Pope Francis’s Words on Civil Unions Distorted by Editing

The media distorted Pope Francis again. I wrote an explainer.

Pope Francis in Prato, Italy in 2015 (CC BY-SA 4.0 Zebra48bo)
Pope Francis in Prato, Italy in 2015 (CC BY-SA 4.0 Zebra48bo)

On October 21, 2020, I woke up to find every news source in the world claiming Pope Francis approved civil unions. Then, when I looked at the video, I see a bunch of statements of the Pope being switched together to give a certain impression. Putting the statements together like that contradicts the Pope’s words on other occasions. Pope Francis seems to approve of civil unions in place of “gay marriages” but many might listen to the segment in the documentary and think he approves of them in an absolute way. These two are very different manners of looking at civil unions.

Update: the full transcript makes it clear that Francis “does” not just “seems to” approve of civil unions in place of “gay marriages.”

Update 2: There was an official clarification along the lines of what I said above. The English version comes from the Papal Nuncio to the USA. I posted it with a slight commentary.

Read the rest on Patheos.

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