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Blessings for LGBTQ+ Couples: Pope Francis’s Historic Gesture

December 26, 2023 | FlaglerLive | 7 Comments

Heidi and Jamie Bell, who married in 2016, kiss and show the V for Victory sign near Dave Richards, a vacationer from Ohio who decided to hold up a quote from Romans for much of the event. He was briefly joined by a congregant from a local church who said she shared his cause. (© FlaglerLive)
Heidi and Jamie Bell, who married in 2016, kiss and show the V for Victory sign near Dave Richards, a vacationer from Ohio who decided to hold up a quote from Romans for much of last spring’s Flagler Pride event at Town Center in Palm Coast. (© FlaglerLive)

By Steven P. Millies

Pope Francis’ Dec. 18, 2023, announcement that Catholic priests may bless LGBTQ+ couples and others in “irregular” situations marks a definitive shift in the Roman Catholic Church’s posture toward many types of loving relationships. It may also mark a definitive turning point within the Roman Catholic Church.




Across the last few years, Francis has made gesture after gesture indicating his desire to find a way for the Catholic Church to accompany and welcome people whose loving relationships do not fit into the church’s sacramental understanding of marriage as between a man and a woman, ordered toward procreation and ended only by death.

He has telegraphed for a long time his desire to come to some new arrangement that would welcome loving relationships in the church without transforming the church’s doctrine on marriage and sexuality all at once – the Dec. 18 declaration seems to do exactly that.

Pastoral emphasis

First, let’s be clear about what this new declaration is not. The declaration does not permit the marriage of LGBTQ+ couples, or couples where parties are divorced without annulment of the marriage. Neither does the declaration permit any recognition of a civil marriage.

The declaration is specific that the blessing of relationships outside marriage must not be done in any way that might be confused with a marriage ceremony. In fact, the declaration encourages priests to be responsive to “spontaneous” requests for a blessing, and it forbids the creation of “procedures or rituals” that would provide anything like a script for a blessing ceremony.

Two people stand in front of a cathedral while another man in white priestly garments blesses them.
Same-sex couples take part in a Catholic public blessing ceremony in Cologne, Germany, on Sept. 20, 2023.
AP Photo/Martin Meissner

Still, the declaration is remarkable for what it does do. Sidestepping difficult doctrinal questions that divide Catholics, the document’s emphasis is pastoral – it is oriented toward caring for and ministering to people rather than teaching doctrine.
The word “pastoral” appears 20 times in the declaration. Francis’ emphasis is unmistakable: The subject of the declaration is not marriage or sexual morality; the declaration is about something else.



What ‘blessings’ mean in the church

In fact, the declaration is about blessings and what they mean in the Catholic Church.

A long stretch of the document is devoted to defining and clarifying what the Roman Catholic Church means by the word “blessing.” Francis has said that “when one asks for a blessing, one is expressing a petition for God’s assistance, a plea to live better, and a confidence in a Father who can help us live better.” A blessing is an “unconditional gift” that “descends,” while our human thanksgiving “ascends” to God.

Blessings, in this pastoral sense, are events when our human dependence on God’s mercy is expressed as a desire for closeness with God. God, in Catholic belief, responds through the church. “It is God who blesses” in these situations, Francis has written. God’s blessing manifests through priests and ministers.

A Book of Blessings provides formulas for everything from blessing a new home or a safe voyage to blessings for elderly people and seeds at planting time. Yet often enough in Catholic life, blessing is requested for an object like a rosary or Bible.

When these desires for blessing arise spontaneously, the church’s ministers always accommodate them. The church’s doctrine says blessing is abundant and inexhaustible. “Such blessings are meant for everyone; no one is to be excluded from them,” the Dec. 18 declaration says.

Sidestepping difficult issues

These meanings of “blessing” are distinct from the blessing in the Rite of the Sacrament of Marriage, which is specific to the “union of a man and a woman, who establish an exclusive and indissoluble covenant.”

Yet, within the scope of that much more broad, pastoral understanding of blessing, Francis has said with this declaration that blessing should not be withheld from LGBTQ+ couples or anyone else.

In this way, the pope has sidestepped the more difficult doctrinal questions while still inviting all couples to present themselves for the blessings they desire.




But the pope has not sidestepped the controversy. In recent decades, the Anglican Communion and the Lutheran Church have been roiled by controversy over LGBTQ+ acceptance. More recently, the Methodist Church in the United States has split over the issue.

Catholics are divided in a similar way, and this declaration is not likely to cool down divisions. In fact, I believe, those divisions will likely deepen – especially in the United States, where Catholic bishops have been tepid in their response to the declaration and Francis has not been embraced enthusiastically.

Yet for now, the Roman Catholic Church has made a historic gesture of welcome that invites all people to experience the love of God in a community of believers devoted toward building up a more just and equitable world. “The Church is … the sacrament of God’s infinite love,” the declaration says.

Pope Francis has been constant in that loving, pastoral emphasis. For as much as the Dec. 18 declaration has changed, it has not changed that.

Steven P. Millies is Professor of Public Theology and Director of The Bernardin Center at Catholic Theological Union.

The Conversation arose out of deep-seated concerns for the fading quality of our public discourse and recognition of the vital role that academic experts could play in the public arena. Information has always been essential to democracy. It’s a societal good, like clean water. But many now find it difficult to put their trust in the media and experts who have spent years researching a topic. Instead, they listen to those who have the loudest voices. Those uninformed views are amplified by social media networks that reward those who spark outrage instead of insight or thoughtful discussion. The Conversation seeks to be part of the solution to this problem, to raise up the voices of true experts and to make their knowledge available to everyone. The Conversation publishes nightly at 9 p.m. on FlaglerLive.
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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Dennis says

    December 27, 2023 at 6:10 am

    Sad. I just threw up in my mouth.

  2. Deborah Coffey says

    December 27, 2023 at 6:23 am

    It’s a start in the right direction….

  3. Samuel L. Bronkowitz says

    December 27, 2023 at 12:49 pm

    Galileo was excommunicated in 1633, but was recognized as being correct by the church in 1835 and was formally “forgiven” in 1992. I’d say the church actually being progressive and by its normal standards quick about recognizing LGBTQ+ rights as really the only morally defensible position it can have as a surprising a good thing. I know for many of its followers it will be frustrating, and perhaps they’ll need to focus their hate on to some other cause like maybe black people, hispanic people, and people that eat meat on fridays but finally, the LGBTQ+ community gets a bit of a break.

  4. Mary Lumus says

    December 27, 2023 at 6:09 pm

    Great :(

  5. PCMom says

    December 27, 2023 at 8:09 pm

    WAIT!! The church will not marry me if I have been divorced from a previous marriage but will marry a gay couple? Hmmmm ok SMH

  6. Ray W. says

    January 1, 2024 at 2:45 pm

    Are you convinced that the anyone who possesses the authority to marry in the Catholic Church is now able to marry an LBGTQ+ couple? Is that what Pope Francis meant when he added a new and unique blessing to an already large book of blessings?

  7. The dude says

    January 2, 2024 at 12:00 pm

    Thing about “the church” is, you can get a “divorce” reclassified as an “annulment” with enough donation money.

    I know this from experience.

    So I guess $$$ is really what the church worships above all else, like we didn’t already know this.

    Don’t hurt yourself falling off that high horse. SMDH

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