Pope Francis has declared Catholic Church priests may now formally bless same-sex unions, saying “exhaustive moral analysis” should not bar them from God’s love and mercy, while stressing the blessing may not be confused with or even made at the same time as a same-sex marriage or civil union.
Unlike previous pronouncements the Pope has made that were favorable to LGBTQ people, only to have the Church walk them back, this “radical change,” as the Associated Press calls it Monday, comes as a policy change through the Vatican’s doctrine office.
“Ultimately, a blessing offers people a means to increase their trust in God,” the document said, according to the AP. “The request for a blessing, thus, expresses and nurtures openness to the 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.”
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The Vatican document states both that requests for blessings from same-sex couples should not be denied, and a priest blessing a same-sex union cannot be confused with support for same-sex marriage or civil unions. It also, the AP notes, “stresses that blessings should not be conferred at the same time as a civil union, using set rituals or even with the clothing and gestures that belong in a wedding.”
While this may be the first time the Catholic Church will bless same-sex unions in modern times, a 1994 book by a Yale professor detailed the Church had blessed same-sex unions for centuries.
Professor John Boswell’s book, “Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe,” The LA Times reported that year, “asserted that from the 8th to the 18th Centuries, the Catholic church sanctioned same-sex unions and offered ceremonies complete with prayers for the couple’s union, Holy Communion and rubrics directing the couple to kiss a book of the Gospel, the priest and one another.”