Same-sex couples received blessings at a ceremony in front of the Cologne Cathedral in September this year, as priests protested against Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki’s explicit prohibition on such blessings.
A document issued by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) has recognised the possibility of blessings for same-sex couples.
The declaration Fiducia Supplicans, “On the Pastoral Meanings of Blessings”, was published with the Pope’s approval on Monday.
The text “offers a specific and innovative contribution to the pastoral meaning of blessing”, according to its chief author Cardinal Víctor Fernández, the prefect of the dicastery, who called it a “real development” drawn from Pope Francis’ teaching.
“It is precisely in this context that one can understand the possibility of blessing couples in irregular situations and same-sex couples without officially validating their status or changing in any way the Church’s perennial teaching on marriage,” he said.
An introduction explains that Fiducia Supplicans followed “several questions of both a formal and an informal nature about the possibility of blessing same-sex couples” submitted to the DDF in recent years, particularly following the 2021 Responsum ad dubium which concluded that “the Church does not have, and cannot have, the power to bless unions of persons of the same sex”.
The new document is intended to “offer a vision that draws together the doctrinal aspects with the pastoral ones in a coherent manner”.
Fiducia Supplicans sets out the character of the blessing in the Sacrament of Marriage, which “is tied directly to the specific union of a man and a woman”, and emphasises that the Church cannot confer such a blessing in other situations.
However, it outlines the wider character of blessings in scripture and in the life of the Church, “found in a realm of greater spontaneity and freedom”.
This provides for blessings on those who “do not claim a legitimation of their own status, but who beg that all that is true, good and humanly valid in their lives and their relationships be enriched, healed and elevated by the presence of the Holy Spirit”.
“This is a blessing that, although not included in any liturgical rite, unites intercessory prayer with the invocation of God’s help by those who humbly turn to him.”
The document emphasises that a request for a blessing “expresses and nurtures openness to the transcendence, mercy and closeness of God”.
Such blessings “should not become a liturgical or semi-liturgical act”, nor should the Church promote any ritual for them. To do so “would constitute a serious impoverishment because it would subject a gesture of great value in popular piety to excessive control”.
As such, “no further responses should be expected about possible ways to regulate details or practicalities regarding blessings of this type”. – The Tablet
