It grieves me to say this, but Cdl Dolan is an idiot who is a Dem first and a Catholic when he gets around to it. I’ve seen enough pictures of him with Obama, or with his arm draped around Cuomo or even around De Blasio. He’s just an idiot who wants to be loved by his masters, the Democrats.
As for Pope Francis, I could see that the Church might ignore the “civil union” issue, which is, after all, a creation of the state and deals with civil matters such as inheritance, insurance, etc., as long as the state didn’t start trying to impose it’s definition of “marriage” on the Church and start trying to force the Church to accept it and perform these faux “marriages.”
Dolan, eager as always to curry favor with liberals, stated it very badly. And the bizarre last sentence about some supposed hearsay in Argentina just shows the wishful thinking of the press.
I believe a point I made up thread was "why even mention a secular practice at all." Meaning, why did the Pope address it? He could have put that 'baby' to rest right away by saying the Catholic church accepts only those unions defined by their doctrine. That would have put to rest the speculation. But he did not and left an open flank.