“The Church does not have the power to confer its liturgical blessing when that would somehow offer a form of moral legitimacy to a union that presumes to be a marriage or to an extra-marital sexual practice.”
From Vatican News:
When two people request a blessing, even if their situation as a couple is “irregular,” it will be possible for the ordained minister to consent. However, this gesture of pastoral closeness must avoid any elements that remotely resemble a marriage rite.
This is what is stated the Declaration “Fiducia supplicans” on the pastoral meaning of blessings, published by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and approved by Pope Francis.
The document explores the theme of blessings, distinguishing between ritual and liturgical ones, and spontaneous ones more akin to signs of popular devotion. It is precisely in this second category there is now consideration of the possibility of welcoming even those who do not live according to the norms of Christian moral doctrine but humbly request to be blessed. 23 years have passed since the former “Holy Office” published a Declaration (the last one was in August 2000 with “Dominus Jesus”), a document of such doctrinal importance.
“Fiducia supplicans” begins with the introduction by the prefect, Cardinal Victor Fernandez, who explains that the Declaration considers the “pastoral meaning of blessings,” allowing “a broadening and enrichment of the classical understanding” through a theological reflection “based on the pastoral vision of Pope Francis.”
RELATED: Read the declaration Fiducia Supplicans, On the Pastoral Meaning of Blessings
It is a reflection that “implies a real development from what has been said about blessings up until now, reaching an understanding of the possibility “of blessing couples in irregular situations and same-sex couples without officially validating their status or changing in any way the Church’s perennial teaching on marriage.”
After the first paragraphs (1-3) that recall the previous pronouncement of 2021 that is now further developed and superseded, the Declaration presents the blessing in the Sacrament of Marriage (paragraphs 4-6) stating as inadmissible “rites and prayers that could create confusion between what constitutes marriage” and “what contradicts it,” by avoiding any implication that “something that is not marriage is being recognized as marriage.” It is reiterated that according to the “perennial Catholic doctrine” only sexual relations between a man and a woman in the context of marriage are considered lawful.
A second extensive part of the Declaration (paragraphs 7-30) analyzes the meaning of different blessings, whose recipients are people, objects of worship, and places of life. It is recalled that “from a strictly liturgical point of view,” the blessing requires that what is blessed “be conformed to God’s will, as expressed in the teachings of the Church.”
“When a blessing is invoked on certain human relationships” through a special liturgical rite, the Declaration notes, “it is necessary that what is blessed corresponds with God’s designs written in creation” (par. 11). Therefore, the Church does not have the power to impart a liturgical blessing on irregular or same-sex couples. It is also necessary to avoid the risk of reducing the meaning of blessings to this point of view only, expecting for a simple blessing “the same moral conditions for a simple blessing that are called for in the reception of the sacraments” (par. 12).
After analyzing blessings in Scripture, the Declaration offers a theological-pastoral understanding. Those who ask for a blessing show themselves “to be in need of God’s saving presence” in their lives by expressing “a petition for God’s assistance, a plea to live better” (par. 21). This request should be received and valued “outside of a liturgical framework” when found “in a realm of greater spontaneity and freedom” (par. 23).
When seeing them from the perspective of popular piety, “blessings should be evaluated as acts of devotion.” Those requesting a blessing “should not be required to have prior moral perfection” as a precondition, the Declaration notes.
Exploring this distinction, based on the response of Pope Francis to the dubia published last October that called for discernment on the possibility of “forms of blessing, requested by one or more persons, that do not convey an erroneous conception of marriage” (par. 26), the Declaration affirms that this kind of blessing “is offered to all without requiring anything,” helping people feel that they are still blessed despite their mistakes and that “their heavenly Father continues to will their good and to hope that they will ultimately open themselves to the good” (par. 27).
There are “several occasions when people spontaneously ask for a blessing, whether on pilgrimages, at shrines, or even on the street when they meet a priest and these blessings “are meant for everyone; no one is to be excluded from them” (par. 28).
While it is not appropriate to establish “procedures or rituals” for such cases, the ordained minister may join in the prayer of those persons who “although in a union that cannot be compared in any way to a marriage, desire to entrust themselves to the Lord and his mercy, to invoke his help, and to be guided to a greater understanding of his plan of love and of truth” (par. 30).
Stay tuned. This story, and reaction, are still developing.
UPDATE: Here’s a clear and sensible overview that corrects some initial impressions of the declaration, from Father Patrick Mary Briscoe at Our Sunday Visitor:
Did Pope Francis change Catholic teaching on gay marriage?
The short answer is no. Despite the number of headlines and photos you’re seeing all across the media, Catholic teaching understands now and always that marriage is a privileged union that can only exist between one man and one woman. That bond is forged in the Sacrament of Matrimony, which, like every sacrament, was instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church.
So what’s everyone talking about?
… Pope Francis did not redefine marriage. The new declaration teaches, “rites and prayers that could create confusion between what constitutes marriage — which is the ‘exclusive, stable, and indissoluble union between a man and a woman, naturally open to the generation of children’ — and what contradicts it are inadmissible” (Fiducia supplicans, No. 4). Marriage is a gift given by God from the beginning when human beings were created male and female.
Furthermore, the Church teaches that the liturgical rites proper to marriage must be safeguarded for that sacrament. The document teaches, “when it comes to blessings, the Church has the right and the duty to avoid any rite that might contradict this conviction or lead to confusion” (No. 5).
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops said in a statement, “The Church’s teaching on marriage has not changed, and this declaration affirms that, while also making an effort to accompany people through the imparting of pastoral blessings because each of us needs God’s healing love and mercy in our lives.” The declaration, therefore, is not a matter of doctrine as such, but a practical response to encounter and encourage people in their response to the movements of God’s grace.
So what did change? The pope has called for a willingness to pray with those who are seeking God. The document states, “People who come spontaneously to ask for a blessing show by this request their sincere openness to transcendence, the confidence of their hearts that they do not trust in their own strength alone, their need for God, and their desire to break out of the narrow confines of this world, enclosed in its limitations” (No. 21). Responding to spontaneous prompts is a key part of what the declaration envisions. The new document teaches that people seeking God shouldn’t be turned away, regardless of their state of life or moral situation.
Before the new declaration, there had been questions about whether an ordained minister could bless couples in an irregular situation. An irregular marital situation in the eyes of the Catholic Church includes same-sex unions but also includes couples where one or both spouses are divorced and remarried (without a declaration of nullity). In fact, the document also states that the Church cannot grant “moral legitimacy” to extramarital sex.
The new declaration advances Pope Francis’ theology of accompaniment by which people are led to a deeper relationship with Christ and his Church. The declaration teaches, “To seek a blessing in the Church is to acknowledge that the life of the Church springs from the womb of God’s mercy and helps us to move forward, to live better, and to respond to the Lord’s will” (No. 20). There is no person, the declaration insists, who should be excluded from this kind of prayer.
There’s much more. Read on.