Pope Francis, in a file photo. Louisa Gouliamaki (AP)
Same-sex couples, civil marriages and de facto unions may be blessed by the Church. What's more, they will have to be if they claim it. This is authorized and argued by a declaration of the Holy See published on Monday and which has been presented and certified by signature by Pope Francis. The Pontiff thus continues the process of opening the Church to what he calls the peripheries: social, cultural and geographical. The decision, in short, gives priests the green light to sacralize same-sex couples. The transcendent decision, however, increases the confrontation between the most conservative sector of the Church, always opposed to the nods to the LGTBI community, and the most progressive.
The journey began on Pope Francis' return trip to Rio de Janeiro in 2013, when the pontiff said he was "no one to judge homosexual couples." And arguably the most recent stage, probably not the last, was written on Monday when the Vatican announced that it approved the blessing of homosexual couples. In the document issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), the Holy See certifies the openness but is careful to emphasize that in no case can it be equated with marriage. Even so, the news will not please the most conservative sectors of the Church, which maintain a strong struggle with Francis, especially regarding theological openness on social and sexual issues.
The prefect of the CDF, Argentinian Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, points out in the text that "one can understand the possibility of blessing couples in irregular situations and same-sex couples, without officially validating their status or altering in any way the perennial teaching of the Church on marriage." The new opening is in addition to the one already given by the same prefect just a month ago, when he endorsed that transsexuals can be baptized, just as the rest of the faithful receive that sacrament, and that the children of homosexual couples can also be baptized.
The change of course is now not only in relation to the history of the Church, but also in relation to the recent past. In 2021, when the CDF was still led by Spanish Cardinal Luis Ladaria, the old Holy Office responded to a theological doubt on this issue by claiming that the Catholic Church could not impart its blessing to same-sex unions. A position that bothered the Pope a lot and caused a small internal earthquake in the Holy See. On the way out, a little more than a year after Ladaria, the echo of that episode still resounded.
The Declaration—the canonical form of this type of document—is entitled Fiducia Supplicans: On the Pastoral Meaning of Blessings and is the first that the Doctrine of the Faith, the former Holy Office, has published in the last 23 years, since Dominus Jesus (2000). It is a long text in which the origin and theological meaning of the act of blessing is analyzed, reviewing it from the Old Testament and in the Scriptures. "In his mystery of love, through Christ, God communicates to his Church the power to bless. Granted by God to human beings and bestowed by them on their neighbours, blessing is transformed into inclusion, solidarity and peacemaking. It is a positive message of comfort, attention and encouragement," it reads.
Changes take place very slowly in the Church and, above all, they must happen without causing ruptures. For this reason, the declaration is very careful to point out that, despite the openness of the blessing of these couples, any "rite or prayer that may create confusion between what is constitutive of marriage" is considered "inadmissible", such as those carried out by the German clergy, who offer "acts of blessing" despite the disagreement of the Holy See. "A ritual for the blessings of couples in an irregular situation should not be promoted or foreseen, but neither should the Church's closeness to every situation in which God's help is asked for through a simple blessing be prevented or prohibited," the document concludes.
The key is in the pastoral meaning of the blessings, which is now brought into line with the vision of Pope Francis. But Prefect Fernandez stresses that "sexual relations find their natural, adequate and fully human meaning" within the Catholic doctrine of marriage. The Holy See also points out that in order to avoid "any form of confusion or scandal," such blessings can never be done at the same time as civil rites of union and "not even with the vestments, gestures or words proper to a marriage." They can be done in other contexts, such as during a visit to a shrine, a meeting with a priest, a prayer recited in a group or during a pilgrimage. In addition, the Vatican specifies that the blessing must consist of a "brief" and "spontaneous" prayer in which a priest may ask for "peace, health, a spirit of patience, dialogue or mutual aid" from his members.
The debate over the Church's treatment of homosexual couples has generated several internal conflicts since the arrival of the pope in 2013, who has offered a more open-minded vision of acceptance, although without ever equating them with heterosexuals. In October 2020, Pope Francis supported same-sex civil unions and assured that they had the right to "a family" and to have the respective marriage coverage. A few months later, in January 2021, he asked parents not to condemn their children in case they had a "different sexual orientation."
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