Conservative cardinals had challenged the pope to confirm teachings on LGBTQ+ issues
Pope Francis has suggested there could be ways to bless same-sex unions, responding to five conservative cardinals who challenged him to affirm church teaching on homosexuality ahead of a big meeting where LGBTQ+ Catholics are on the agenda.
The Vatican on Monday published a letter Francis wrote to the cardinals on 11 July after receiving a list of five questions, or dubia, from them a day earlier. In it, Francis suggests that such blessings could be studied if they did not confuse the blessing with sacramental marriage.
New Ways Ministry, which advocates for LGBTQ+ Catholics, said the letter “significantly advances” efforts to make LGBTQ+ Catholics welcomed in the church and represented “one big straw towards breaking the camel’s back” in their marginalisation.
The Vatican holds that marriage is an indissoluble union between man and woman. As a result, it has long opposed gay marriage. But Francis has voiced support for civil laws extending legal benefits to same-sex spouses, and Catholic priests in parts of Europe have been blessing same-sex unions without Vatican censure.
Francis’ response to the cardinals, however, marks a reversal from the Vatican’s current official position. In an explanatory note in 2021, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said that the church could not bless gay unions because “God cannot bless sin”.
Pope Francis honestly seems like a well-intentioned fellow, and the anger he causes among the more extreme catholics is delightful.
He’s a PR pope. Jorge Mario Bergoglio was a homophobic, woman hating bigot long before he was pope. Even for Argentina he was considered conservative. This whole “progressive pope” angle is nothing but PR after the last Nazi youth pope was so disliked.
Pope Francis to this day refuses to acknowledge or meet with the victims of his priest’s sexual abuse, and treats the victims like they don’t exist, turning them away from the Vatican.
He’s a bigger monster than most Popes just because he’s such a fake
It seems like the more conservative catholics attack him the further left he goes.
He wants headlines that induce exactly the kind of opinion you just espoused. Looks like it’s working.