In a letter to conservative cardinals, the pope suggested that such blessings for same-sex unions could be studied if they didn’t confuse the blessing with sacramental marriage.
Pope Francis has suggested there could be ways to bless same-sex unions, responding to five conservative cardinals who challenged him to affirm church teaching on homosexuality ahead of a big meeting where LGBTQ+ Catholics are on the agenda.
The Vatican on Monday published a letter Francis wrote to the cardinals on July 11 after receiving a list of five questions, or « dubia, » from them a day earlier. In it, Francis suggests that such blessings could be studied if they didn’t confuse the blessing with sacramental marriage.
New Ways Ministry, which advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics, said the letter « significantly advances » efforts to make LGBTQ+ Catholics welcomed in the church and « one big straw towards breaking the camel’s back » in their marginalization.
The Vatican holds that marriage is an indissoluble union between man and woman. As a result, it has long opposed gay marriage. But even Francis has voiced support for civil laws extending legal benefits to same-sex spouses, and Catholic priests in parts of Europe have been blessing same-sex unions without Vatican censure.
Francis’ response to the cardinals, however, marks a reversal from the Vatican’s current official position. In an explanatory note in 2021, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said flat-out that the church couldn’t bless gay unions because « God cannot bless sin. »
In his new letter, Francis reiterated that matrimony is a union between a man and a woman. But responding to the cardinals’ question about homosexual unions and blessings, he said « pastoral charity » requires patience and understanding and that regardless, priests cannot become judges « who only deny, reject and exclude.
