Pope Francis issued guidance on Monday that allows priests to bless same-sex couples, in an effort to broaden “the classical understanding” of pastoral blessings.
As long as a homosexual individuals don’t conflate a blessing with the ritual of marriage, “an exhaustive moral analysis should not be placed as a precondition for conferring” a blessing, the document says. The Vatican also reiterated in its guidance the long-held Catholic belief that marriage is a sacrament shared only between a man and a woman.
The Holy See’s new guidance doesn’t undercut “the traditional doctrine of the church about marriage,” the document’s author Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández claimed, but merely expands church teaching on who can receive blessings to be more welcoming. Blessings should be non-liturgical and should not take place during rituals that resemble wedding ceremonies, Vatican officials said.
“Ultimately, a blessing offers people a means to increase their trust in God,” the document said. “The request for a blessing, thus, expresses and nurtures openness to the transcendence, mercy, and closeness to God in a thousand concrete circumstances of life, which is no small thing in the world in which we live.”
The Vatican’s letter clarifies one Francis sent in October, which opened the door for same-sex blessings. Until Monday, the Church barred blessings on same-sex couples, as God “cannot bless sin.”
Although Francis doesn’t condone homosexual marriage within the Church, he has expressed support for civil union laws for same-sex couples.
“Homosexuals have a right to be part of the family,” he said in a 2020 documentary. “They’re children of God and have a right to a family. Nobody should be thrown out, or be made miserable because of it.”
The Catechism of the Catholic Church holds homosexual activity to be sinful and calls homosexuals to chastity.
Monday’s document said that the Church should reject “doctrinal or disciplinary schemes, especially when they lead to a narcissistic and authoritarian elitism whereby instead of evangelizing, one analyzes and classifies others, and instead of opening the door to grace, one exhausts his or her energies in inspecting and verifying.”
Jesuit priest and editor of the magazine America, James J. Martin, celebrated the document as a “huge step forward” for LGBTQ Catholics.
The Church “recognizes the deep desire in many Catholic same-sex couples for God’s presence and help in their committed relationships,” he told the Associated Press. “Along with many Catholic priests, I will now be delighted to bless my friends in same-sex marriages.”