No Pope Francis didn't say that gay relationships are ok

 In a new movie the Pope's position on active homosexuality is grossly misrepresented.

The Vatican has confirmed that in fact the Pope did say:

“What we have to create is a civil union law. That way they are legally covered. I stood up for that.”

But like Pope Francis's comment on divorce and remarriage this comment needs to be understood in context.

In the case of divorce and remarriage the Pope has explained that he was referring to very unusual cases where a woman divorces her husband, remarries, has children with the new "husband", but then decides that what she's doing is wrong and decides that she and her new "husband" must live as brother and sister without marital relations.  However her new "husband" basically threatens her with death or violence if she refuses to have relations with him and she has no way to protect her life and the lives of her children if she doesn't do what he wants.  In that case she may be able to receive Communion because she is effectively being raped; she's not actually freely consenting to the sin.  But that's not an assured thing; a priest has to work with her and see if in fact there is no way for her to leave.

The case of civil unions is similar.  Here's what the Pope posted at the time he endorsed civil unions:

"...in fact there are very close unions between people of the same sex, which do not in themselves imply sexual relations, but a very intense and stable alliance. They know each other thoroughly, they share the same roof for many years, they take care of each other, they sacrifice for each other. Then it may happen that they prefer that in an extreme case or illness they do not consult their relatives, but that person who knows their intentions in depth. And for the same reason they prefer that it be that person who inherits all their assets, etc. This can be contemplated in the law and is called ‘civil union’ [unión civil] or ‘law of civil coexistence’ [ley de convivencia civil], not marriage.” "

The key thing here is that the Pope is saying what the Church has always taught. Two men who are in love can live together so long as they don't engage in sexual acts. 

Of course the problem, as with many of Pope Francis's comments, is that he makes a what appears to be a sweeping statement, "I supported civil unions", without in the same sentence mentioning the details of when he thinks they are ok.

Whether it's because he's an incurable optimist who believes any signifiant fraction of gay couples live together chastely or because he is a bad communicator his words can be misconstrued to mean something he didn't say.

He most certainly wasn't saying that sexually active gay couples, who are rarely monogamous, are living a life conformed to Christ that society should approve of.

No he was saying that in certain rare instances there are heroic gay people who live out Christ's call to chastity who should have the right to have their "partner" have the ability to make decisions for them.

Hence nothing the Pope said is in fact in contradiction with Church teaching.

However his prudential judgement, should the Church support civil unions when only a tiny fraction of them meet his criteria, is incorrect.  It's important for non-Catholics to realize that Catholics think that while we should listen to the Pope on prudential matters his expertise and authority is in moral and theological matters not prudential ones.

For example in this case he has a special authority to say that only gay relationships that are chaste, ie no sex, are acceptable but he has no special authority when talking about whether or not civil unions for gay couples should be legalized.

There is another problematic "quote" from Francis in the documentary which says:

“Homosexuals have a right to be a part of the family. They’re children of God and have a right to a family. Nobody should be thrown out, or be made miserable because of it.”

While the Pope did say those words he didn't say them together or even in that order. Here's the full quote:

“I was asked a question on a flight - after it made me mad, made me mad for how one news outlet transmitted it - about the familial integration of people with homosexual orientation, and I said, homosexual people have a right to be in the family, people with homosexual orientation have a right to be in the family and parents have the right to recognize that son as homosexual, that daughter as homosexual. Nobody should be thrown out of the family, or be made miserable because of it.”

“Another thing is, I said when you see some signs in the children and from there send them to - I should have said a ‘professional,’ what came out was ‘psychiatrist.’ I meant to say a professional because sometimes there are signs in adolescence or pre-adolescence that they don’t know if they are homosexually oriented or if it is that the thymus gland didn’t atrophy in time. Who knows, a thousand things, no? So, a professional. The title of the daily paper: ‘The Pope sends homosexuals to the psychiatrist.’ It’s not true!”

“They asked me the same question another time and I repeated it, ‘They are children of God, they have a right to a family, and such.’ Another thing is - and I explained I was wrong with that word, but I meant to say this: When you notice something strange - ‘Ah, it’s strange.’ - No, it’s not strange. Something that is outside of the usual. That is, not to take a little word to annul the context. There, what I said is that they ‘have a right to a family.’ And that doesn’t mean to approve of homosexual acts, not at all.”

Taken in context it's obvious that when Pope Francis is referring to a family he's not talking about a family of two gays but of the family of the gay person and their parents.  He's saying that parents shouldn't throw gay children out of their family but work with love and compassion to help their afflicted children live a life in conformance to God's will.

Suffering from same sex attraction is not itself sinful and while living the gay lifestyle is so is having any form of sex outside of marriage. Hence parents should no more kick their children who suffer from same sex attraction out of the family than they should a boy who has sex with girls who he isn't married to.  Sin is sin and we're all sinners so that we must love our children even though they sin not toss them out as garbage. But precisely because we love them we must work to get them to abandon their sinful ways for their own sake because all sin hurts us in this life as well as the next.

Note too that the Pope is very clear in his last sentence that he is in no way saying that homosexual acts can be morally acceptable. The deliberately butchered quote is designed to make you think that the Pope is defending the gay lifestyle when in fact he's clearly condemning it because massive promiscuity and any form of sex outside of marriage between one man and one woman hurts us.