Pope Francis defends Fiducia Supplicans, and gives his endorsement to civil unions, in his forthcoming autobiography.
In excerpts from Life: My Story Through History, posted on the Vatican News site, the Pontiff defended the “blessings for irregular couples” suggested in the controversial Vatican directive. He added: “And if some brother bishops decide not to follow this path, it does not mean that this is the antechamber of a schism, because the doctrine of the Church is not questioned.”
Regarding civil unions, the Pope said that while homosexual relationships cannot be seen as marriages, “it is right that these people who live the gift of love can have legal coverage like everyone else.”
In other passages cited by Vatican News, the Pope said:
that the military dictatorship in his native Argentina has been responsible for “a generational suicide.”
that his difficult tenure as a Jesuit provincial in Argentina had been caused by “my authoritarian attitude, to the extent of being accused of being ultraconservative.”
that the presence of the late Pope Benedict in the role of “Pope Emeritus” had been “instrumentalized, with ideological political purposes by unscrupulous people,” to focus criticism on the current pontificate.