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Pope Francis last week approved a ruling at the Vatican that permitted priests to administer blessings to same-sex couples.
Pope Francis last week approved a ruling at the Vatican that permitted priests to administer blessings to same-sex couples.
From my understanding he didn’t create any sort of new officially sanctioned union. He simply allowed blessings of same sex couples with some caveats. Mostly that the blessing cannot occur directly in connection with any sort of union ceremony (marriage, civil union, etc) and that it cannot involve any of the typical trappings of a marriage ceremony so as to avoid confusion.
So basically, you can’t get the blessing at your actual wedding. You can’t get the blessing if you show up in tuxedos/bridal dresses, exchange rings, whatever else even if technically it isn’t a wedding. Simply show up together on any random day as a couple and ask for a blessing without those things? Sure they’ll do it. Whereas before they couldn’t.
In the USA. But I hear that German priests were doing this blessing. So the Pope needs to make an announcement to keep the Church unified on this issue.
The church has always had a unified stance on this, but there are a lot of priests out there, and many of them will go rogue at times. You’re seeing it with Catholic leadership in the US right now, especially over politics. Being a diehard supporter for Trump and being a Catholic is becoming a much more difficult tightrope to walk because it often backslides into rejecting basic social norms and human decency. Notice how he just removed a bishop who had become particularly loud lately.
Basically, it’s impossible to audit every single priest, bishop, deacon, cardinal, etc. out there and make sure they are 100% nailing everything exactly right. The church kind of dragged its feet on LGBTQ issues even as they were rapidly changing in the world, so naturally some people started taking it upon themselves to give it their own individual spin and went a little more hard line or loose. That stuff tends to shake out overtime as the church makes its existing stance clearer or clarifies how to apply it to new situations - often in response to deviation.