The Vatican on Monday banned Catholic Churches from blessing same-sex union as God “cannot bless sin.”
The Vatican’s orthodoxy office said this in a formal response to a question about the status of the faith if Catholic clergy can bless gay unions.
The answer which came out today in a two-page explanation published in seven languages and approved by Pope Francis was negative.
Blessings are not allowed, wrote the CDF, because what is to be blessed needs to be “objectively and positively ordered to receive and express grace, according to the designs of God inscribed in creation, and fully revealed by Christ the Lord”.
For this reason, 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,” it wrote.
The decree differentiated church’s welcoming and blessing gay people but not their union in marriage.
The Vatican holds that gay must be treated with dignity and respect but gay sex is intrinsically disordered.
Catholic teaching holds that marriage is a lifelong union between man and woman which is part of God’s plan and intended to create a new life.
Since gay union is not intended to be part of that plan, it cannot be blessed by the church, the document said.
