Vatican Clarifies that Statements by Pope Francis in Film were Taken Out of Context - The Pope had affirmed “Marriage is between a man and a woman." - FULL TEXT Release

At the request of the Holy Father, the Secretariat of State of the Vatican, (Cardinal Parolin) has prepared an explanatory document (in Italian) in response to the release of the documentary entitled, Francesco. The document clarifies the context of certain statements made by His Holiness and contained in the documentary.Here below is the CCCB’s (Canadian Catholic Bishops) unofficial translation in English. The original words in Spanish were not translated because they are textual in the documentary. 

Some statements, contained in the documentary “Francesco” by director Evgeny Afineevsky, have given risen to different reactions and interpretations in recent days. Therefore, here are some useful points in order to bring about, at his request, a correct understanding of the words of the Holy Father. Over a year ago, in an interview, Pope Francis answered two distinct questions at two different times which, in the aforementioned documentary, were drafted and published as a single answer without due contextualization, which led to confusion. 

The Holy Father had firstly made a pastoral reference on the need that, within the family, the son or daughter with a homosexual orientation should never be discriminated against. These are the words in reference to it: “Las personas homosexuales tienen derecho a estar en familia; son hijos de Dios, tienen derecho a una familia. No se puede echar de la familia a nadie ni hacerle la vida imposibile por eso”. The following paragraph of the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation on Love in the Family Amoris Laetitia (2016) can illuminate these expressions: 

“During the Synod, we discussed the situation of families whose members include persons who experience same-sex attraction, a situation not easy either for parents or for children. We would like before all else to reaffirm that every person, regardless of sexual orientation, ought to be respected in his or her dignity and treated with consideration, while ‘every sign of unjust discrimination’ is to be carefully avoided,276 

particularly any form of aggression and violence. Such families should be given respectful pastoral guidance, so that those who manifest a homosexual orientation can receive the assistance they need to understand and fully carry out God’s will in their lives.” (n. 250). A subsequent question in the interview was instead inherent to a local law of ten years ago in Argentina on “matrimonios igualitarios de parejas del mismo sexo" and to the opposition to it by the then Archbishop of Buenos Aires. In this regard, Pope Francis affirmed that "es una incongruencia hablar de matrimonio homosexual”, adding that, in this precise context, he had spoken of the right of these persons to have legal protection: “lo que tenemos que hacer es una ley de convivencia civil; tienen derecho a estar cubiertos legalmente. Yo defendí eso”. The Holy Father expressed himself in the following way during an interview in 2014: “Marriage is between a man and a woman. Secular States want to justify civil unions to regulate different situations of living together, driven by the need for regulate economic aspects between persons, such as ensuring health care. These are living together agreements of various kinds, of which I cannot list the different forms. It is necessary to see the different cases and evaluate them case by case”. It is therefore evident that Pope Francis was referring to particular State measures, certainly not to the doctrine of the Church, which has been reiterated numerous times over the years.

Source: Release from Archbishop Prendergast of Ottawa ( https://www.facebook.com/terrence.prendergast.5)