Pope Francis has doubled down in his support of blessing gay couples, suggesting those who oppose the practice are \u201chypocrites.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t bless a \u2018same-sex marriage\u2019; I bless two people who love each other and I also ask them to pray for me,\u201d the pontiff\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0the Italian weekly magazine\u00a0Credere<\/em>\u00a0this week.<\/p>\n Just before Christmas, the Vatican\u2019s doctrinal office, under the leadership of Argentinian Cardinal V\u00edctor Manuel \u201cTucho\u201d Fern\u00e1ndez, reversed the Vatican\u2019s position on blessing gay couples.<\/p>\n From a \u201cstrictly liturgical point of view,\u201d a blessing requires that what is blessed be conformed to God\u2019s will, affirmed the Vatican\u00a0Declaration<\/a>\u00a0Fiducia Supplicans<\/em>, whereas from a \u201cpastoral\u201d point of view this need not be so.<\/p>\n Under a broader, pastoral understanding of blessings, \u201cone can understand the possibility of blessing couples in irregular situations and same-sex couples without officially validating their status or changing in any way the Church\u2019s perennial teaching on marriage,\u201d Cardinal Fern\u00e1ndez stated in his presentation of the Declaration.<\/p>\n In an earlier declaration of March 2021, the Vatican\u00a0declared<\/a>\u00a0that the Church has no authority to bless homosexual unions, because God Himself \u201cdoes not and cannot bless sin.\u201d<\/p>\n Blessings require \u201cthe right intention of those who participate\u201d as well as \u201cthat what is blessed be objectively and positively ordered to receive and express grace, according to the designs of God inscribed in creation,\u201d stated the text, published with the express approval of Pope Francis.<\/p>\n \u201cFor this reason, it is not licit to impart a blessing on relationships, or partnerships, even stable, that involve sexual activity outside of marriage,\u201d it read, \u201cas is the case of the unions between persons of the same sex.\u201d<\/p>\n While forbidding the blessing of gay couples, the 2021 text explicitly allowed for the blessing of individual persons, even those who commit grave sins, according to the Church\u2019s long-standing practice.<\/p>\n The rejection of the possibility of blessing a homosexual couple \u201cdoes not preclude the blessings given to individual persons with homosexual inclinations, who manifest the will to live in fidelity to the revealed plans of God as proposed by Church teaching,\u201d the text declared.<\/p>\n In this week\u2019s interview with\u00a0Credere<\/em>, the pope seemed to confuse these two issues, as if some people have a problem with blessing persons with homosexual inclinations.<\/p>\n \u201cNobody is scandalized if I bless a businessman who exploits people, but they are when I bless a homosexual,\u201d he said, adding that this is \u201chypocrisy.\u201d<\/p>\n There has been widespread resistance to the Vatican\u2019s\u00a0volte-face<\/em>\u00a0on the question of blessings for homosexual couples, notably from the Pan-African Bishops\u2019 Conference, which stated in a joint\u00a0declaration<\/a>: \u201cIn Africa there is no place to bless homosexual couples. Not at all.\u201d<\/p>\n For his part, Francis\u00a0asserted<\/a>\u00a0that the people who are \u201cvehemently protesting\u201d the decision to allow the blessings \u201cbelong to small ideological groups,\u201d while adding that the case of the African continent is \u201cspecial,\u201d because for them, \u201chomosexuality is something \u2018ugly\u2019 from a cultural point of view; they do not tolerate it.\u201d<\/p>\n The bishops of Africa \u201care now being condescendingly portrayed as culturally conditioned,\u201d\u00a0responded<\/a>\u00a0Dr. Nina Heereman, professor of theology, \u201cwhile we fail to ask ourselves to what extent we are the ones succumbing to the pressure of the culture around us.\u201d<\/p>\n Read more at: breitbart.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Pope Francis has doubled down in his support of blessing gay couples, suggesting those who oppose the practice are \u201chypocrites.\u201d \u201cI don\u2019t bless a \u2018same-sex marriage\u2019; I bless two people who love each other and I also ask them to pray for me,\u201d the pontiff\u00a0told\u00a0the Italian weekly magazine\u00a0Credere\u00a0this week. Just before Christmas, the Vatican\u2019s doctrinal … Continue reading Pope Francis Blasts Those Who Oppose Blessing Gay Couples<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":21348,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24800","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/white_horse_blog-300x100-300x100-1.jpg","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8fAkI-6s0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24800","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24800"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24800\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24801,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24800\/revisions\/24801"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/setapartbytruth.org\/wordpress-watchman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}