By Carol Glatz
WHILE gay men and women must be respected, any form of blessing a same-sex union is “illicit”, the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has affirmed.
The negative judgment is on the blessing of unions, not the people who may still receive a blessing as individuals, it said in a statement published yesterday.
The statement was a response to a question or “dubium” that came from priests and lay faithful “who require clarification and guidance concerning a controversial issue”, said an official commentary accompanying the statement.
The response to the question, “Does the Church have the power to give the blessing to unions of persons of the same sex?” was “Negative.”
“It is not licit to impart a blessing on relationships, or partnerships, even stable, that involve sexual activity outside of marriage – i.e., outside the indissoluble union of a man and a woman open in itself to the transmission of life – as is the case of the unions between persons of the same sex”, the doctrinal office said in an explanatory note accompanying the statement.
Pope Francis approved both the statement and the note for publication.
The clarification “does not preclude the blessings given to individual persons with homosexual inclinations, who manifest the will to live in fidelity to the revealed plans of God as proposed by Church teaching.”
“Rather, it declares illicit any form of blessing that tends to acknowledge their unions as such,” the explanatory note said.
The doctrinal congregation said the Church does not and cannot have the power to impart her blessing on such unions and, therefore, “any form of blessing that tends to acknowledge their unions as such” is illicit.
