VATICAN CITY – The Vatican on Thursday moved to calm Catholic bishops in some countries who have reacted negatively to last month’s approval of blessings for same-sex couples, telling them that the measure is not “heretical” or “blasphemous.”
In a five-page statement, the Vatican’s doctrinal office also acknowledged that such blessings could be “imprudent” in some countries where people who receive them might become targets of violence, or risk prison or even death.
Catholic bishops in some countries, particularly in Africa, have expressed perplexity and various degrees of dissent over the Dec. 18 declaration, known by its Latin title Fiducia Supplicans (Supplicating Trust).
The fact that the Vatican needed to issue a five-page clarification of an eight-page declaration little more than two weeks after it was issued appeared to underscore the extent of the confusion it caused in many countries.
After the original declaration was issued, a number of Catholic Bishops conferences issued statements stressing that the blessings did not amount to an official approval of gay sex or a sacrament of marriage for same-sex couples.
The doctrinal office, known as the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, stressed these aspects in its statement on Thursday, saying that blessings for same-sex couples should not be seen as “a justification of all their actions, and they are not an endorsement of the life that they lead.”
The office said it wanted “to clarify the reception of Fiducia Supplicans while recommending at the same time a full and calm reading” of the Dec. 18 declaration.
“Evidently, there is no room to distance ourselves doctrinally from this declaration or to consider it heretical, contrary to the Tradition of the Church or Blasphemous,” Thursday’s statement said.
The Vatican, in a landmark ruling last month approved by Pope Francis, said Roman Catholic priests can administer blessings to same-sex couples as long as they are not part of regular Church rituals or liturgies.
A document from the Vatican’s doctrinal office, which effectively reversed a declaration the same body had issued in 2021, said such blessings would not legitimize irregular situations but be a sign that God welcomes all.
It should in no way be confused with the sacrament of heterosexual marriage, it added.
It said priests should decide on a case-by-case basis and “should not prevent or prohibit the Church’s closeness to people in every situation in which they might seek God’s help through a simple blessing.”
The Church teaches that same-sex attraction is not sinful but homosexual acts are. Since his election in 2013, Francis has tried to make the more than 1.35-billion-member Church more welcoming to LGBT people without changing moral doctrine.
Last month’s ruling had been expected to be opposed by conservatives, who already criticized the pope when he made his initial comments on the subject in October.
The document, whose Latin title is Fiducia Supplicans (Supplicating Trust), said the form of the blessing “should not be fixed ritually by ecclesial authorities to avoid producing confusion with the blessing proper to the Sacrament of Marriage.”
It said it can be applied to those who “do not claim a legitimation of their own status, but who beg that all that is true, good, and humanly valid in their lives and their relationships be enriched, healed, and elevated by the presence of the Holy Spirit.”
“Ultimately, a blessing offers people a means to increase their trust in God,” it said, adding that it “must be nurtured, not hindered.” — Reuters
