By Nicole Winfield
Pope Francis endorsed same-sex civil unions for the first time as pope while being interviewed for the feature-length documentary “Francesco,” which had its premiere at the Rome Film Festival on Wednesday.
The papal thumbs up came midway through the film that delves into issues he cares about most, including the environment, poverty, migration, racial and income inequality, and the people most affected by discrimination.
“Homosexual people have the right to be in a family. They are children of God,” Francis said in one of his sit-down interviews for the film. “What we have to have is a civil union law; that way they are legally covered.”
While serving as archbishop of Buenos Aires, Francis endorsed civil unions for gay couples as an alternative to same-sex marriages. However, he had never come out publicly in favor of civil unions as pope.
Director Evgeny Afineevsky had remarkable access to cardinals, the Vatican television archives, and the pope himself. He said he negotiated his way in through persistence, and deliveries of Argentine mate tea and Alfajores cookies that he got to the pope via some well-connected Argentines in Rome.
The first person to fly across New Zealand’s Cook Strait in an electric plane says he did so with plenty of battery power to spare.
A man dressed in a Joker costume and brandishing a knife stabbed at least one passenger on a Tokyo commuter train before starting a fire, injuring passengers and sending people scrambling to escape and jumping from windows, police and witnesses said.
All the news you Need2Know for Monday, November 1, 2021.
Eastern State Penitentiary’s annual Halloween festival returned for its 30th year in 2021 after a hiatus amid the pandemic. Loyal fans will likely notice some differences in this year’s festival, newly renamed “Halloween Nights.”
Merriam-Webster has added 455 new words to its venerable dictionary. The list includes a number of abbreviations and slang terms that have become ubiquitous on social media.
Activists are getting a boost from CrowdLobby to press legislators to expand New York's Good Samaritan Law to teach high school students about being proactive in saving their peers from potentially dying of a drug overdose.
Carlo and Baker cover Facebook's big rebrand, the latest on Biden's economic agenda and more. Plus, ranking the best Halloween candy and the worst couple's costumes.
Cheddar's spooky Halloween recs include "Black as Night," "The Night House," "The Nightmare Before Christmas," and "Child's Play."
A new study from Fidelity has found that holders of cryptocurrency are disproportionately more charitable as investors, with 45 percent donating $1,000 or more to charity in 2020.
The United States has issued its first passport with an “X” gender designation for people who don’t identify as male or female.
