Around this time last year, a Vatican document authorizing priests to impart non-liturgical blessings to same-sex couples made headlines around the world, in both the secular and Catholic press.
Some bishops in Africa rejected the pronouncement, others in Europe celebrated it, and bishops in various places issued guidelines to explain it.
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One year later, what has been the effect on the Catholic Church in the United States? How common are blessings of people in same-sex relationships in parishes?
To try to find out, the National Catholic Register contacted all 177 Latin Rite dioceses in the United States earlier this month to ask about their experience implementing the document. Begging for confidencewhich allowed what the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith called “the possibility of blessings for couples… of the same sex,” as long as the blessings were brief, did not follow any liturgy to avoid appearing like a marriage, and “were not intended to sanction or legitimize anything.”
21 dioceses responded. Some declined to comment. All those who provided information stated that they do not follow up on the blessings offered by priests; and virtually none reported receiving complaints or comments from priests or others about practices arising from the document.
A year ago, supporters of the document (which was followed by a clarifying statement two and a half weeks later) regarded it as a useful pastoral approach for people who find themselves in situations that the Church considers objectively sinful, or as a step toward full acceptance of same-sex sexual relations, something they welcomed.
Some critics said it undermined Church teachings on marriage and sexuality; Other opponents said it did not go far enough.
The silence of Spokane
Father Darrin Connall told the Register that as vicar general of the Diocese of Spokane, Washington, he speaks regularly with many priests and none have told him about a same-sex couple who has asked for a blessing.
“I don’t know of any case where something like this has happened,” the priest said by phone. “I haven’t heard any priest talk about it since last December or January.”
Bishop David O’Connell, Bishop of Trenton in the state of New Jersey, said he is not aware of any blessings to same-sex couples by priests in his diocese.
“I have no idea it happened. It may have happened. But if it happened, it was clandestine and without my knowledge,” said the prelate.
“I am certainly aware of what the document says. “I am aware of the limits and I have no problem talking about them, but it just doesn’t come up,” he said, adding that he has not been personally asked to make those blessings.
In the Diocese of Buffalo, New York state, discussion about the document calmed down quickly after its publication, said Father Peter Karalus, vicar general of the diocese.
“There was an initial conversation in the presbyteral council and other advisory bodies when the document was first published, but there have been no follow-up discussions or requests for discussion,” the priest told the Register via email.
This reflects the experiences of almost all other dioceses that provided comments to the Register.
The highest percentage of same-sex couples
One exception is the Archdiocese of San Francisco, a city that has the highest percentage of same-sex couples among large cities in the United States.
“We have had some problems over the past year with people trying to insist on being blessed illegitimately,” Peter Marlow, a representative of Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco, said in an email.
Marlowe shared with the Register excerpts from a memo the archbishop sent to priests in the archdiocese a few days after the Vatican document was published.
In it, the prelate noted that such blessings should be “spontaneous” and not “preplanned, scheduled or celebrated in a ritual,” considering that “people frequently ask priests and bishops to give them a blessing.”
“I am sure that you, like me, never ask about their moral life or how they live their intimate relationships. We simply bless them,” wrote Bishop Cordileone.
“Consequently, in the case of two persons who present themselves as a couple in a marriage or marriage-like relationship, but it is evident that they are not in the bond of a valid marriage, it is always lawful to bless them as two separate individuals.”
But such blessings should not be granted, he stressed, “if they would cause scandal, that is, if they could mislead the same people or others into believing that there may be contexts other than marriage in which ‘sexual relations find their meaning.'” natural, proper and fully human’”.
The last phrase in quotes is taken from Begging for confidence (4).
“Consequently, any priest has the right to deny such blessings if, in his judgment, doing so would be a source of scandal in any way,” the San Francisco prelate wrote.
decision making
Father Connall of the Diocese of Spokane also told the Register that priests make decisions about blessings and many other things all the time. “There are all kinds of pastoral decisions that we make every day and that the bishop respects,” he highlighted.
Begging for confidence changed focus from a previous Vatican policy as set out in a document published in February 2021, which said the Church can offer blessings “to individual persons with homosexual inclinations” but not to unions of same-sex couples, because God “it does not and cannot bless sin.”
Vatican officials have said the December 2023 document does not alter the Church’s teaching that sexual activity is moral only if engaged in by a man and woman who are married and open to the possibility of procreating new life.
“The true novelty of this Declaration,” wrote Cardinal Víctor Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, in a clarifying note from January 2024, “is not the possibility of blessing couples in an irregular situation,” but which is “the invitation to distinguish between two different forms of blessings”: what he called “liturgical or ritualized” on the one hand and “spontaneous or pastoral” on the other.
That distinction is clear to the priests of the Diocese of Buffalo, said Father Karalus, vicar general there. “Priests understand that it is not a blessing for a couple or a relationship, but a blessing for individuals,” the priest stressed.
Translated and adapted by the ACI Prensa team. Originally published in National Catholic Register.
Matthew McDonald
Matt McDonald is a journalist for the National Catholic Register and editor of the New Boston Post.