The Vatican’s statement that homosexual unions are a sin that the Roman Catholic Church cannot bless was not a surprise to LGBTQ Catholics in the United States – but it hurt deeply, however.
Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of DignityUSA, said members of her organization include same-sex couples who have been together for decades, persevering in love for each other despite family prejudice and rejection.
“The fact that our church at its highest levels cannot recognize the grace of this and cannot extend any kind of blessing to these couples is just tragic,” she said.
She was responding to a formal statement on Monday from the Vatican orthodoxy office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, saying that the Roman Catholic clergy cannot bless these unions, since God “cannot bless sin”. It was approved by Pope Francis.
“Having sin explicitly included in this statement takes us back to zero,” said Ross Murray, who oversees religious issues for the LGBTQ GLAAD rights group.
He expressed dismay that “the ability to live our lives fully and freely is still seen as an affront to the church or, even worse, an affront to God, who created us, knows us and loves us”.
Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, which advocates greater LGBTQ acceptance in the church, said that if priests who have already been blessing same-sex unions now stop doing so, lay Catholics can be moved to replace them. .
“If priests and pastoral ministers no longer feel they can perform such a blessing, lay Catholics will intervene and perform their own rituals,” said DeBernardo. “The toothpaste is outside the tube and cannot be put back inside.”
Rev. Bryan Massingale, an openly gay Catholic priest and professor of theology and social ethics at Fordham University, said that priests who wish to become involved in the pastoral care of the gay and lesbian community “will continue to do so, except that it will be even further below table … than before. “
For Catholics in same-sex relationships, he said, the Vatican’s new message will hurt.
“Every human being is born with this innate desire to love,” he said. “For those who are oriented towards members of the same sex … to be described as inherently sinful or innately unqualified, this is overwhelming.”
Vatican doctrine states that gays and lesbians should be treated with dignity and respect, but that gay sex is “intrinsically disordered” and that same-sex unions are sinful.
Natalia Imperatori-Lee, a professor of religious studies at Manhattan College, said that these teachings together are problematic.
“It is amazing that the hierarchy can claim that LGBTQ + people are made in the image of God, but that their union is a sin,” she said by email. “Were they made in the image of God, except the heart? Except for your skills and inclinations for love? “
Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of the United States’ NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice, and advocate for greater LGBTQ inclusion in the Church, said she was relieved that the Vatican’s statement was not harsher.
She interpreted it as saying, “You can bless people (in a same-sex union), but you cannot bless the contract.”
“Therefore, it is possible that you have a ritual in which individuals are blessed for being committed themselves.”
The Vatican’s statement was well received by some Church conservatives, however, such as Bill Donohue, president of the New York-based Catholic League.
“There will be no recognition of homosexual unions or marriage by the Catholic Church. It is not negotiable. End of story, ”he said.
“Pope Francis is under considerable pressure from gay activists, inside and outside the church, to give the green light to gay marriage,” added Donohue, calling Monday’s statement “the most decisive rejection of these efforts ever written”.
Francisco endorsed the provision of legal protection for same-sex couples, but this is in the civil sphere and not in the church.
Juan Carlos Cruz, a Chilean defender of victims of sexual abuse who is gay, reported in 2018 that, when he met Francisco, the pope said to him: “God made him like this and he loves him”.
On Monday, Cruz said the Vatican officials who issued the new declaration “are completely in a world of their own, away from people and trying to defend the indefensible”.
He called for a change in the leadership of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, saying it was undermining Francis’ efforts to create a more inclusive church.
“If the Church and the CDF do not move forward with the world … Catholics will continue to flee.” he said.
In Argentina, Francisco’s birthplace, LGBTQ activist Esteban Paulon said that the pontiff’s previous statements imparting empathy and understanding to gays and lesbians were mere gestures, without any official weight.
“It was not institutional pronouncements,” said Paulon, executive director of the LGBT + Public Policy Institute. “Saying that homosexual practice is a sin makes us go back 200 years and promotes hate speech that, unfortunately, is on the rise in Latin America and Europe.”
Chile’s largest LGBTQ rights group, the Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation, condemned the decree as a “homophobic and anti-Christian action” of the Catholic hierarchy.
Spokesman Oscar Rementería contrasted the Vatican’s severe rhetoric against same-sex marriage with the many documented cases of Catholic leaders covering up the sexual abuse of children by the clergy.
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Associated Press writers Eva Vergara in Santiago, Chile; Almudena Calatrava in Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Nicole Winfield in Rome and Mariam Fam in Cairo contributed to this report.
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