Pope's civil union comments prompt hope, no change

Remarks by Pope Francis supporting same-sex civil unions revealed in a new documentary continue to prompt mixed reactions among Catholics even as more questions swirled about the comments.

All evidence suggests that Pope Francis made the remarks in a 2019 interview that was never broadcast in its entirety.

The Vatican refused to comment on whether it cut the remarks from its own broadcast or if the Mexican broadcaster that conducted the interview did. And it didn't respond to questions about why it allowed the comments to be aired now in the documentary "Francesco," which premiered Wednesday.

In the movie, which was shown at the Rome Film Festival, Francis said gay people have the right to be in a family since they are "children of God."

"You can't kick someone out of a family, nor make their life miserable for this," the pope said. "What we have to have is a civil union law; that way they are legally covered."

Those comments caused a firestorm, thrilling progressives and alarming conservatives, given official Vatican teaching prohibits any such endorsement of homosexual unions.

"The pope has repeatedly said, even in this interview I heard this interview was a year old, is he's not changing church doctrine. So he's just talking in his own kind of pastoral comments off the cuff. That's not church doctrine. That's not changing scripture or 2,000 years of history. And if I would give the pope advice, I'd say try to calm down and doing stuff like that. It's confusing to people," Mark Miloscia executive director of the conservative Family Policy Institute in Washington state and a lifelong Catholic church member.

Leo Egashira, a lifelong Catholic and a Seattle member of the LGBTQI group Dignity, says the Pope's approval of the documentary means he backs up the remarks. He sees the Pope's comments as a way to try to stem the loss of members who are disillusioned by church lagging behind in gay rights.

While serving as archbishop of Buenos Aires, Francis had endorsed civil unions for gay couples as an alternative to same-sex marriages. However, he had never come out publicly in favor of legal protections for civil unions as pope, and no pontiff before him had, either.

One of Francis' top communications advisers, the Rev. Antonio Spadaro, insisted the pope's comments were old news, saying they were made during a May 2019 interview with Mexican broadcaster Televisa.

"There's nothing new because it's a part of that interview," Spadaro told The Associated Press as he exited the premiere. "It seems strange that you don't remember."

But Televisa didn't air those comments when it broadcast the interview — nor did the Vatican when it put out its recordings of it. The broadcaster has not commented on the intrigue.

The Vatican frequently edits the pope in official transcripts and videos, especially when he speaks on sensitive issues. Yet some version of the footage was apparently available in the Vatican archives, which were opened to filmmaker Evgeny Afineevsky.

Televisa has not confirmed that the comments were made during its interview, in which the pope insisted that "I always defended doctrine," in opposing same-sex marriage in Argentina. The Televisa interview cuts there.

The documentary doesn't include that quote, but instead used a previously unpublished one about his support for a law governing same-sex civil unions, or "a law of civil cohabitation" as he called it. But the scene of the documentary is identical to the Televisa interview, including the yellow background, a chair in the corner and slightly off-center placement of the chain of Francis' pectoral cross.

The official 2019 Vatican News transcript of that interview, as well as the official Vatican edit, contains no comment on the need for legal protections for civil unions.

Further muddying the waters is the fact that Afineevsky, when pressed by reporters late Wednesday, said the pope made the comments to him directly, through a translator, but declined to say when.

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