Catholic Church

By Fr. Gerald E. Murray, The Catholic Thing - The endorsement of civil unions for same-sex couples by Pope Francis in the film Francesco, directed by Evgeny Afineevsky, is a true scandal in both the technical and popular meaning of that term. He has repudiated the teaching of St. John Paul II that “respect for homosexual persons cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behavior or to legal recognition of homosexual unions” and that the “legal recognition of homosexual unions or placing them on the same level as marriage..."

By Michael W. Chapman, CNS News - Citing Holy Scripture and the centuries-old teaching of the Catholic Church, Cardinal Raymond Burke, an American, said no Catholic is bound to support the recent statements by Pope Francis in support of gay civil unions and gay families... Catholics are instead obligated to oppose such abominations, said Burke, because they are contrary to Church teaching and they are the private opinions of Francis as a man, not as the Supreme Pontiff.

By Msgr. Charles Pope, EWTN News - Many Catholics are once again grieved that the Holy Father, Pope Francis, has chosen to indiscreetly express his personal views on a critical moral issue of our day. Regarding same-sex unions he declared: What we have to create is a civil union law. That way they are legally covered, I stood up for that... But this point must be emphasized — namely, that this is his personal view and cannot signal a change in the perennial teaching of the Sacred Scriptures and of the Church.