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.
An unreleased Wu-Tang Clan album forfeited by Martin Shkreli after his fraud conviction has been sold.
Lottery officials say a woman in Germany carried a winning ticket in her purse for weeks without realizing it was worth about 33 million euros ($39 million).
The CDC reverses course on mask guidance, the latest Olympic headlines as Simone Biles bows out (for now) and much more.
man accused of killing eight people, most of them women of Asian descent, at massage businesses in Georgia pleaded guilty to four of the murders.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reversing course on some masking guidelines. The agency announced new recommendations Tuesday that even vaccinated people should return to wearing masks indoors in parts of the U.S.
Vaccine Mandates, Osaka Out & LeVar Burton Takes Jeopardy!
New York City will require all municipal workers to get coronavirus vaccines by mid-September or face weekly COVID-19 testing.
U.S. pop singer Pink has offered to pay a fine given to the Norwegian female beach handball team for wearing shorts instead of the required bikini bottoms.
The Maine Drug Enforcement Agency says a New York man and a Maine woman tried to disguise cocaine as a cake.
The German women’s gymnastics team took the floor for their first competition at the Tokyo Olympics wearing unitards with leggings that stretched down to the ankle. That defied the custom of high-cut bikini bottoms in the sport.
