The note says that during a 2019 interview, the pope had answered two separate questions - asked at different moments - that in the documentary were “edited and published as a single answer without proper contextualization, which has led to confusion.” On Monday, a Vatican official confirmed its authenticity. The apostolic nuncio to Mexico, the Reverend Franco Coppola, published the unsigned note on his Facebook page on Saturday. Last week, acknowledging the “various reactions and interpretations” provoked by the pope’s apparent break from his predecessors, the Vatican Secretary of State sent an explanatory note to its nuncios, or ambassadors, to be shared with bishops, “with the desire to favor an appropriate understanding of the words of the Holy Father.”
In the documentary, he reiterated his view that gay people are “children of God,” and said: “What we have to create is a civil union law. The pope’s remarks made headlines last month after they appeared in the documentary “Francesco,” at its Oct. ROME - The Vatican has confirmed the pope’s remarks on gay couples deserving civil protections as it sent an explanatory note to bishops underlining that Francis’s comments did not mark a change in church doctrine.