ROME.- Pope Francis formally approved allowing priests to bless same-sex couples, with a new document explaining a radical shift in Vatican policy by insisting that people seeking God’s love and mercy should not be subject to “exhaustive moral analysis” to receive it.
The document from the Vatican’s doctrine office, released Monday, details a letter Francis sent to two conservative cardinals that was published in October. In that preliminary response, Francis suggested that such blessings could be offered in some circumstances if they are not confused with the ritual of the sacrament of marriage.
The new document repeats that reasoning and develops it, reaffirming that marriage is a lifelong sacrament between a man and a woman. And he emphasizes that blessings should not be conferred at the same time as a civil union or even with the clothing and gestures typical of a wedding.
But it states that requests for such blessings should not be denied entirely. The document offers an extensive definition of the term “blessing” in Scripture to insist that people who seek a transcendent relationship with God and seek his love and mercy should not be subject to “exhaustive moral analysis” as a precondition for receiving it.
“Ultimately, a blessing offers people a means to increase their trust in God,” the document states. “The request for a blessing expresses and nourishes, thus, openness to 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.”
And he adds: “It is a seed of the Holy Spirit that must be fed, not hindered.”
The Vatican maintains that marriage is an indissoluble union between a man and a woman. As a result, he has long opposed same-sex marriage.
In 2021, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith stated that the Church could not bless the unions of two men or two women because “God cannot bless sin.”
That document generated an outcry that apparently even surprised Francis, even though he had technically approved its publication. Shortly after its publication, he dismissed the official responsible and began laying the groundwork for a reversal.
In the new document, the Vatican emphasizes that the Church must move away from “doctrinal or disciplinary schemes, especially when they lead to a narcissistic and authoritarian elitism according to which, instead of evangelizing, others are analyzed and classified, and instead of “To open the door to grace, one exhausts one’s energies in inspecting and verifying.”
It emphasizes that people in “irregular” unions—homosexual or heterosexual—are in sin. But he points out that this should not deprive them of God’s love or mercy.
Source: With information from AP
