Pope Francis has taken the biggest step to date for the inclusion of the LGTBI community in the Church. In a very significant change of course, and one that will surely enrage the most conservative sectors of the Roman curia, the Pontiff authorized this Monday that priests can bless homosexual couples as long as this blessing is not equated in any way with marriage. , which continues to be reserved, for Catholic doctrine, to the union between a man and a woman.
The Vatican establishes it through a document from the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, the body in charge of regulating Catholic morality, which endorses blessings as a gesture of “pastoral proximity” both for couples “in irregular situations” – that is, all those who are not married in the Church – as well as for same-sex couples. It is a declaration, a document of high doctrinal value, which is the first to be published in more than 20 years – the last was Dominus Jesus in 2000 – and represents a turning point regarding the position of the Doctrine of the Faith in 2021, when the old Holy Office had decreed that priests could not carry out these blessings in any way since “God cannot bless sin.”
Then the Doctrine of the Faith was still presided over by the Mallorcan cardinal Luis Ladaria Ferrer, while for a few months the prefect has been Víctor Manuel Fernández – better known as Tucho –, a personal friend of Francisco. He is the same prefect who recently clarified that transsexual people can be baptized and godfathers or godmothers at baptism, like the rest of the faithful.
The text, titled Fiducia Supplicans: on the pastoral meaning of the blessings, begins with an introduction by Cardinal Fernández who explains that this declaration deepens the pastoral meaning of the blessings to “expand and enrich their classical understanding” through a theological reflection based in the thoughts of the Argentine pope. The declaration analyzes the origin and theological meaning of the act of blessing, and reviews it from the Old Testament to the rest of the Scriptures, concluding that, “granted by God to human beings and granted by them to their neighbor, the blessing is transformed into inclusion , solidarity and pacification.”
It is a way of understanding it consistent with a pontificate that has always been very attentive to the peripheries of Catholicism, both geographical and social. In fact, at the end of September, the Pope already caused a stir when, in a document signed with Fernández to respond to a series of doubts that five ultra-conservative cardinals raised on the matter before the Synod of Bishops, he seemed to point out that he could accept these blessings as a sign of “pastoral charity.” “We cannot become judges who only deny, reject, exclude,” he explained then.
The Vatican wants to emphasize that this change, despite representing "a true development with respect to what has been said until now about blessings", does not in any case imply the modification of "the perennial teaching of the Church on marriage." The Holy See continues to emphasize that marriage is only “the exclusive, stable and indissoluble union between a man and a woman, naturally open to begetting children,” and in this “the doctrine of the Church remains firm.”
For this reason, the prefect insists on considering "inadmissible rites and prayers that may create confusion between what constitutes marriage", something that occurs in the most liberal parts of the German Church, which offer "acts of blessing" to gay couples despite to the disagreement of the Holy See. The Vatican does not intend to “legitimize anything,” the cardinal emphasizes, but “only to open one's life to God, ask for his help to live better and also invoke the Holy Spirit so that the values of the Gospel are lived more faithfully.”
To avoid “any form of confusion or scandal,” blessings can never be carried out at the same time as civil union rites and “not even with the clothing, gestures or words typical of a marriage.” Instead, they may be taught in other contexts, such as during a visit to a sanctuary, meeting with a priest, prayer recited in a group or during a pilgrimage. The blessing to these couples should consist of a “short” and “spontaneous prayer” in which a priest can ask for “peace, health, a spirit of patience, dialogue or mutual help” from its members.
The change in position of the Holy See is specifically relevant after many Catholic members of the LGBTI community were disappointed with the result of the synthesis document of the Synod of Bishops that held its first session this October, a report that passed over this issue and limited itself to saying that the participants agreed that the dignity of people who feel “marginalized” due to their marital situation, their identity and their sexuality must be listened to and defended, but they did not propose new openings and only He demanded that “the necessary time” be dedicated to reflecting on it.
Throughout his more than ten years of pontificate, Jorge Mario Bergoglio has had a more conciliatory point of view on homosexuals than other members of the Church. On the first international trip of his papacy, returning from Brazil, he famously said: “If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge him?” Since then, he has maintained a much more open attitude towards the LGTBI community than his predecessors.
