Vatican approves blessings for Same Sex Couples.

[jojoju1998]

https://www.reuters.com/world/vatican-approves-blessings-same-sex-couples-under-certain-conditions-2023-12-18/

"  as long as they are not part of regular Church rituals or liturgies."

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

Wake me up when they make an actual change because on the ground and on the Internet, they only seem to be doubling down on hate over all else. Pope Francis is so lucky he has the press eating out of his pocket to be able to conjure such favorable headlines about nothing

[jojoju1998]

Wake me up when they make an actual change because on the ground and on the Internet, they only seem to be doubling down on hate over all else.

Well on the ground, disapproval of Pope Francis is increasing among " faithful " Catholics. And the developing world catholics, are not more sympathetic to liberal things.

[7,052,770]

The start of the slippery slope to full gay marriage. What a legend, the greatest saint of the 21st century!

[Ferguson97]

Tradcaths in shambles

[Aurelius2]

Lends a lot more credence to the rumors that he's near death, if you ask me.

I imagine that, as usual with these sorts of announcements from Francis, this is not quite as far reaching as the secular English press is making it look. However, this one seems much less ambiguous than previous statements that triggered these flash-in-the-pan media frenzies, so maybe not?

[Antonio the Sixth]

cue the usual American heretics losing their f**king minds

Suck it, losers. Now you know how liberation theologians felt a generation ago.

[fhtagn]

https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2023/12/18/0901/01963.html#en

This is the document in question.

The crux of it is:

• The Church and Pope Francis reaffirm the solemnity of marriage and that it is solely a sacrament between one man and one woman.

• Blessings are an act of reaching out to God and asking for grace, which speaks to a desire to conform one's life to His will. We aren't given a strict formula for blessings, and Pope Francis encourages for blessing to be used pastorally, as an act of bringing God into someone's life.

• Any blessing for a person or persons who are are living an irregular sexual life are essentially to be treated as another other ordinary person asking for a blessing. However, the blessing may not be dispensed in any way that might confuse it with an endorsement or making it seem comparable to the rite of marriage. It is not to be accompanied by the particular dress, occasion, date, etc, that a licit marriage would have. It is not to be something routinely dispensed by the priest, or have a regular formula that moves it from a spontaneous blessing administered in the moment of asking, to a formal ritual.


It's truly a shame how the media and certain anti-Catholics are twisting this story into something it isn't.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Wake me up when they make an actual change because on the ground and on the Internet, they only seem to be doubling down on hate over all else. Pope Francis is so lucky he has the press eating out of his pocket to be able to conjure such favorable headlines about nothing

Unfortunately there's only so much any Pope can do if rank-and-file Catholics are bound and determined to swill the "based and tradpilled" Kool-Aid like there's no tomorrow, but making sure there will continue to be space in future generations for Catholics who don't want to fall for that particular bill of sale is not nothing.

https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/it/bollettino/pubblico/2023/12/18/0901/01963.html#en

This is the document in question.

The crux of it is:

• The Church and Pope Francis reaffirm the solemnity of marriage and that it is solely a sacrament between one man and one woman.

• Blessings are an act of reaching out to God and asking for grace, which speaks to a desire to conform one's life to His will. We aren't given a strict formula for blessings, and Pope Francis encourages for blessing to be used pastorally, as an act of bringing God into someone's life.

• Any blessing for a person or persons who are are living an irregular sexual life are essentially to be treated as another other ordinary person asking for a blessing. However, the blessing may not be dispensed in any way that might confuse it with an endorsement or making it seem comparable to the rite of marriage. It is not to be accompanied by the particular dress, occasion, date, etc, that a licit marriage would have. It is not to be something routinely dispensed by the priest, or have a regular formula that moves it from a spontaneous blessing administered in the moment of asking, to a formal ritual.


It's truly a shame how the media and certain anti-Catholics are twisting this story into something it isn't.

This is another cherrypicked narrative, just as is the idea that this is a full 180. There is a genuine change of approach here, particularly in the refusal to regulate the actual content of these blessings beyond the stipulation that they not be simulacra of marriage and in the repeated equivalency drawn between same-sex couples and divorced-and-remarried couples, a change in pastoral approach regarding whom is a firmly established banner policy of this pontificate.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Interestingly, famous Jesuit Fr. James Martin has already blessed a same-sex couple. It will be interesting to see how the Vatican reacts to this, to see if the notion that the media has misunderstood the intention behind this edict holds any water. I'm guessing Pope Francis will remain silent.

[afleitch]

It's fairly common knowledge that a number of priests already do this privately. I know of it. In part because rather than being automatons, priests have gay friends and family members.

It's a small step. It's an acknowledgement that gay marriage isn't an idea, or legalese, but an actual state of being that couples exist in and outwardly presents as clearly beneficial and real to the people in them and around them. Much like remarried divorcees etc.

[Shaula🏳️‍⚧️]

Based
American "tradcaths" (who are really protestants) coping rn

[afleitch]

Based
American "tradcaths" (who are really protestants) coping rn

Tradcaths are Catholic. They are just inheritors of pre and post war Catholic theology that wilfully aided and abetted fascist adjacent political and social ideology. Given the resurgence of the latter, there's reason as to why it's had a post-modern resurgence. It's idolatrous, as it's an  a e s t h e t i c  fetish, if anything. But it's 'Catholique'.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Based
American "tradcaths" (who are really protestants) coping rn

Tradcaths are Catholic. They are just inheritors of pre and post war Catholic theology that wilfully aided and abetted fascist adjacent political and social ideology. Given the resurgence of the latter, there's reason as to why it's had a post-modern resurgence. It's idolatrous, as it's an  a e s t h e t i c  fetish, if anything. But it's 'Catholique'.

Shaula is probably referring to the post-2013, and on some issues much older, trad tendency to reject or cherrypick current papal decision-making in favor of "Sola scriptura but the scriptura is semi-obscure Counter-Enlightenment-era encyclicals and some of the nastier decisions of the Ratzinger CDF".

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

I'm sympathetic to what he's trying to do but he's definitely straddling the line between "offering the comfort of God" and appearing to view a same sex couple as acceptable within a religious setting. You don't have to have the couple say "I do" in order for it to come off to observers that you're viewing the couple's conduct to be honorable. The government recongizing same sex relationships is fine but for the Christian church to do so is a clear violation of scripture and I'm concerned the Pope doesn't truly get that.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I'm sympathetic to what he's trying to do but he's definitely straddling the line between "offering the comfort of God" and appearing to view a same sex couple as acceptable within a religious setting. You don't have to have the couple say "I do" in order for it to come off to observers that you're viewing the couple's conduct to be honorable. The government recongizing same sex relationships is fine but for the Christian church to do so is a clear violation of scripture and I'm concerned the Pope doesn't truly get that.

This isn't really how the Catholic understanding of the Bible works.

[jojoju1998]

I'm sympathetic to what he's trying to do but he's definitely straddling the line between "offering the comfort of God" and appearing to view a same sex couple as acceptable within a religious setting. You don't have to have the couple say "I do" in order for it to come off to observers that you're viewing the couple's conduct to be honorable. The government recongizing same sex relationships is fine but for the Christian church to do so is a clear violation of scripture and I'm concerned the Pope doesn't truly get that.

This isn't really how the Catholic understanding of the Bible works.

Isn't the Catholic Church opposed to the sacramental marriage, but not same sex relationships per se technically as long as the relationship does not include the sexual act ?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I'm sympathetic to what he's trying to do but he's definitely straddling the line between "offering the comfort of God" and appearing to view a same sex couple as acceptable within a religious setting. You don't have to have the couple say "I do" in order for it to come off to observers that you're viewing the couple's conduct to be honorable. The government recongizing same sex relationships is fine but for the Christian church to do so is a clear violation of scripture and I'm concerned the Pope doesn't truly get that.

This isn't really how the Catholic understanding of the Bible works.

Isn't the Catholic Church opposed to the sacramental marriage, but not same sex relationships per se technically as long as the relationship does not include the sexual act ?

Ish. The couple/union distinction that FS makes is predicated on the idea that your typical long-term sexually active gay relationship has both sinful aspects (gay sex) and non-sinful or positive aspects (commitment, emotional and spiritual support, general prosociality, etc.). There are plenty of historical precedents for this as well; John Boswell got savaged back in the 90s for pointing this out, and he did go beyond what the evidence indicated in some particulars, but he was broadly right and there's been plenty of subsequent scholarship on the history of "spiritual friendship" commitments among both men and women.* Of course there's plenty of disagreement with this from both more-affirming and more-condemnatory directions within the Catholic Church, but it's much more firmly established as the Vatican line than it was at this time last month.

*I'm doing some such scholarship at my day job regarding St. Kateri Tekakwitha and her friend/partner Wari Teres Tegaiaguenta. There is already at least one Kateri biography that infers that there was a romantic component to this relationship.