Pro forma session paul12/6/2023 They published the material two days before the start of a major three-week synod, or meeting, at the Vatican at which LGBTQ+ Catholics and their place in the church are on the agenda. ![]() The five cardinals, all of them conservative prelates from Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas, had challenged Francis to affirm church teaching on gays, women's ordination, the authority of the pope and other issues in their letter. "Those recognitions, while not completely what LGBTQ+ Catholics would want, are an enormous advance towards fuller and more comprehensive equality." ""The allowance for pastoral ministers to bless same-gender couples implies that the church does indeed recognize that holy love can exist between same-gender couples, and the love of these couples mirrors the love of God," he said in a statement. Religion Pope Francis' LGBTQ comments are not surprising but sincere, gay Vatican adviser saysįrancis added that there is no need for dioceses or bishops conferences to turn such pastoral charity into fixed norms or protocols, saying the issue could be dealt with on a case-by-case basis "because the life of the church runs on channels beyond norms."įrancis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, welcomed the pope's openness. "Because when a benediction is requested, it is expressing a request for help from God, a plea to be able to live better, a trust in a father who can help us to live better." "For this reason, pastoral prudence must adequately discern whether there are forms of benediction, requested by one or more persons, that do not transmit a mistaken conception of marriage," he wrote. 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." In his new letter, Francis reiterated that matrimony is a union between a man and a woman. 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." 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.įrancis' response to the cardinals, however, marks a reversal from the Vatican's current official position. As a result, it has long opposed gay marriage. The Vatican holds that marriage is an indissoluble union between man and woman. Religion Pope Francis says homosexuality is not a crime in a new interview
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