Pope Francis Suggests Gay Civil Unions May Be Tolerable By Church

Pope Francis has signalled in an Italian interview that he could see the Catholic church tolerating some forms of same-sex civil unions -- though not marriage.

In an interview with the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, the pope said that "matrimony is between a man and a woman," but moves to "regulate diverse situations of cohabitation (are) driven by the need to regulate economic aspects among persons, as for instance to assure medical care," according to a translation by Catholic News Service.

"It is necessary to look at the diverse cases and evaluate them in their variety," Francis said.

While the remarks were far from endorsing same-sex marriage, something Francis and his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI have spoken out against, they represent the latest in what many Catholics and church observers have read as a more gay-friendly tone of the church under the pope, who was elected nearly a year ago.

In an interview over the summer, the pope famously said: "If someone is gay and he searches for the Lord and has good will, who am I to judge?” Francis call for the church to focus more broadly on positive messages about Jesus Christ and love as opposed to standing only against gay marriage, abortion and contraception, has also been widely reported.

In the interview with Corriere della Sera, the pope also spoke of the church's teachings on contraception. The interviewer asked the pope if he thought teachings on medical and sexual ethics were "non-negotiable values," a phrase that Benedict XVI had used, but Francis said he "never understood the expression 'non-negotiable values.'"

"Values are values, period," the pope said. "I cannot say that, among the fingers of a hand, there is one less useful than another. That is why I cannot understand in what sense there could be negotiable values."

But Francis had positive words for the church's 1968 encyclical "Humanae Vitae," which came out under Pope Paul VI said banned contraception in the church.

Francis said pope Paul's "genius was prophetic, he had the courage to side against the majority, defend moral discipline, put a brake on the culture, oppose neo-Malthusianism, present and future." But Paul had told Catholics to interpret the "Humanae Vitae" with "much mercy, attention to concrete situations," Francis said.

"The question is not whether to change the doctrine, but to go deeper and make sure that pastoral care takes account of situations and of what each person is able to do," the current pope added.

Credit to Huffingtonpost.com