Ten days after the controversy sparked by the pope's outspoken support for "
civil unions
" for gay couples, the Vatican came out of its silence to specify in an internal note that Francis had in no way questioned the dogma of marriage between a man and woman.
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In an internal note sent at the end of the week to his only ambassadors ("nuncios"), the Secretariat of State - the highest administration of the Vatican - insisted on the fact that the Pope had not changed the doctrine of Catholic Church.
"
It is obvious that Pope Francis made reference to certain state provisions, certainly not to the doctrine of the Church, often reaffirmed over the years
", according to the note, published in particular by the nuncio in Mexico, the archbishop Franco Coppola.
In “
Francesco
”, a documentary presented on Wednesday November 21 at the Rome Film Festival, Pope Francis had defended “
a law of civil union
” for homosexual people, who have “
the right to be legally covered
”.
“
Homosexual people have the right to be with their family.
They are children of God, they have the right to have a family,
”the Sovereign Pontiff also declared in this documentary directed by Evgeny Afineevsky.
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The pope's words - actually a montage of two previously unreleased excerpts from a 2019 Mexican television interview - raised concerns among some traditionalist Catholics that the pope was in favor of gay marriage.
The ultra-conservative German cardinal Gerhard Müller - ex-guardian of dogma at the Vatican retired by the Pope in 2017 - claimed to have received hundreds of calls from "
disturbed
"
faithful
.
"
The Pope is not above the word of God,
" he attacked in Corriere della Sera the day after the documentary came out.
In its note to the nuncios, the Secretary of State judges that the editing of the documentary, which does not include the questions put to the Pope, could "
cause confusion
".
