Conservative cardinals had challenged the pope to confirm teachings on LGBTQ+ issues
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 11 July 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 did not 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 represented “one big straw towards breaking the camel’s back” in their marginalisation.
The Vatican holds that marriage is an indissoluble union between man and woman. As a result, it has long opposed gay marriage. But 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 that the church could not bless gay unions because “God cannot bless sin”.
I know it’s easy to ask why LGBTQ folks would care about something like this, and I felt the same way until recently.
One of my best friends is a gay man. He was out and living a happy life until his mother got cancer and died.
He blamed himself for being gay and not religious enough for her death, so he decided to go full catholic like she was - Mass every day, prayers all the time, and become celibate, I guess, I don’t ask and we live in different states.
So for his sake, I hope this will be something positive in his life so he can stop feeling guilty and ashamed.
But isn’t the church the reason why he feels that way in the first place?
Yeah, and I’m not excusing them. I was raised in it too and left as soon as I turned 18.
But I see lots of comments saying things like “Why would LGBTQ folks care…the church hates them, etc” and I was explaining why, at least, this one person does.
The church could spontaneously combust tomorrow and the world would be a better place for it. I’m not excusing them, I hate them…I miss my friend who has changed so much and listens to Jesus podcasts and shit and doesn’t really talk about much else. Fuck the church.