Some Latinas are not applauding the Pope's message on civil unions

Among the relentless tweets in the daily war for the U.S. presidency, a message surfaced from Pope Francis that seemed like a promising shift for the Vatican.

In comments for a documentary that premiered Wednesday in Rome, Francis backed civil unions for gays. “Homosexual people have the right to be in a family. They are children of God,” he said. “You can’t kick someone out of a family, nor make their life miserable for this. What we have to have is a civil union law; that way they are legally covered.”

These statements generated tons of media coverage because he is the first pope – there have been at least 260 in the course of Roman Catholic history – to approve of civil unions. Francis has made history before, most notably by becoming the first pope from Latin America.

According to the Pew Research Center, 4 of 10 Latinos in the United States are Catholic. That number has decreased over time, with some Latinos anecdotally taking issue with the Church’s positions, including viewing homosexuality as “deviant behavior.”

Mariela Lombard, a New Yorker who shares the same homeland—Argentina— as the pope, said his stance on same sex unions was welcomed but no surprise. “Back in Argentina, it’s old news. He was okay with it before he was elected as Pope,” said Lombard, 47, who is gay and non religious. Her native Argentina was the first Latin American country to legalize gay marriage. She also expressed admiration for Pope Francis refusing to play politics when U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tried to meet with him earlier this month.

“He’s trying to make LGBTQ Catholics feel welcomed in the Church, but what does that really mean...in terms of LGBTQ people being able to hold any types of positions of leadership?”

For 26-year-old Ariana Quiñones of Westchester, NY, the pope’s comments were not earth shattering. “I guess, because of the spaces that I am in, we are so far past that, so I had to take a step back and understand, in the context of the Church, why that is so revolutionary,” said Quiñones, who was raised in the Catholic faith and attended parochial schools. “I could not have imagined that when I was in the closet in high school…that the pope would recognize that I have the right to be gay.”

Quiñones questioned how far this moment would take the Church in terms of embracing LGBTQ persons. “He’s trying to make LGBTQ Catholics feel welcomed in the Church, but what does that really mean in terms of the structure of churches, in terms of LGBTQ people being able to hold any types of positions of leadership within the Church?” she said. “No real change happens until the structure changes.”

Indeed, the director of the documentary in which Francis’ comments are included said that the pope wasn’t trying to change doctrine but was expressing his belief that gay people should enjoy the same rights as heterosexuals.

Adriana Castellanos, who left the Church when a priest announced that gays were going to hell, said that while the pope may have had good intentions, his comments in the documentary could be detrimental and ill-timed as Senate Republicans campaign for extremely conservative Catholic and Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett. She and many others fear that the confirmation of Coney Barrett would mean a rollback of LGBTQ rights. In 2015, the Supreme Court upheld same sex marriage.

“The Pope making this statement is basically saying, it’s okay that you have a civil union, it’s enough,” said Castellanos, 44. “But it’s not enough. It’s still saying we are not equal citizens. It’s still saying we are subhuman. That we cannot have marriage.”

“There is a separation of church and state, and the pope saying this, it’s reversing things for us,” added Castellanos, a resident of Los Angeles, Ca.

While some interpret Francis’ position as an attempt to woo LGBTQ Catholics back to the Church, Castellanos says that won’t be the case for her. “It’s a very patriarchal religion. Women aren’t allowed to be priests. It’s a scary establishment – look at what they did to children,” she said.

“So this doesn’t change my perspective on the Catholic Church, it just makes me like the pope a little more.”