(RELIGION NEWS SERVICE) Cardinal Timothy Dolan said Sunday that Pope Francis is asking the Catholic church to look at the possibility of recognizing civil unions for gay couples, although the archbishop of New York said he would be “uncomfortable” if the church embraced that position.
The Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera last week published an interview with the pope in which Francis reiterated the church’s teaching that marriage “is between a man and a woman” while acknowledging that governments want to adopt civil unions for gay couples and others to allow for economic and health benefits, for example.
Francis said the churches in various countries must account for those reasons when formulating public policy positions. “We must consider different cases and evaluate each particular case,” he said.
