Breaking Monday, Pope Francis issued a guidance to allow priests to bless same-sex couples, in an overhaul of “the classical understanding” of pastoral blessings. As long as a couples 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 guidance document says.
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.”
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.
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.”
National Review reports, 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.”
