2023-12-18 15:27:00
Pope Francis formally approved priests to bless same-sex couples. In a new document Francis explains the radical change in Vatican policy by saying that people who seek 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 might be offered in some circumstances as long as their ritual is not confused with that of the sacrament of marriage.
“Blessing is a means of increasing people’s trust in God”
The new document repeats that reasoning and develops it, reaffirming that marriage is a lifelong sacrament between a man and a woman. And it emphasizes that blessings should not be conferred at the same time as a civil union, through established rituals or even with the clothing and gestures typical of an ecclesiastical wedding.
But he says requests for such blessings should not be denied entirely. The document offers an extensive definition of the term “blessing” to explain 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 says. “In this way, the request for a blessing expresses and feeds 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.”
The document notes that the blessing “is a seed of the holy spirit that must be nourished, not hindered.”
The Vatican remains opposed to same-sex marriage
And in 2021, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith said flatly that the church might 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 following its publication, he dismissed the official responsible and began laying the groundwork for a reversal.
In the new document, the Vatican says 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, it analyzes and classifies others, and instead of opening The door to grace exhausts its energies in inspecting and verifying.”
He emphasized that people in “irregular” unions (homosexual or heterosexual) are in a state of sin, but that should not deprive them of God’s love or mercy.
“Therefore, when people ask for a blessing, exhaustive moral analysis should not be a precondition for conferring it,” the document says.
The tender moment that a child experienced when interrupting Pope Francis in full audience
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