‘Other’ children of God and crisis within Catholic Church: What Pope Francis’ pro-homosexual union advice means

Pope Francis has sent his ‘devout’ flock into a tizzy, by allegedly endorsing homosexual unions. Mind you, not marriage but mere unions. “They’re (LGBTQIA individuals) children of God and have a right to a family. Nobody should be thrown out, or be made miserable because of it,” Francis reportedly says in a new documentary film, Francesco, that was screened this week at the Rome Film Festival. “What we have to have is a civil union law; that way they are legally covered.” The Kerala Catholic Bishop Council immediately issued a statement trashing the news.

The Pope is generally held to entertain more liberal views than any of his predecessors, though after having signalled greater acceptance for homosexuality, he once remarked that it was “fashionable” and recommended that men with this “deep-seated tendency” shouldn’t be considered for priesthood. But, the fact also is that his endorsement of civil unions for homosexuals—with the same legal rights as those exist for heterosexual marriages but without social/religious sanctification as marriage—comes at a time of great crisis for the Catholic Church. With the Church rocked in many countries by child sexual abuse, alleged rape and sexual abuse of nuns, homosexuality among the clergy, support for less-than-democratic political regimes, the faith of many has been shaken, and the number of adherents has been declining. Against such a backdrop, Francis’s “progressive” stand would undoubtedly help assuage those liberal Catholics who would like to see the Church keep up with the times without compromising with core morals. With many denominations offering a reconciliation between their values and their faith, the Catholic Church now must fight to keep them.