After pushback by some bishops in Africa, Poland and elsewhere, the Vatican on Thursday defended the recent move by Pope Francis to allow blessings for same-sex couples, insisting there is nothing “heretical” involved.

In a five-page statement, the Holy See’s office to safeguard doctrinal orthodoxy expressed understanding that some bishops’ conferences need more time for “pastoral reflection” on the pontiff’s formal approval for such blessings.

But “there is no room to distance ourselves doctrinally” from the Declaration about the blessings “or to consider it heretical, contrary to the Tradition of the Church or blasphemous,’’ said the statement by the office, formally called the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith.

The new rule of blessings came last month in the form of a declaration, an important Catholic church document.