Pope Francis on 'Convivencia Civil' and a Movie called 'Francesco'. Is there a Change in Catholic Church Teaching on Same-Sex Unions?

Polemic Paper from the year 2020 in the subject Theology - Practical Theology, Kwame Nkrumah University, course: Religious Studies, language: English, abstract: This article expands and justifies the authors view that the Pope does not say anything new nor has he re-written Catholic moral and sacramental theology on homosexuality and same-sex partnerships. The author asks two questions: Does the Pope's endorsement of same-sex unions signify a change in the Catholic Church's teaching on marriage and homosexuality? What has Pope Francis said about same-sex unions in the past? Surprisingly, the answers to both questions are fairly straightforward. Marriage is still a covenant between a man and a woman - a relationship which is open to the generation of new life. Same-sex partnerships or unions cannot be put in the same basket. The Pope suggests instead, the legal recognition of what he calls 'Convivencia civil' picked up and translated as 'civil union' by the Press. The recent papal opinions are complicated by translational challenges from Spanish to English and redaction from the unedited footage and text of the Mexican outlet Televisa to Evgeny Afineevsky's redaction of the Russian-born film director, producer and cinematographer who lives in the United States. The Pope's view is neither new nor contradictory to the perennial teaching of the Catholic. The shift is in pastoral approach to ensure the non-marginalisation of homosexual families. Pope Francis expressed the same view in 2010 when Argentina was debating same-sex marriage which he opposed. Instead, he suggested what is generally known as same-sex unions which guarantees the rights of gay people but does rise to the same doctrinal, sacramental or canonical status as the traditional heterosexual marriage between a man and a woman, freely entered into and open to the generation of new life.

Tarcisius Mukuka [Dipl. Pastoral Theol & Counselling, Dipl. Phil. & Rel. Studies, STB, SSL, PhD] is a biblical exegete by training. He holds a Licentiate in Biblical Exegesis from the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome and a doctorate in Biblical Hermeneutics from the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom. His doctoral dissertation was entitled "Orality as Casualty: Contextual and Postcolonial Analysis of Biblical Hermeneutics in Bembaland" (2014). He is currently a lecturer in Religious Studies Education at Kwame Nkrumah University in Kabwe. His research interests include postcolonialism and the Bible, gender and the Bible, religion, politics and power. He is the author of "Spoken Voice/Written Word: Negotiating How We Hear/Read the Bible" (2016) published by Lambert Academic Publishing and "In the Eye of a Very Catholic Storm" (forthcoming), by Crown Arts Publishers