Pope Francis approved a
document in 2023 that allows for “the possibility of blessings for couples in irregular
situations and for couples of the same sex”[1]
The inclusion of the word, possibility, is important because it gives
priests (and their bishops) whose stances on morality are socially conservative
an out. That irregular situations are included in the statement—although
admittedly they are distinct from “couples of the same sex”—is a hint that the
statement would likely be controversial and taken at least by some clergy negatively. So that the document gives the clergy discretion is no small matter. It also matters because of the emotional vulnerability that is entailed in requesting a blessing. At the time, the
Church was still being impacted by having been recognized, and thus stigmatized, as the cause of the emotional damage that had been inflicted on children by pedophile clergy
over decades. In fact, the resulting declining church attendance may have gone
into the motivation for the statement. The document's overarching pastoral purpose in blessing gay couples over conducting a moral critique of homosexuality shows not only how much Pope Francis differed as of 2023 from his predecessor, but also how very much the atrocities against children had changed the orientation of the Vatican. To the extent that a significant number of the pedophile priests and bishops had molested (and were still molesting) boys, any moral critiques getting in the way of blessing loving gay relationships would suffer from a lack of credibility in the face of dripping irony and sordid hypocrisy. Even so, the document can be criticized for failing to distinguish moral
from theological critiques of male homosexuality—an oversight
mitigated by that fact that the pastoral purpose of the letter subordinates
even a theological assessment, for, as Paul wrote, faith without love,
especially love whose object is not convenient, is for naught.
1. Christopher Lamb, “Pope Francis Authorizes Blessings for Same-Sex Couples,” CNN.com, December 18, 2023.