ROME -- Pope Francis formally approved letting Catholic priests bless same-sex couples, the Vatican announced Monday, a radical shift in policy that aimed at making the church more inclusive while maintaining its strict ban on gay marriage.
But while the Vatican statement was heralded by some as a step toward breaking down discrimination in the Catholic Church, some LGBTQ+ advocates warned it underscored the church's idea that gay couples remain inferior to heterosexual partnerships.
The document from the Vatican's doctrine office elaborates on a letter Francis sent to two conservative cardinals that was published in October. In that preliminary response, Francis suggested such blessings could be offered under some circumstances if the blessings weren't confused with the ritual of marriage.
The guidance from the powerful Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, issued after papal review and approval, largely reverses a 2021 ruling and expands on a far briefer statement of support for such blessings issued by Francis in September in response to questions raised by conservative clerics.
In the response, dated Sept. 25, Francis wrote that there are "situations" that may not be "morally acceptable" but where a priest can assess, on a case-by-case basis, whether blessings may be given -- as long as such blessings are kept separate from the sacrament of marriage.
"We cannot be judges who only deny, push back and exclude," Francis wrote. "As such, pastoral prudence must adequately discern whether there are forms of blessing, requested by one or several people, that do not convey a wrong idea of a matrimony. Because when one seeks a blessing, one is requesting help from God."
The document issued Monday says that blessings of same-sex couples should not suggest even the trappings of sacramental marriage -- including traditional wedding vestments -- or even ceremonies formally recognizing same-sex unions. But it offers guidelines for offering benedictions to people in same-sex relationships and explicitly gives permission to "ordained ministers" to conduct such blessings, while asking priests to use their own "prudent and fatherly discernment" to decide when doing so is appropriate.
Couples in "irregular situations" as well as "couples of the same sex" may receive priestly blessings, the Vatican said, so that these "human relationships may mature and grow in fidelity to the Gospel."
"With its untiring wisdom and motherly care, the Church welcomes all who approach God with humble hearts, accompanying them with those spiritual aids that enable everyone to understand and realize God's will fully in their existence," the Vatican said.
The document departs from a 2021 Vatican statement that confirmed a ban on blessing same-sex unions, calling them not "even remotely analogous to God's plan for marriage and family." At the time, the ruling dashed the hopes of gay Catholics and seemed to indicate the limits of Francis' reformist intentions.
The document also marks the latest gesture of outreach from a pope who has made welcoming LGBTQ+ Catholics a hallmark of his papacy. From his 2013 quip, "Who am I to judge?" about a purportedly gay priest, to his 2023 comment to The Associated Press, "Being homosexual is not a crime," Francis has distinguished himself from all his predecessors with his message of welcome.
The extent of that welcome became the most divisive issue during October's monthlong meeting in Vatican City on the direction of the faith. The wording of a concluding report failed to use inclusive language coined by the pope and declined to even repeat the term LGBTQ+. During that meeting, conservative bishops from Poland, Hungary, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Australia and elsewhere categorically rejected same-sex blessings, saying they would condone "sin" and amount to a "colonial" imposition from liberal Western Europeans.
"The significance of this news cannot be overstated," said Francis DeBernardo of New Ways Ministry, which supports LGBTQ+ Catholics. "It is one thing to formally approve same-gender blessings, which he had already pastorally permitted, but to say that people should not be subjected to 'an exhaustive moral analysis' to receive God's love and mercy is an even more significant step."
NEW DOCUMENT
The Vatican holds that marriage is an indissoluble union between man and woman. As a result, it has long opposed same-sex marriage and considers homosexual acts to be "intrinsically disordered." Nothing in the new document changes that teaching.
And in 2021, the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said flat-out that the church couldn't bless the unions of two men or two women because "God cannot bless sin."
That 2021 pronouncement created an outcry and appeared to have blindsided Francis, even though he had technically approved its publication. Soon after it was published, he removed the official responsible for it and set about laying the groundwork for a reversal.
In the new document, the Vatican said the church must avoid "doctrinal or disciplinary schemes especially when they lead to a narcissistic and authoritarian elitism whereby instead of evangelizing, one analyzes and classifies others."
It said ultimately, a blessing is about helping people increase their trust in God. "It is a seed of the Holy Spirit that must be nurtured, not hindered," it said.
It stressed that people in "irregular" unions of extramarital sex -- gay or straight -- are in a state of sin. But it said that shouldn't deprive them of God's love or mercy. "Even when a person's relationship with God is clouded by sin, he can always ask for a blessing, stretching out his hand to God," the document said.
"Thus, when people ask for a blessing, an exhaustive moral analysis should not be placed as a precondition for conferring it," the document said.
"The Vatican's new declaration is a huge a step forward for the church's ministry for LGBTQ people," said the Rev. James Martin, an American priest who ministers to the LGBTQ+ community and was handpicked as a delegate by Francis. "It provides guidelines, and it leaves a lot of it up to the minister. But this is a gift to LGBTQ Catholics and the document itself is a blessing."
"Along with many Catholic priests, I will now be delighted to bless my friends in same-sex marriages," he said in an email.
Traditionalists, however, were angry. The traditionalist blogger Luigi Casalini of the Messa in Latino (Latin Mass) blog wrote that the document appeared to be a form of heresy.
"The church is crumbling," he wrote.
University of Notre Dame theologian Ulrich Lehner was also concerned, saying it would merely sow confusion and could lead to division in the church.
"The Vatican's statement is, in my view, the most unfortunate public announcement in decades," he said in a statement. "Moreover, some bishops will use it as a pretext to do what the document explicitly forbids, especially since the Vatican has not stopped them before. It is -- and I hate to say it -- an invitation to schism."
Ramón Gómez, in charge of human rights for the Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation group in Chile, said the statement was a step toward breaking down discrimination in the church and could help LGBTQ+ people in countries where even civil unions aren't legal.
But he said the document was "belated" and "contradictory" in specifying a non-ritualized blessing that cannot be confused with marriage. Such a mixed message, he said, "thus once again gives the signal that same-sex couples are inferior to heterosexual couples."
The ruling on Monday, a declaration titled "Fiducia Supplicans," again demonstrated how Francis has become less cautious and more willing to move against his conservative critics in the latter stage of his papacy. This year, he has decried the "strong reactionary attitude" among American conservative Catholics; removed one critic, Texas Bishop Joseph Strickland; and stripped another, U.S. Cardinal Raymond Burke, of his traditional privileges.
Some conservatives noted Monday that while the document was being taken as broad acceptance of same-sex blessings, the new guidelines still don't condone the most controversial practices in countries such as Germany, where some Catholic priests have overseen marriage-like ceremonies for same-sex couples. The document specifically notes that "this blessing should never be imparted in concurrence with the ceremonies of a civil union, and not even in connection with them. Nor can it be performed with any clothing, gestures, or words that are proper to a wedding."
But Martin and others interpreted the text as standing permission to hold such services inside Catholic churches, as long as they were framed in ways that avoided a reference to a Catholic sacrament or liturgical ritual.
The Vatican admonition to refrain from codifying any blessing or prayer appeared to be a response to Flemish-speaking bishops in Belgium, who last year proposed a text for same-sex couples that included prayers, Scriptural readings and expressions of commitment.
In Germany, individual priests have been blessing same-sex couples for years, as part of a progressive trend in the German church. In September, several Catholic priests held a ceremony blessing same-sex couples outside Cologne Cathedral to protest the city's conservative archbishop, Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki.
The head of the German Bishops Conference welcomed the document.
"This means that a blessing can be given to couples who do not have the opportunity to marry in church, for example due to divorce, and to same-sex couples," Bishop Georg Baetzing said in a statement. "The practice of the church knows a variety of forms of blessing. It is good that this treasure for the diversity of lifestyles is now being raised."
In the United States, the Rev. John Oesterle, a Catholic priest and hospital chaplain in Pittsburgh, said many priests would probably not be open to offering such a blessing, but he welcomed Francis' action.
"I think the pope has learned to accept people as God made them," he said on Monday. "When I was growing up, the assumption was that God made everyone straight. What we have learned is that is not true. In accepting people as God made them, and if Jesus' primary teaching is we should love and serve one another in the community, I think that's what gives Pope Francis the openness to God's presence in those relationships."
Information for this article was contributed by Nicole Winfield, David Crary, Patricia Luna, Peter B. Smith and Kirsten Grieshaber of The Associated Press and by Anthony Faiola and Stefano Pitrelli of The Washington Post.
FILE - Mauro Cioffari, left, puts a wedding ring on his partner Davide Conti's finger as their civil union is being registered by a municipality officer during a ceremony in Rome's Campidoglio Capitol Hill on May 21, 2015 file photo. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, file)
FILE - A public blessing ceremony with hundreds of believers take place in front of the Cologne Cathedral in Cologne, Germany, on Sept. 20, 2023. Pope Francis has formally approved allowing priests to bless same-sex couples, with a new document released Monday Dec. 18, 2023 explaining a radical change in Vatican policy by insisting that people seeking God's love and mercy shouldn't be subject to "an exhaustive moral analysis" to receive it. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner, File)
FILE - Pope Francis is greeted by a young married couple at the end of his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square at The Vatican, on May 3, 2023. Pope Francis has formally approved allowing priests to bless same-sex couples, with a new document released Monday Dec. 18, 2023 explaining a radical change in Vatican policy by insisting that people seeking God's love and mercy shouldn't be subject to "an exhaustive moral analysis" to receive it. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, File)
FILE - A representative of Dignity USA, a group of LGBTQ+ Catholics, wears pins on the lanyard of his pilgrim credential, outside the Sao Vicente de Paulo Parish Social Center, after Pope Francis visited it, in the Serafina neighbourhood of Lisbon, Friday, Aug. 4, 2023. (AP Photo/Armando Franca, File)
FILE - Pope Francis speaks during his weekly general audience in St. Peter's Square at The Vatican, on Oct. 18, 2023. Pope Francis has formally approved allowing priests to bless same-sex couples, with a new document released Monday Dec. 18, 2023 explaining a radical change in Vatican policy by insisting that people seeking God's love and mercy shouldn't be subject to "an exhaustive moral analysis" to receive it. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, File)
FILE - A rainbow shines over St.Peter's Square at the Vatican, on Jan. 31, 2021. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, file)
Andrea Rubera from Christian LGBTQ+ association Cammini di Speranza (Paths of Hope) speaks to The Associated Press in Rome, Monday, Dec. 18, 2023. Pope Francis has formally approved allowing priests to bless same-sex couples, with a new document explaining a radical change in Vatican policy by insisting that people seeking God's love and mercy shouldn't be subject to "an exhaustive moral analysis" to receive it. (AP Photo/Luigi Navarra)
FILE - Italian Arcigay gay rights association activists hold banners and flags during a demonstration in front of The Vatican, in this Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2009 file photo. (AP Photo/Sandro Pace, file)
FILE - Vicar Wolfgang Rothe, left, blesses the couple Christine Walter, center, and Almut Muenster, right, during a Catholic service with the blessing of same-sex couples in St Benedict's Church in Munich, on May 9, 2021. Pope Francis has formally approved allowing priests to bless same-sex couples, with a new document released Monday Dec. 18, 2023 explaining a radical change in Vatican policy by insisting that people seeking God's love and mercy shouldn't be subject to "an exhaustive moral analysis" to receive it. (Felix Hoerhager/dpa via AP, File)