Vatican allows priests to bless homosexual couples

If two people request a blessing over their relationship, a priest will now be able to comply with their request, even if the spouses find themselves in an “irregular relationship”, Vatican News reports. The Vatican allows this blessing explicitly in a new document, called “Fiducia supplicans”.

However, the blessing will not become an official ritual or equalise marriage, which is a sacrament in the Roman Catholic Church, Vatican News stresses. The liturgy and doctrine of the latter does not change. The Vatican also finds it important that the blessing of homosexual couples or unmarried spouses does in no way give the impression that it is a marriage rite. Therefore, the blessing may not take place during a church service, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung writes. In addition, the Holy See stresses that the blessing is also not a sign of approval of the union that is blessed.

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The Fiducia supplicans opens with an introduction in which the prefect, Cardinal Victor Fernandez, explains that the Vatican, taking into account the pastoral meaning of blessings, sees a way to open the possibility of blessing a couple without “officially validating their status”. Earlier, Pope Francis called homosexuality a sin. The Roman Catholic teaching that sexual relations are only between a man and a woman in the context of marriage will remain the same.

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According to the document, Roman Catholic blessings do not require someone to be perfect before he or she receives the blessing. Therefore, the Vatican sees space to apply the blessing also to homosexual people. The Church also makes clear that it is the couple who is blessed, not the union itself.