2023-12-25 18:41:23
RomeThe opening of the Catholic Church to bless homosexual couples is not only a historic reform that follows the route started by Pope Francis after his election ten years ago, but also fuels the unease among the most conservative sector of the church one guerra to which the pontiff explicitly referred during the audience to all the members of the Roman Curia during the traditional exchange of Christmas greetings: “Sixty years after the Council, we continue to debate the division between “progressives” and “conservatives”, while the central difference is between ‘in love’ and ‘accustomed'”, he said.
With a document published last week by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), the quasi-ministerial body responsible for guarding Catholic doctrine, the Pope authorized that priests can give “blessings of couples in situations irregular and same-sex couples”, which affects both same-sex couples and those made up of divorcees who have remarried. This is another of the claims of progressive sectors of the Church. The document makes it clear, however, that these blessings can never be equated with the institution of marriage – which continues to be defined as “the exclusive, stable and indissoluble union between a man and a woman, naturally open to begetting children” – , nor do they imply a change in doctrine.
Despite the nuances, it is an unexpected revolution within the Church, which comes just after the same Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, then led by the Spanish Cardinal Luis Ladaria Ferrer, defended in 2021 that the blessings of same-sex unions are “illegal”. Almost three years after that setback for the LGTBI Catholic community, which had placed so much hope in the pope, the CDF – now led by Argentine Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández – has justified the turn by explaining that it is not a modification of the institution of marriage, but an extension of the concept of the blessing. In fact, these must be given during a pilgrimage or an interview with a priest or in a prayer, but they can never take the form of a wedding nor can the couple dress as bride and groom. In the Church of Pope Francis, then, this blessing is equivalent to an act of inclusion, consolation and attention to God.
A noisy minority
The step forward made by the Church has ignited even more the spirits of the conservative sector. The fiercest criticism so far has come from German Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, ex-prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, whom Pope Francis replaced precisely in 2017 with Ladaria Ferrer and who has since been enemy number 1 of the pontiff. Müller not only considers “blessings for gay couples to be blasphemous”, but also asserts that this is an authoritarian decision contrary to the synodality practiced by Francis.
And Müller is not alone. A few days before the opening of the last synod held in the Vatican in October, which reflected on women and homosexuals in the Church, five conservative cardinals emeritus organized a antisynod. In addition, they sent a letter to the Pope in which they warned that “the blessing of homosexual couples can create confusion, not only by making them appear analogous to marriage, but because homosexual acts would be presented as good.” At the head was the American Cardinal Raymond Burke, already retired, who a month later the pontiff left without a salary and without the 400 square meter apartment he occupied in the Vatican for understanding that he was using these resources against the Church .
The final document of the assembly of bishops preferred to tiptoe over this issue and limited itself to supporting homosexual Catholics who choose chastity. However, the text approved this week by the Pope is the best response to the internal challenges of the conservative wing, a minority within the Curia that is increasingly making noise.
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