{"id":51862,"date":"2020-10-23T06:00:42","date_gmt":"2020-10-23T10:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=51862"},"modified":"2020-10-22T17:12:57","modified_gmt":"2020-10-22T21:12:57","slug":"on-the-popes-endorsement-of-same-sex-civil-unions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2020\/10\/on-the-popes-endorsement-of-same-sex-civil-unions\/","title":{"rendered":"On the Pope’s Endorsement of Same-Sex Civil Unions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Pope Francis is being quoted as endorsing same-sex civil unions.\u00a0 Though this stops short of advocating same-sex sacramental marriages, this would amount to a seismic shift in Catholic moral teachings.<\/p>\n

In a recently released documentary about Pope Francis entitled Francesco <\/em>by\u00a0the Russian-American filmmaker Evgeny Afineevsky, the pontiff\u00a0says this:<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cHomosexuals have a right to be a part of the family. They\u2019re children of God and have a right to a family. Nobody should be thrown out, or be made miserable because of it. . . .What we have to create is a civil union law. That way they are legally covered.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nTo be sure, such an off-the-cuff statement\u2013like a number of other controversial statements Pope Francis has made to journalists\u2013does not constitute an official church teaching, much less an ex cathedra<\/em> proclamation that claims the authority of papal infallibility.\n

And questions have arisen about the editing of the quotation.\u00a0 The footage appears to be taken from a 2019 interview with the Mexican broadcaster Televisa<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0 But, for whatever reason, the statement about civil unions was edited out, both when the interview was run in Mexico and when the Vatican itself released its own version.\u00a0 Then again, Afineevsky, who is himself gay, himself edited out what the Pope says next<\/a>:\u00a0 \u201cThat does not mean approving of homosexual acts, not in the least.\u201d<\/p>\n

So what is the pope endorsing?\u00a0 Celibate civil unions?\u00a0 Is the idea that romantic attachments could be given a legal sanction that would constitute a family apart from sexual activity?\u00a0 That would be an interesting innovation\u2013a new kind of family entirely\u2013though such a novel institution would raise questions of its own.\u00a0 (For example, could priests and nuns form these kinds of families, as long as they refrain from sex?\u00a0 Does this option underestimate the strength of the sexual drive?)<\/p>\n

In general, as they are currently constituted, civil unions and civil marriages are a distinction without much of a difference.\u00a0 Pretty much the only difference is that people can walk out of a civil union without going through a divorce.\u00a0 Thus, in some jurisdictions, heterosexual couples have been getting civil unions instead of civil weddings, so that if things don\u2019t work out, they can leave the relationship without the legal and economic trauma of getting a divorce.\u00a0 (How would that accord with Catholic doctrine?)<\/p>\n

As this Catholic apologist explains<\/a>, the Catholic church does<\/em> recognize civil marriages.\u00a0 Just as Protestants who convert to Catholicism do not have to get re-married, Catholics who were married by a justice of the peace are considered to be validly married.\u00a0 The apologist goes on to say that the church still cannot accept a same-sex marriage, though in accord with civil law, because, despite the name, it does not constitute an actual marriage, which in its essence must be between a man and a woman.<\/p>\n

The Catholic church is concerned with \u201cessences,\u201d not just \u201cnames,\u201d and this rejection of \u201cnominalism\u201d is foundational to Catholic thought.\u00a0 Another kind of nominalism would arise if the only difference between a \u201ccivil union\u201d and a \u201ccivil marriage\u201d is the name, as opposed to the essential relationship.<\/p>\n

Also, Catholic ethics are grounded in \u201cnatural law,\u201d not just in church dictates.\u00a0 The purpose<\/em> of sex\u2013biologically, naturally\u2013is to engender children.\u00a0 Therefore, sex that is not ordered to that end\u2013even in marriage, as in the use of contraceptives\u2013is immoral.\u00a0 And this is why homosexual sex is intrinsically, as they say, \u201cdisordered.\u201d<\/p>\n

A civil union for homosexual couples would seem to bestow at least some level of moral approval to gay sex\u2013though Pope Francis says it does not\u2013and for a civil union to constitute a family\u00a0<\/em>(without children?\u00a0 with adopted children?) would seem to set aside everything that Catholic ethicists have taught about natural law.\u00a0 This too would shake the foundations of Catholicism.<\/p>\n

But not as much as a pope<\/em> making such changes.\u00a0 Conservative Catholics are highly committed to the church\u2019s traditional teachings about sexual morality, and they are also highly committed to the authority of the papal office.\u00a0 For these to come into conflict is highly traumatic to the church\u2019s most dedicated members.<\/p>\n

Those of us who are not Catholics\u2013believing that the Bible, not a human leader, makes the most reliable authority; believing that marriage, though an icon of Christ and the Church,\u00a0 is not a sacramental creation of the church but a temporal vocation that applies to all human beings, etc.\u2013 will look at these issues differently.\u00a0 But we are at least allies with Catholics\u2013call it a kind of intersectionality of the morally marginalized\u2013when it comes to sexual morality.\u00a0 We would join with our conservative Catholic friends in wishing that Pope Francis would speak more carefully and, if he is misconstrued, to explain his position more forthrightly.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Photo:\u00a0 Pope Francis, during his visit to Korea by Korea.net \/ Korean Culture and Information Service (Photographer name), CC BY-SA 2.0 <https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-sa\/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pope Francis is being quoted as endorsing same-sex civil unions.\u00a0 Though this stops short of advocating same-sex sacramental marriages, this would amount to a seismic shift in Catholic moral teachings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":51887,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,16,33,35,47],"tags":[505,1039,1542,10163,2481,4596,10160,1954],"class_list":["post-51862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church","category-family","category-nature","category-philosophy-2","category-theology","tag-civil-unions","tag-homosexuality","tag-natural-law","tag-nominalism","tag-pope-francis","tag-roman-catholic-theology-of-marriage","tag-same-sex-civil-unions","tag-same-sex-marriage"],"yoast_head":"\nOn the Pope's Endorsement of Same-Sex Civil Unions<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Pope Francis is 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