The Vatican’s statement that same-sex unions are a sin that the Roman Catholic Church cannot bless was not a surprise to LGBTQ Catholics in the United States – yet it penetrated deeply.
Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of DignityUSA, said her organization’s membership includes same-sex couples who have been together for decades, persevering in their love for each other in the face of family bias and rejection.
“The fact that our church at the highest levels cannot recognize grace in it and cannot extend any blessing to these couples is just tragic,” she said.
She responded Monday to an official statement from the Vatican’s Orthodox office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, saying Roman Catholic clergy may not bless such unions because God “cannot bless sin.” It was approved by Pope Francis.
“Explicitly including sin in this statement brings us back to zero,” said Ross Murray, who oversees religious issues for LGBTQ rights group GLAAD.
He expressed dismay that “the ability for us to live our lives fully and freely is still seen as an affront to the church or, worse, an affront to God, who created, knows, and loves us. ”.
Francis DeBernardo, executive director of the Ministry of New Ways, who advocates for greater LGBTQ acceptance in the church, said that if those priests who already bless gay unions now stop doing so, lay Catholics could be moved to take their place. .
“If priests and pastoral ministers no longer feel that they can make such a blessing, Catholic laity will come in and perform their own rituals,” DeBernardo said. “Toothpaste has come out of the tube and cannot be inserted back.”
Father Bryan Massingale, an open gay Catholic priest and professor of theology and social ethics at Fordham University, said priests who want to engage in pastoral activities for the gay and lesbian community “will continue to do so, except that it will be even more under the table … than it was before. ”
For same-sex Catholics, he said, the Vatican’s new message will affect.
“Every human being is born with this innate desire to love,” he said. “For those who are sex-oriented … to be described as inherently sinful or innate without any qualifications, that’s overwhelming.”
Vatican doctrine states that homosexuals and lesbians should be treated with dignity and respect, but that homosexual sex is “intrinsically disordered” and that homosexual unions are sinful.
Natalia Imperatori-Lee, a professor of religious studies at Manhattan College, said that these teachings, put together, are problematic.
“It’s amazing that the hierarchy can say that LGBTQ + people are made in the image of God, but that their unions are a sin,” she said in an email. “Are they made in the image of God, except their heart? Except for their abilities and inclinations towards love? ”
Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of the US lobby NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice and an advocate for greater LGBTQ inclusion in the church, said she was relieved that the Vatican’s statement was not harsh.
She interpreted it as saying, “You can bless individuals (in a same-sex union), you just can’t bless the contract.”
“So you may have a ritual in which individuals are blessed to be their self-employed.”
The Vatican’s statement was welcomed by some church conservatives, however, such as Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League in New York.
“Homosexual union or marriage will not be recognized by the Catholic Church. It is not negotiable. The end of the story, “he said.
“Pope Francis has been under considerable pressure from gay activists, inside and outside the church, to give the green light to gay marriage,” Donohue added, calling Monday’s statement “the most decisive rejection of those written efforts ever.”
Francis approved the provision of legal protections for same-sex couples, but this is in the civil sphere and not in the church.
Juan Carlos Cruz, a Chilean lawyer for victims of sexual abuse who is gay, reported in 2018 that when he met Francis, the pope told him, “God made you like this and loves you.”
On Monday, Cruz said Vatican officials who issued the new statement “are completely in a world of their own, away from people and trying to defend those who cannot defend themselves.”
He called for a change in the leadership of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, saying it undermined Francis’ efforts to create a more inclusive church.
“If the church and the CDF do not move forward with the world … Catholics will continue to flee.” he said.
In Francis’ Argentine homeland, LGBTQ activist Esteban Paulon said the pontiff’s previous statements that conveyed empathy and understanding for gays and lesbians were simple gestures, devoid of any official weight.
“There were no institutional statements,” said Paulon, executive director of the LGBT + Institute for Public Policy. “To say that the practice of homosexuality is a sin takes us back 200 years and promotes hate speech, which, unfortunately, is on the rise in Latin America and Europe.
Chile’s largest LGBTQ rights group, the Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation, condemned the decree as a “homophobic and anti-Christian action” in the Catholic hierarchy.
Spokesman Oscar Rementería contrasted the Vatican’s severe rhetoric against same-sex marriage with the numerous documented cases of Catholic leaders hiding sexual abuse of children by clerics.
___
Associated Press writers Eva Vergara of Santiago, Chile; Almudena Calatrava from Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Nicole Winfield of Rome and Mariam Fam of Cairo contributed to this report.
___
Religion coverage The Associated Press receives support from Lilly Endowment through the US Conversation AP is solely responsible for this content.