In a documentary first broadcast in Rome on Wednesday, Pope Francis openly advocated civil union for same-sex couples.
"They have the right to a family", notably defended the sovereign pontiff.
Le Parisien takes stock of this papal position, which is already causing much ink to flow.
What exactly did Pope Francis say?
Russian director Evgeny Afineevsky's documentary "Francesco" premiered on Wednesday as part of the Rome International Film Festival.
According to AFP, Pope Francis addresses, in undated interviews in Spanish, several key episodes of the first seven years of his pontificate.
He evokes in particular his meetings, regular, with homosexual people.
The documentary then gives the floor to a gay man, in a relationship, who had written to Pope Francis to discuss with him the question of the integration of his three children in his parish.
The Pope then called him to advise him to be transparent about his choice of life.
It is after this sequence that the Sovereign Pontiff releases these little sentences, which have already made a lot of noise.
Here they are, in Spanish: "Las personas homosexuales tienen derecho a estar en una familia."
His hijos de Dios, tienen derecho a una familia.
No se puede echar de una familia a nadie, nor hacerle la vida imposible por eso.
Lo que tenemos que hacer es una ley de Convivencia Civil, tienen derecho a estar cubiertos legalmente.
Yo defendí eso.
"
Here is their literal translation in French: “Homosexual people have the right to be in a family.
They are children of God, they have the right to a family.
You cannot kick someone out of a family or make their life impossible for that reason.
What we need to do is a civil union law because they have the right to legal coverage.
This is what I defended.
"
In what context were these sentences pronounced?
It should be remembered that this interview was not granted to the Russian director.
The latter actually unearthed the rushes of a river interview that the sovereign pontiff had granted to the Mexican journalist Valentina Alazraki, the Vatican correspondent for the Noticieros Televisa channel.
But the sentence on the civil union of homosexuals had not been selected for editing, broadcast in February 2019 and available on YouTube.
Is this the first time that François has made such remarks?
Not really.
According to his biographer Austen Ivereigh, Jorge Bergoglio, then Archbishop of Buenos Aires, had defended the merits of civil union during heated debates in 2010 on the legalization of same-sex marriage.
After his election, François had mentioned this notion of legal protection on several occasions, without rejecting it.
But today, "it is the first time that Pope Francis has formulated his position so clearly", underlines the historian of religions Jean-François Colosimo, also director of the editions of Le Cerf.
On many occasions, the Sovereign Pontiff has shown openness towards homosexuals, pleading in favor of their welcome in the Church.
"If a person is gay and seeks the Lord with good will, who am I to judge them?"
», Declared the pope in the plane which brought him back from his first trip, to Brazil, in July 2013. This little phrase had provoked the fury of the most conservative branch of the Church.
Are these words revolutionary?
The pope's plea in favor of civil union is a very clear step forward compared to the official document of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of 2003. Signed at the time by Cardinal Ratzinger, future Pope Benedict XVI, this text opposed the legal recognition of same-sex unions, which would amount to “approving deviant behavior”.
More recently, during the 2014 Synod on the Family, legal recognition of same-sex couples was proposed, but was ultimately not retained.
“This proposal had ignited the powder.
Pope Francis is therefore returning today to an old stumbling block in the Vatican, ”recalls journalist Arnaud Bédat, author of numerous books on Francis.
Even if in fact, many priests - especially in Spain and Germany - have already spoken in favor of civil union, for this Vaticanist, the chances are slim that one day this papal position will be engraved in stone. , via an encyclical or other reference text.
“This sentence has not received the Vatican's Imprimatur.
Finally, François relaunches a small probe, which could very well end in backpedaling.
The real revolution would be for him to accept marriage for same-sex couples, ”he said.
However, the Pope has always spoken firmly against homosexual marriage, which he even considers a "serious setback", in line with the dogma of the Church.
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For Christian Terras, the director of the progressive Catholic review Golias, on the contrary, this papal position on free union is “revolutionary”: by recognizing homosexuals “the right to a family”, Francis “recognizes them, somewhere , a right to filiation ”. “It recognizes same-sex couples as a whole family. A family free to have children, who can enter the Church. No pope had taken this position on the conception of the family. It's an earthquake, ”he enthuses. “This is a huge step that will free a number of people who may be hesitant about how they view same-sex couples. In a way, we move from compassion to liberation. "
