Source: ANDREAS SOLARO / Getty
Pope Francis has declared a major change for the Catholic Church, allowing priests to offer blessings to same-sex couples – though it still opposes same-sex marriage.
In a letter sent earlier this year, Francis said that blessings can be offered as long as they do not include rituals associated with traditional marriage.
The Pope says such blessings should not require “an exhaustive moral analysis” as a “precondition”.
“Ultimately, a blessing offers people a means to increase their trust in God,” the letter said. “The request for a blessing, thus, expresses and nurtures openness to the transcendence, mercy, and closeness to God in a thousand concrete circumstances of life, which is no small thing in the world in which we live.”
The letter marks the latest gesture of outreach from a pope who has made welcoming LGBTQ+ Catholics a hallmark of his papacy.
It’s a major shift for the Vatican, which as recently as 2021 declared that the church could not bless any same-sex union.
What does this mean for the Catholic Church? Will the Pope’s declaration be met with a backlash?
