A blessing, but no wedding

On 18 December 2023, the Vatican published a document that hardly anyone had expected. In the declaration "Fiducia supplicans", the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith for the first time allowed Catholic priests to bless same-sex couples. Pope Francis had approved the text with his signature the same day.

The shift was remarkable. Only two years earlier, the then Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith had stated that the Church had no power to bless same-sex unions. In Germany, pastors responded by holding blessing services in protest. Now Rome was meeting them part of the way.

But with narrow limits. The paper changed nothing in the teaching that marriage exists only between a man and a woman. The blessing may not be a ritual, may not be connected with a civil wedding and may not resemble a wedding through clothing, gestures or words. The Vatican named a pilgrimage or a meeting with a priest as suitable occasions. What is to be blessed is what is "true, good and humanly valid" in the couples' lives.

For many queer believers, it was nevertheless a breakthrough. The US Jesuit James Martin, for years a voice for LGBTQ Catholics, put it in a nutshell: until yesterday he had not been allowed to bless such couples at all; from today he could, albeit with restrictions.

The resistance was not long in coming. In January 2024, the African bishops' conferences declared jointly that such blessings would not be given on their continent because they caused confusion and scandal. Rome followed up with a clarification and largely left implementation to the local bishops.

"Fiducia supplicans" thus remains a typically Catholic compromise: too little for some, too much for others. And yet the universal Church officially acknowledged for the first time that two men or two women may also ask together for God's blessing.