#BTEditorial – When the Pope says yes to gay unions

The dramatic declaration today by Head of the Catholic Church Pope Francis has added a new dimension to the raging debate here in Barbados about the planned changes to the law allowing for same-sex unions.

The disclosure from the Pontiff, of all religious leaders, took the world by surprise given the traditional and institutional position of the Catholic Church to matters of sexual interaction.

His expression of support for same-sex civil unions during remarks he made in a documentary that premiered today, represents a significant break from his predecessors and it staked out new ground for the church in its recognition of gay people.

The Pope, who is now easily the most liberal in the church’s history, said in the documentary: “What we have to create is a civil union law. That way they are legally covered . . . . I stood up for that.” This clearly reiterated his view that gay people are children of God.

Those who have followed this Pope since his election in 2013 would have recognised that he was going to be very different from his predecessors. He was much younger, he was from South America, he had a penchant for designer shoes, and he took a very decisive stand against peodophile priests whose actions over the years have stained the image of the Catholic Church.

While no study has been undertaken to garner the views of Catholics in Barbados on the subject of homosexuality, gay civil unions or gay marriage, we suspect that the global church’s stand will take some time to resonate with local members.

Just last weekend, Christians from various denominations took to our streets to condemn the current administration’s plan to embrace same sex unions in Barbados. The local Christian community, while rejecting discrimination against gays, just cannot wrap their arms around the concept of gay unions, gay marriage or even the act of gay sexual relations.

Are Barbadians out of step with the evolving stand on this very personal yet public issue?

Not so. For conservative critics of Pope Francis, particularly those in the United States have already started their cries that the Pope was again diluting church doctrine and that his comments contradicted the church’s teaching.

Some say the Pope gets particular delight from offering provocative and sometimes off-the-cuff comments like the ones he made in the documentary entitled Francesco, at the Rome Film Festival.

Interestingly, Pope Francis has been accused of doing more pandering than actually taking action to effect real change in the church. As one critic put it: “Francis has already drastically shifted the tone of the church on questions related to homosexuality, but he has done little on policy and not changed doctrine, leading even some of his more liberal supporters to question whether he was mostly talk.”

It added: “Whether the new remarks will have any bearing on policy is another matter, especially in a church that sees its future growth in African, South American and Asian countries that are less tolerant of homosexuality.”

It was also noted that at an extraordinary February 2019 meeting of international church leaders at the Vatican to discuss sexual abuse by some clerics, bishops from those regions reportedly frustrated some Vatican officials, and more liberal bishops from Western Europe, because they linked peodophilia with homosexuality.

For the feminists around the world including those in the Caribbean who have closely followed the postures of the Catholic Church on matters such as divorce, women’s reproductive health and their right to terminate unwanted pregnancies, the Catholic leadership has remained staunchly conservative on these issues.

Women in the United States, for example, are still fighting for the right to have safe abortions, and to have contraceptives covered by the health care plans. And so it is not far fetch that feminists may want to call on the Catholic Church to relook its position on issues that affect women.

Just last month the Pope said in an interview with writer Carlo Petrini for his book TerraFutura that sex and food were “simply divine” pleasures that arrived “directly from God”.

Furthermore, the Pontiff condemned his own church’s past views on simple pleasures such as food and sex, calling it “overzealous morality” that had “caused enormous harm, which can still be felt strongly today”.

We find the new position of this modern Pope most interesting and await the response of Catholics across the world to this latest Papal departure from tradition.