Pope Francis has formally approved allowing priests to bless same-sex couples, with a new document explaining a radical change in Vatican policy by insisting that people seeking God’s love and mercy shouldn’t be subject to “an exhaustive moral analysis” to receive it.
The document from the Vatican’s doctrine office, released Monday, elaborates on a letter Francis sent to two conservative cardinals that was published in October. In that preliminary response, Francis suggested such blessings could be offered under some circumstances if they didn’t confuse the ritual with the sacrament of marriage.
The new document repeats that rationale and elaborates on it, reaffirming that marriage is a lifelong sacrament between a man and a woman. And it stresses that blessings should not be conferred at the same time as a civil union, using set rituals or even with the clothing and gestures that belong in a wedding.
But it says requests for such blessings should not be denied full stop. It offers an extensive definition of the term “blessing” in Scripture to insist that people seeking a transcendent relationship with God and looking for his love and mercy should not be subject to “an exhaustive moral analysis” as a precondition for receiving it.
Also, about the second question.
No, the church isn’t doing such donations. Maybe the local one in your country, but the church of the Vatican City has lost all political influence by also being its own country with its own political background. In Italian law, the separation of church and state is clearly defined and becoming even more defined with the slow change in the religion lesson in every school changing their now 1 hour per week dedicated to it from teaching christianity to either history of the religions in the world or debate lesson.
The churches in my area do donate heavily but they are mostly Mormon. Thank you for the explanation, and everyone else that replied too. All the churches in my area are so heavily involved in politics that they are always decorated in political messaging. So I figured thats how most churches are.