“To avoid any form of confusion or scandal,” the Vatican document states that these blessings cannot be performed “at the same time as, nor in connection with, civil union rites. Not even with the clothes, gestures or words typical of a marriage.”
Furthermore, he emphasizes that it is a “spontaneous blessing.”
In a press release published on January 4, in response to reactions from bishops in various parts of the world to Begging for confidencethe Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith indicates that these “pastoral blessings” must be “very brief” and carried out “without Ritual or Blessing.”
In these blessings, he adds, a request must be included so that “they can live in full fidelity to the Gospel of Christ” and that the Holy Spirit “can free these two people from everything that does not respond to his divine will, from everything that needs purification.”