Roberto de Mattei, president of the conservative Lepanto Foundation in Rome, said Wednesday that “this is perhaps the first time Pope Francis has publicly taken a stance on a specific point of morality against the church’s doctrine.” “There’s no doubt this will add to the great confusion already existing in the Catholic world,” de Mattei said, “and will be fodder for those who maintain that, at least privately, the pope promotes or supports heresy.”
A feature-length documentary on the life and teaching of Pope Francis titled 'Francesco' (2020), directed by Evegeny Afineevsky, premiered at the Rome Film Festival on October 21, 2020. It created a stir for conservatives because in this documentary, for the first time, Pope Francis made it clear that he supports the creation of civil union laws to cover the legal rights for the LGBTQ community. However, the interview was not broadcast in its entirety, and with film edits, I'm not even sure the Pope's words have been taken out of context, and been given an optimistic air.
Still, the Pope said it. Aloud. Wow. That's something. No Pope has ever put it quite like that. And definitely not the Catholic Church as a whole. Even I blinked at the Pope's words. I think that quite a number of Bishops would have collective apoplexy all of this week. Nicole Winfield for TIME noted that while the Pope doesn't endorse same-sex marriages, he makes crystal clear his stance for civil union laws,
“Homosexual people have the right to be in a family. They are children of God,” Francis said in one of his sit-down interviews for the film. “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.”
While serving as archbishop of Buenos Aires, Francis endorsed civil unions for gay couples as an alternative to same-sex marriages. However, he had never come out publicly in favor of civil unions as pope.
Singapore has a long way to go before we repeal Section 377A. It's just an embarrassing law that is severely outdated. Last I checked, we're a secular state. I can't say that we're liberals though. We might even be rather conservative. Just how so, and how much, is highly debatable. The Washington Post on October 22, 2020, sought comments and thoughts from the Catholic organizations,
“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.’ ”
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Singapore had to issue a statement today to clarify their official position in that the Pope's words have no bearing on official teaching. Okaaaay. I'm not sure how to take the church or the Pope or its priests seriously now. The Church sounds so conflicted on everything, including sexual misconduct by priests. When I say Church, I've stopped referring to it as a whole, or even Vatican-led.
In a statement, the Catholic Church said the Pope’s remarks in the film Francesco that premiered on Wednesday are “not considered or admissible as an official papal teaching”.
It added that its “constant teaching on marriage remains unchanged regardless of a civil union between two persons of the same sex approved by the State”.
And then this quote from the same statement reminds me why it's imperative that there is to be strict separation of Church and State, and an independent Constitution, and we do not follow papal laws and I don't live in the Vatican City so I don't have to adhere by the Fundamental Law of Vatican City State.
“What is legal in society is not necessarily moral or licit for Catholics in the teaching of the Church,” the statement said.
I don't know if this will temper the vitriol against the LGBTQIA community, but I'm hopeful. I'm tired of having to re-categorize 'friends' into 'acquaintances' or 'dead to me' whenever I discover them to be shockingly right-wing. And now, increasingly, I still have to deal with tedious QAnon conversations, and when undiscerning friends idiotically repeat QAnon statements insidiously inserted in Christian readings, sermons and bible study groups. Human opinions can be so divisive, and frightening. The world is so complicated now.
Francis’s comment does nothing to alter Catholic doctrine, but it nonetheless represents a remarkable shift for a church that has fought against LGBT legal rights — with past popes calling same-sex unions inadmissible and deviant.
Francis’s statement is also notable within a papacy that on the whole hasn’t been as revolutionary as progressives had hoped and conservatives had feared.
He has long expressed an interest in outreach to the church’s LGBT followers, but his previous remarks as pope have stressed understanding and welcoming rather than substantive policies.
