The Vatican announced Monday that Pope Francis has given formal approval to priests blessing same-sex couples.
In a declaration titled “Fiducia Supplicans,” the Vatican said Catholics seeking God’s mercy should not be subjected to “an exhaustive moral analysis” to receive it.
The radical change comes after Francis said in a letter to five cardinals that pastoral “prudence must adequately discern whether there are forms of blessing, requested by one or several people, that do not transmit a wrong conception of marriage.”
Monday’s declaration was released in five languages by the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and approved by the pontiff. It asserts that such blessings cannot be “similar to a liturgical rite that can create confusion” such as a marriage ceremony.
According to the declaration, the blessing should never be connected to a civil union ceremony, “and not even in connection with them.” The document states such a blessing cannot use clothing, gestures or words that resemble a wedding ceremony.
Instead, the blessing can be impacted during a visit to a shrine, a meeting with a priest, a group prayer or during a pilgrimage.
“There is no intention to legitimize anything, but rather to open one’s life to God, to ask for his help to live better,” the document said.
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