Pope Francis Endorses Civil Unions for Same-Sex Couples

The Roman Catholic Church did not become obsessed with opposing homosexuality until the twelfth century and even then in the 1500's there were a number of gays popes, some of whom elevated their typically much younger male love interest to the rank of bishop or even cardinal. Indeed, in the Church's first few centuries, Roman society accepted homosexuality and bisexuality as a given.  Only in the Jewish Old Testament were there passages construed to condemn homosexuality - along with eating shellfish, wearing mixed fiber fabric and a host of other things long ignored by Christians. Now, Pope Francis has signaled in a statement about civil unions for same sex couples that perhaps the Church is about to return to a more accepting and tolerant time, although he has yet to overrule the writings of Pope Benedict XVI - a/k/a the Nazi Pope - that ended up in the Catholic Church catechism and labeled same-sex relationships as "inherently disordered" - something I would argue better applies to the priestly sex abuse scandal that previous popes, cardinals and bishops sought to cover up.  A piece in the New York Times looks at Francis' statement affirming civil unions for same sex couples and the reaction from hate merchant elements within the Church:

ROME — Pope Francis expressed support for same-sex civil unions in remarks revealed in a documentary film that premiered on Wednesday, a significant break from his predecessors that staked out new ground for the church in its recognition of gay people.

The remarks, coming from the leader of the Roman Catholic Church, had the potential to shift debates about the legal status of same-sex couples in nations around the globe and unsettle bishops worried that the unions threaten what the church considers traditional marriage — between one man and one woman.

“What we have to create is a civil union law. That way they are legally covered,” Francis said in the documentary, ‘‘Francesco,’’ which debuted at the Rome Film Festival, reiterating his view that gay people are children of God. “I stood up for that.”

Many gay Catholics and their allies outside the church welcomed the pope’s remarks, though Francis’ opposition to gay marriage within the church remained absolute.

His conservative critics within the church hierarchy, and especially in the conservative wing of the church in the United States, who have for years accused him of diluting church doctrine, saw the remarks as a reversal of church teaching.

The comments shown in the film are likely to generate exactly the sort of discussion the pope has repeatedly sought to foster on issues once considered forbidden in the church’s culture wars.

Francis had already drastically shifted the tone of the church on questions related to homosexuality, but he has done little on policy and not changed teaching for a church that sees its future growth in the Southern Hemisphere, where the clerical hierarchy is generally less tolerant of homosexuality.

The remarks in the documentary were in keeping with Francis’ general support for gay people, but were perhaps his most specific and prominent on the issue of civil unions, which even traditionally Catholic nations like Italy, Ireland and Argentina have permitted in recent years.

In 2010, as Argentina was on the verge of approving gay marriage, Francis, then cardinal archbishop of Buenos Aires, supported the idea of civil unions for gay couples.

As pope in 2014, he told the Corriere della Sera, Italy’s largest newspaper, that nations legalizing civil unions did so mostly to give same-sex partners legal rights and health care benefits and that he couldn’t express a blanket position.

“You have to see the different cases and evaluate them in their variety,” he said then.

But Francis’ remarks in the documentary, explicitly supporting civil unions as pope and on camera, had the potential for much greater impact on the debate over the recognition of gay couples by the church.

“Homosexuals have a right to be a part of the family,’’ Francis says at another point in the documentary. ‘‘They’re children of God and have a right to a family. Nobody should be thrown out, or be made miserable because of it.”

“This is a major step forward in the church’s relationship with L.G.B.T.Q. people,” said Rev. James Martin a Jesuit priest who has written a book on how to make gay Catholics feel more welcome in the Church, and who has met with the pope and served as a consultor for the Vatican’s Secretariat for Communications.

“It’s going to be harder for bishops to say that same sex civil unions are a threat against marriage,” he said. “This is unmistakable support.”

Some of the pope’s most consistent critics inside the Catholic hierarchy agreed that the pope seemed to support civil unions, and they were vexed by it.

“The church cannot support the acceptance of objectively immoral relationships,” said Bishop Tobin of Providence.

[T]hose who support the church being more welcoming of gay couples were pleased by the pope’s remarks in the film.

“A pope sets the tone for the church and what he is doing is signaling to bishops and church leaders that a welcome for gay and lesbian couples has to go forward,” said Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, an organization of L.G.B.T. Catholics.

He noted that in the United States, the Supreme Court was poised to weigh whether Philadelphia may exclude a Catholic agency that does not work with same-sex couples from the city’s foster-care system. In Germany’s more liberal Catholic hierarchy, bishops had built momentum in their push to bless same-sex unions. Those deliberations and others, he hoped, would be influenced by the pope’s remarks.

“They will ripple through the church and legislatures and courts and the personal and spiritual lives of Catholics who have been waiting for years and decades for an affirming word from their church leader,” Mr. DeBernardo said. “The significance is immense.”

I will not be returning to Catholicism, but I am pleased with this development which may help lessen the misery and self-hate experienced by many LGBT Catholics.