Being civil about civil unions

POPE FRANCIS, the first and only pope from the Americas, has a reputation for doing things differently. He rides the bus, and does not live in the papal apartments.

So it is tempting to overlook the significance of Pope Francis’s latest position on same-sex couples.

“What we have to create is a civil union law. That way they are legally covered,” the pope said in a documentary which debuted in Rome on Wednesday.

“Homosexuals have a right to be a part of the family. They’re children of God and have a right to a family. Nobody should be thrown out, or be made miserable because of it.”

Those who remember Francis’s famous 2013 statement “Who am I to judge?” might see little that as groundbreaking.

However, the remarks go much further, given their specific focus.

The pope received considerable push-back after his 2013 comment from his own bishops. Diluting church doctrine. Reversing church teaching. Speaking recklessly. Such were his sins in their eyes.

Perhaps, given this, Francis never changed official church doctrine. Indeed, there is little sign the latest soundbites will change the church’s teachings.

But if the water has not exactly turned to wine, the miracle is nonetheless the shift in the bigger picture.

The pope’s statement reverberates well beyond the confines of the Holy See. “Pope Francis, the Anti-Trump of our Age” was a headline in the Washington Post on Friday. With a conservative wing of the RC Church in the US remaining influential, the ideological wars there are undoubtedly part of the backdrop.

But there is a wider context, a global moment, into which Francis has thrown his hat.

The international conversation about repealing homophobic colonial-era laws continues.

Close to home, the Barbados government has joined a list of countries willing to acknowledge civil unions – which explicitly give gay people legal standing in key respects.

Even traditionally Catholic nations like Italy, Ireland and Argentina have permitted such unions in recent years.

This year, rancour over the failure to extend explicit protection under the law to gay couples, and a general election campaign in which homophobia was condoned and weaponised against candidates, demonstrate how live the issue is, even if legal advances are for the moment confined to court.

Churches – which get huge grants from the State, as we saw during the covid19 lockdown – might have a right to define marriage within their walls.

But why should such private notions hold sway over the State and the legislature?

Pope Francis may not have promulgated new canon law. But at the very least he has, by returning to and refining the issue, powerfully shifted the tone.