Plot thickens over origins of pope’s civil union endorsement
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Questions swirled Thursday about the origins of Pope Francis’ bombshell comments endorsing same-sex civil unions, with all evidence suggesting he made them 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.
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unpublished one about his support for a law governing same-sex civil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.
When The Associated Press interviewed Afineevsky on Oct.
14, the director was asked if he realized at the time that Francis’
comments were going to grab headlines.
Afineevsky dodged the
question about the origin of the quote and seemed to not appreciate its
significance. But he said that he hoped journalists would take more away
from the film.
“If journalists will be focusing on this movie
only on that, then it will be a pity,” he said. “But I think that’s one
of the issues that our world needs to understand, that we’re all equal.”
The
head of the Vatican communications branch, Paolo Ruffini, refused to
speak to reporters who attended an award ceremony Thursday in the
Vatican gardens for Afineevsky, and the director himself kept his
distance.
The Catholic Church teaches that gay people must be
treated with dignity and respect but that homosexual acts are
“intrinsically disordered.” A 2003 document from the Vatican’s doctrine
office stated the church’s respect for gay people “cannot lead in any
way to approval of homosexual behavior or to legal recognition of
homosexual unions.”
Doing so, the Vatican reasoned, would not only
condone “deviant behavior,” but create an equivalence to marriage,
which the church holds is an indissoluble union between man and woman.
Afineevsky,
who is gay, had expressed surprise after the premiere that the pope’s
comments had created such a stir, saying Francis wasn’t trying to change
doctrine but was merely expressing his belief gay people should enjoy
the same rights as heterosexuals.
On Thursday, he declined to
take any further questions and sought to put attention on the main
issues dealt with in the film: climate change, refugees and poverty.
“I am so proud that finally ‘Francesco’ is on its way to the road to change hearts and minds,” he said at the prize ceremony in the Vatican gardens. “Finally, I am happy that I can bring voices from the Rohingya refugees, refugees from Syria, the voices of victims of sexual abuse, voices from different points from different corners of the world.”
Associated Press journalist Trisha Thomas contributed.