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

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”.