops.

El Papa respalda las uniones homosexuales

“Only two months after the ‘summit of abuses’ in February 2019, the first fruits were seen, the new Vatican law that obliges to denounce them, and shortly after the pontifical secret was abolished,” Afineevsky emphasizes.

The Vatican’s position

In 2003, under the leadership of then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and under the leadership of Pope John Paul II, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith taught that “ respect for homosexual persons cannot in any way lead to the approval of homosexual behavior nor to the legalization of homosexual unions. The common good demands that the laws recognize, favor and protect the marriage union as the basis of the family, the primary cell of society ”.

“To legally recognize homosexual unions or equate them to marriage, would mean not only approving deviant behavior and making it a model for today’s society, but also obscuring fundamental values ​​that belong to the common heritage of humanity. The Church cannot stop defending such values, for the good of men and of all society, “added the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, warning that the support of politicians for such unions is” gravely immoral. “

“ Homosexual unions do not fulfill, even in a remote analog sense, the tasks for which marriage and the family deserve specific and qualified recognition. On the contrary, there are sufficient reasons to affirm that such unions are harmful to the proper development of human society, especially if their effective impact on the social fabric increases, ”the document reads.

Papa Francisco dice que leyes de unión civil deberían cubrir a homosexuales

These are the clearest words of Francis on this subject since he was elected Pope

Francisco’s words appear in a moment that the documentary tells of the experience of Andrea Rubera, a homosexual Roman who has three children with his partner. Rubera wrote a letter to the Pope to tell him that he wanted to send his children to the parish, but was afraid that they might be discriminated against or have trauma. Days later, the Pontiff called him saying that the letter was precious, and encouraging the couple to take the children to the parish. “He told me please, take your children to church, be transparent about your family, it will be good for them although not everyone will agree with a family of this type,” says Rubera in the documentary. “His message and his advice were really useful because we did exactly what he told us – he continues – The Pope never said what his opinion was about my family,

The change in attitude of the Vatican towards homosexual people was evident since Francis, in the first year of his pontificate, responded by returning from Brazil his now famous “Who am I to judge them?” When Italy debated the law on civil unions, passed in 2016, its silence was revealing. However, the papal biographer Austen Ivereigh has remarked that the Pope’s words in the documentary are the clearest he has used since his election to the conclave more than seven years ago.

The rights of gay people have always been a taboo for the Roman curia. Jesuit priest James Martin, determined to build bridges with the gay community, celebrated Francis’s statements as “a great step on the road towards the Church’s support for the LGBT community” because “they send a strong message to the places where the Church has opposed this type of law ”.

Source: nytimes.com, infobae.com

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