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# On 30 October the Secretariat of State of the Vatican sent bishops around the world this letter on the Pope's words about civil unions for same-sex couples
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/30-oktiabria-gosudarstvennyi-sekretariat-vatikana-razoslal-episkopam-mira-takoe-pismo-o-slovakh-papy-o-grazhdanskikh-soiuzakh-dlia-gomoseksualnykh-par/
- Published: 2020-11-02T09:03:42.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:42:02.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Faith, Society, Rome

On 30 October the Secretariat of State of the Vatican sent bishops around the world this letter on the Pope's words about civil unions for same-sex couples. The text states outright that the statement as presented in Afineevsky's film is, firstly, stitched together from two different remarks by Francis, recorded more than a year ago as answers to two different questions, but in the film they have been EDITED and presented as a single utterance without proper contextualisation. According to the Secretariat, the much-discussed words are in fact a pastoral reference to the non-discrimination of same-sex families raising children. The second part of the scandalous quotation relates to the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation of 2016, which speaks of the importance of respecting the dignity of every person, regardless of sexual orientation. There is also a reference to an interview of 2014, in which the Pope noted that marriage is a union between a man and a woman, while civil unions cover questions of healthcare and law, but ultimately do not touch upon “the teaching of the Church”.

![](https://theparnassian.com/content/images/2026/09/photo_3466@02-11-2020_12-03-42.jpg)