Around this time last year, a Vatican document authorizing priests to provide non-liturgical blessings for same-sex couples led to headlines around the world in the secular and Catholic presses. Some bishops from Africa rejected the pronouncement, some in Europe celebrated it, and bishops in various places issued guidelines explaining it. One year later, what has […]
ROME — Pope Francis responded publicly to questions about the Vatican’s declaration on blessings for same-sex couples for the first time in a television interview on Sunday night. In an appearance on an Italian talk show on Jan. 14, the 87-year-old pope was asked if he “felt alone” after the publication of “Fiducia Supplicans” was […]
ROME — Amid significant confusion about the Vatican’s recent guidance on same-sex blessings, the document’s architect has lashed out at those advancing the most liberal interpretation: Catholic leadership in Germany. Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and longtime theological adviser to Pope Francis, described “Fiducia Supplicans” […]
WASHINGTON — The document released this week by the Vatican on the pastoral meaning of blessings insists that marriage is a union of one man and one woman in lifelong fidelity and openness to children, said Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester. Following the publication of “Fiducia supplicans” by the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of […]
WASHINGTON — Several American Catholic dioceses have already issued statements on how they intend to implement new Vatican guidelines that permit nonliturgical pastoral blessings of homosexual couples, but it’s still unclear what this will look like in most of the country. The Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a declaration on Monday […]
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — A Catholic priest can bless a gay or other unmarried couple as long as it is not a formal liturgical blessing and does not give the impression that the Catholic Church is blessing the union as if it were a marriage, the Vatican doctrinal office said. The request for a blessing […]
