Pope Francis has made steps towards welcoming the LGBTQ+ community. Photo / AP
Pope Francis has made steps towards welcoming the LGBTQ+ community. Photo / AP
Pope Francis has formally approved letting Catholic priests bless same-sex couples, the Vatican announced this week, a radical shift in policy that is aimed at making the church more inclusive while maintaining its strict ban on gay marriage.
But while the Vatican statement was heralded by some as a step toward breaking down discrimination in the Catholic Church, some LGBTQ+ advocates warned it underscored the church’s idea that gay couples remain inferior to heterosexual partnerships.
The document from the Vatican’s doctrine office elaborates on a letter Francis sent to two conservative cardinals that was published in October. In that preliminary response, Francis suggested such blessings could be offered under some circumstances if the blessings weren’t confused with the ritual of marriage.
Pope Francis has formally approved allowing priests to bless same-sex couples. Photo / AP
The new document repeats that condition and elaborates on it, reaffirming that marriage is a lifelong union between a man and a woman. And it stresses that blessings in question must not be tied to any specific Catholic celebration or religious service and should not be conferred at the same time as a civil union ceremony. Moreover, the blessings cannot use set rituals or even involve the clothing and gestures that belong in a wedding.
But it says requests for such blessings for same-sex couples should not be denied. It offers an extensive and broad definition of the term “blessing” in Scripture to insist that people seeking a transcendent relationship with God and looking for his love and mercy shouldn’t be held up to an impossible moral standard to receive it.
“For, those seeking a blessing should not be required to have prior moral perfection,” it said.
“There is no intention to legitimise anything, but rather to open one’s life to God, to ask for his help to live better, and also to invoke the Holy Spirit so that the values of the Gospel may be lived with greater faithfulness,” it added.
The document marks the latest gesture of outreach from a pope who has made welcoming LGBTQ+ Catholics a hallmark of his papacy. From his 2013 quip “Who am I to judge?” about a purportedly gay priest, to his 2023 comment to The Associated Press that “Being homosexual is not a crime”, Francis has distinguished himself from all his predecessors with his message of welcome.
Pope Francis has formally approved allowing priests to bless same-sex couples. Photo / AP
“The significance of this news cannot be overstated,” said Francis DeBernardo of New Ways Ministry, which supports LGBTQ+ Catholics. “It is one thing to formally approve same-gender blessings, which he had already pastorally permitted, but to say that people should not be subjected to ‘an exhaustive moral analysis’ to receive God’s love and mercy is an even more significant step.”
The Vatican holds that marriage is an indissoluble union between man and woman. As a result, it has long opposed same-sex marriage and considers homosexual acts to be “intrinsically disordered”. Nothing in the new document changes that teaching.
And in 2021, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said flat-out that the church couldn’t bless the unions of two men or two women because “God cannot bless sin”.
That 2021 pronouncement created an outcry and appeared to have blindsided Francis, even though he had technically approved its publication. Soon after it was published, he removed the official responsible for it and set about laying the groundwork for a reversal.
In the new document, the Vatican said the church must avoid “doctrinal or disciplinary schemes especially when they lead to a narcissistic and authoritarian elitism whereby instead of evangelising, one analyses and classifies others”.
It said ultimately, a blessing is about helping people increase their trust in God. “It is a seed of the Holy Spirit that must be nurtured, not hindered,” it said.
Francis has distinguished himself from all his predecessors with his message of welcome. Photo / AP
It stressed that people in “irregular” unions of extramarital sex — gay or straight — are in a state of sin. But it said that shouldn’t deprive them of God’s love or mercy. “Even when a person’s relationship with God is clouded by sin, he can always ask for a blessing, stretching out his hand to God,” the document said.
“Thus, when people ask for a blessing, an exhaustive moral analysis should not be placed as a precondition for conferring it,” the document said.
The Reverand James Martin, who advocates for a greater welcome for LGBTQ+ Catholics, praised the new document as a “huge step forward” and a “dramatic shift” from the Vatican’s 2021 policy.
“Along with many Catholic priests, I will now be delighted to bless my friends in same-sex marriages,” he said in an email.
Traditionalists, however, were outraged. The traditionalist blogger Luigi Casalini of Messa in Latino (Latin Mass) blog wrote that the document appeared to be a form of heresy.
“The church is crumbling,” he wrote.
The move has been hailed as a “huge step forward” and a “dramatic shift” from previous Vatican policy. Photo / AP
In the United States, the Reverand John Oesterle, a Catholic priest and hospital chaplain in Pittsburgh, said many priests would probably not be open to offering such a blessing, but he welcomed Francis’ action.
“I think the pope has learned to accept people as God made them,” he said. “When I was growing up, the assumption was that God made everyone straight. What we have learned is that is not true. In accepting people as God made them, and if Jesus’ primary teaching is we should love and serve one another in the community, I think that’s what gives Pope Francis the openness to God’s presence in those relationships.”
