Strong and divided reactions in U.S. as pope backs same-sex civil unions

By Associated Press

LGBTQ Catholics and their allies in the U.S. welcomed Pope Francis’ endorsement of same-sex civil unions, the first time he’s done so as pontiff, while some prominent members including a bishop said Wednesday that he was blatantly contradicting church teaching.

Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence, Rhode Island, was one of the first conservative Catholic leaders to go public with criticism.

“The Pope’s statement clearly contradicts what has been the long-standing teaching of the Church about same-sex unions,” Tobin said in a statement. “The Church cannot support the acceptance of objectively immoral relationships.”

The pope’s comments came midway through a feature-length documentary, “Francesco,” that premiered Wednesday at the Rome Film Festival.

“Homosexual people have the right to be in a family. They are children of God,” Francis says in the film. “You can’t kick someone out of a family, nor make their life miserable for this. What we have to have is a civil union law; that way they are legally covered.”

Previously, when he was Archbishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, Francis endorsed civil unions for same-sex couples as an alternative to marriage, but he had never come out publicly in favor of such unions as pope, nor had any previous pontiff.

‘No ability to change teaching’

Francis “has no ability to change that teaching about the permanence and exclusivity of marriage,” said Brian Burch, president of the conservative group CatholicVote.

Rev. Donald Paul Sullins, a conservative sociology professor at the Catholic University of America, said they “directly contradict the Catholic Church’s most recent teaching on this matter.”

He cited a 2003 Vatican document, approved by St. John Paul II, which says, “The Church teaches that respect for homosexual persons cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behavior or to legal recognition of homosexual unions.”

The largest Protestant denomination in the U.S., the Southern Baptist Convention, shares the Catholic Church’s official opposition to same-sex marriage and civil unions, and several of its leaders also criticized Francis.

The comments “reveal another sign of the recklessness of this papacy and demonstrates the undermining of the truth, doctrine, and moral logic of his own church,” said the Rev. Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

“Given the influence of that church worldwide,” Mohler continued, “it will weaken Christian witness to marriage and sexuality and gender according to God’s will and God’s Word.”