Pope Francis came out in support of civil union laws for same-sex couples, according to a new documentary that premiered Wednesday in Rome.
“Homosexuals have a right to be a part of the family,” Francis said in “Francesco,” a new film about his life and papacy, according to Catholic News Agency. “They’re children of God and have a right to a family. Nobody should be thrown out, or be made miserable because of it.”
“What we have to create is a civil union law,” the pope continued. “That way they are legally covered. I stood up for that.”
“Francesco,” according to its website, is “a film that shows us the world as it is today and a path to understanding a better future for tomorrow, through the remarkable work of Pope Francis. It is a search for hope, humanity, compassion, unity, and redemption inside the darkness of our times.” Its trailer highlights some of the pope’s comments on the coronavirus pandemic, the environment, and clerical sex abuse, as well as his oblique condemnation of President Donald Trump’s border wall as “not Christian.”
Francis has raised eyebrows before for making comments many believed departed from millennia-old teachings of the Catholic Church regarding homosexuality, though Pope Francis was merely outlining dogma in a more public way than his predecessors. A few months into his pontificate in 2013, Francis noted that the Church makes a distinction between homosexual acts, which he maintained are sinful, and homosexual orientation, which he said is not. Regarding the rumored “gay lobby” in the Vatican, Francis responded, “If a person is gay and seeks God and has goodwill, who am I to judge?”
“The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains this very well,” Francis continued. “It says they should not be marginalized because of this but that they must be integrated into society.” He also condemned lobbying by the gay community or any community. “The problem is not having this orientation. We must be brothers. The problem is lobbying by this orientation, or lobbies of greedy people, political lobbies, Masonic lobbies, so many lobbies. This is the worse problem.”
Francis has nevertheless remained adamant that practicing gay men should not be priests. As The Daily Wire reported:
After months of seemingly avoiding the issue following the Pennsylvania grand jury report that alleged 300 predator priests molested (mostly male) victims over a 75-year period while church hierarchy covered it up, Pope Francis has given perhaps the harshest denunciation of his pontificate regarding homosexuality in the priesthood.
According to the New York Post, Pope Francis “unequivocally” stated over the weekend that “homosexual men should not be admitted into the Catholic clergy and gay priests should practice celibacy or leave the church.”
“There’s no room for that kind of affection,” Pope Francis said regarding same-sex attracted men in the priesthood.
Pope Francis made his remarks during an interview with Spanish priest Fernando Prado in which he referred to homosexuality in the priesthood as a “serious issue.”
“The issue of homosexuality is a very serious issue that must be adequately discerned from the beginning with the candidates,” Pope Francis said, according to The Guardian. “In our societies it even seems that homosexuality is fashionable and that mentality, in some way, also influences the life of the church.”
He continued: “This is something I am concerned about, because perhaps at one time it did not receive much attention.”
Related: Pope Francis Talks Tough On Gay Priests: ‘No Room For That’