June 18, 2018. Just weeks before World Meeting of Families 2018, a Vatican event that has been plagued with mixed messages about whether same-sex couples and families of LGBTQI people will be welcome, Pope Francis projected a very narrow view of what family is. In remarks to the Italian group Forum delle Famiglie, the Pope is reported to have said, “It is painful to say this today: People speak of varied families, of various kinds of family," but "the family [as] man and woman in the image of God is the only one."