(CMR) The Catholic Church and its priests cannot bless gay marriages because God “cannot bless sin,” the Vatican said in a statement on Monday.
In the statement which addresses questions about gay marriages, the Vatican said:
“The blessing of homosexual unions cannot be considered licit…there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family.”
Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, an LGBTQ-centered Catholic ministry, told USA Today that the statement was disappointing but not surprising.
“What the Vatican doesn’t realize is that the Catholic faithful are not satisfied with that answer,” DeBernardo said. “Catholic people recognize the holiness of the love between committed same-sex couples and recognize this love as divinely inspired and divinely supported and thus meets the standard to be blessed.”
Monday's statement from the Vatican comes less than six months after the revelation of Pope Francis' stunning endorsement of same-sex civil unions was made public in a documentary.
“Homosexual people have the right to be in a family. They are children of God. What we have to have is a civil union law. That way, they are legally covered,” Francis had said in a 2019 interview for the documentary “Francesco.”
The Vatican has since said the Pope's comments were taken out of context.
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