By J. Jala | 11:43 PM October 21, 2020
Pope Francis endorsed same-sex civil unions for the first time as pope while being interviewed for the feature-length documentary “Francesco,” which premiered Wednesday at the Rome Film Festival.
“Homosexuals have a right to be part of the family,” the Pontiff said in “Francesco,” a documentary about his life, according to the 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,” he added. “That way, they are legally covered. I stood up for that.”
One of the main characters in the documentary is Juan Carlos Cruz, the Chilean survivor of clergy sexual abuse whom Francis initially discredited during a 2018 visit to Chile.
“They’re children of God and have a right to a family.”-Pope Francis
Cruz, who is gay, said that during his first meetings with the pope in May 2018, Francis assured him that God made Cruz gay. Cruz tells his own story in snippets throughout the film, chronicling both Francis’ evolution on understanding sexual abuse as well as to document the pope’s views on gay people.
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.
Directed by Oscar-nominated Evgeny Afineevsky, a Russia-born Jew, “Francesco” depicts Francis as the great connector, placing him at the heart of a narrative that casts a wide net over some of the world’s most pressing problems.
The documentary tackles other topical issues such as the growing rich-poor gap, racism, climate change, sexual abuse, migration, human trafficking, political polarization and relations between Christians, Muslims and Jews.
It also highlights the fact that he completely misjudged the scale and severity of the Church’s sexual abuse crisis, and that he later publicly recognized his mistake and apologized. With reports from AP, USA Today
