What do the pope's “benevolent” statements towards LGBT people change?

Pope Francis during a speech.

(archives) -

• Pope Francis said Wednesday he was in favor of civil unions for lesbian and gay couples.

  A first for the head of the Catholic Church.

• Since his election in 2013, François has made several benevolent statements towards LGBT people.

• If we are far from a change in the doctrine of the Church, believing LGBT people hope to see some changes in the future.

A Head of State in favor of a civil union for same-sex couples?

Yes, but he is also the head of religion for a third of the world's population: Pope Francis, head of the Catholic Church.

It is therefore a small revolution when we know to what extent Catholic doctrine - like other religions - is reluctant to recognize the rights of LGBT people.

“Homosexual people have the right to be with their family.

They are children of God, they have the right to have a family ”, declared the Argentine sovereign pontiff, in a documentary presented on Wednesday at the Rome Film Festival.

He was also, therefore, clearly in favor of civil unions (like the Pacs in France, for example) as a way of recognizing these families.

"It is undoubtedly historical", estimates with

the historian specialist of Italy, Ludmila Acone.

"We really have an assumed position, an affirmation," indicates Cyrille de Compiègne, spokesperson for the Christian LGBT association David and Jonathan.

It's not just a call for benevolence and that's new.

This marks an evolution of positions taken at the beginning of the 2000s. In 2003 again for the Vatican, it was impossible to defend civil unions for homosexual couples.

Of course, the association regrets that Pope Francis does not go further on the issue of marriage.

No changes to doctrine for a long time

Can this really change anything in Catholic doctrine?

Our interlocutors agree in thinking that we should not go so fast.

Cyrille de Compiègne even speaks of a situation that is still very tense and tense on this issue.

“The changes are very long in the Vatican, recalls Ludmila Acone.

But it is still the suspension of anathema against homosexuals.

It's a beginning.

We are not yet at the approval but we are taking the path.

"

“François makes a bet, judges the historian.

Let us not forget that he is a pope who came from elsewhere, from another continent, from another culture than that of the Roman curia.

The Pope of the New World!

It is true that Jorge Bergoglio, Pope Francis, had already given this type of speech before being elected to the Vatican in 2013. In 2010, according to his biographer, Austen Ivereigh, he had defended the idea of ​​a legal protection for lesbian and gay couples.

Argentina was then in the midst of a debate on the adoption of local marriage for all.

Debate which also ended, three years before France.

A long-term papal strategy

Since becoming pope, Francis has already made several statements, admittedly sometimes bordering on the informal, during his air trips, which can be described as “benevolent” towards LGBT people: “ If a person is gay and willingly seeks the Lord, who am I to judge them?

“, He said, in July 2013, for example.

“It caused an uproar, remembers Ludmila Acone.

But Pope Francis has multiplied benevolent, measured, spaced outings, as if he wanted to measure the impact of his statements.

It upsets the vision of the Vatican that we knew.

"

In David and Jonathan, we see in the pope's approach a strategy, which invites Catholics in particular to commit themselves against discrimination against lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgender people… Even when it comes to family issues, this is stop the civil union.

“He has an opening approach from below.

It carries a breath of openness, and it has an effect.

François opens the floor on the question, dioceses are putting things in place for homosexual people.

He said: “I prefer first of all to meet in a Christian state of mind, these people are involved in dioceses and parishes, we must change our outlook.

""

Talk about homosexuals, not homosexuality

However, Pope Francis faces a visibly much more conservative curia than him.

And a number of movements that militate against the rights of homosexuals, up to La Manif pour tous in France, claim to be Christian and Catholic.

The David and Jonathan association wants to believe that the Church is less monolithic than we like to believe on the issue of homosexuality.

"It is striking to see the cleavage between the undeniable advances that we see in the French Catholic Church and a very strong tension of the conservative fringes which maintain or even harden their positions", analyzes Cyrille de Compiègne who sees no progress on that front in the near future.

All the more so since the Pope himself is not immune to oscillations on the subject: two years ago, he advocated psychological support for children with “homosexual tendencies”.

Words condemned until the French government at the time.

"He had an unfortunate comment", judge Cyrille de Compiègne, who must recognize that if François is in a process of "listening, meeting, benevolence" with people, it is better not to approach the homosexuality in itself.

Because, "for a good number of Catholics, homosexual behavior is always considered against nature, the doctrine wants the sexual act to be reproductive, so it is a contravention vis-à-vis the doctrine", recalls Ludmila Acone.

Will the Pope decide to go further on the subject?

Society

Pope Francis in favor of a "civil union" for people of the same sex

Society

Psychiatry for homosexuals: Imprecision or traditionalist turn?

The words of Pope Francis go badly

• Society

• Church

• Catholicism

• Lgbt

• Pope Francis

• Religion

• Homosexuality