Vatican's official position on homosexuality is to be analysed with careful theological and political discernment, as the plain reading of the official speeches alone are obfuscating to downplay the controversy. People may interpret Pope's words from their personal bias and interpretations. This AP article from Jan 2023 writes,
In 2019, Francis had been expected to issue a statement opposing
criminalization of homosexuality during a meeting with human rights
groups that conducted research into the effects of such laws and
so-called “conversion therapies.”
In the end, after word of the audience leaked, the pope didn’t meet
with the groups. Instead, the Vatican No. 2 did and reaffirmed “the
dignity of every human person and against every form of violence.”
There was no indication that Francis spoke out about such laws now
because his more conservative predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, recently
died. The issue had never been raised in an interview, but Francis
willingly responded, citing even the statistics about the number of
countries where homosexuality is criminalized.
On Tuesday, Francis said there needed to be a distinction between a
crime and a sin with regard to homosexuality. Church teaching holds
that homosexual acts are sinful, or “intrinsically disordered,” but
that gay people must be treated with dignity and respect.
Bantering with himself, Francis articulated the position: “It’s not a
crime. Yes, but it’s a sin. Fine, but first let’s distinguish between
a sin and a crime.”
“It’s also a sin to lack charity with one another,” he added.
Francis has not changed the church’s teaching, which has long riled
gay Catholics. But he has made reaching out to LGBTQ people a hallmark
of his papacy.
Starting with his famous 2013 declaration, “Who am I to judge?” — when he was asked about a purportedly gay priest — Francis has gone on to minister repeatedly and publicly to the gay and transgender communities. As archbishop of Buenos Aires, he favored granting legal protections to same-sex couples as an alternative to endorsing gay marriage, which Catholic doctrine forbids.
Despite such outreach, Francis was criticized by the Catholic gay community for a 2021 decree from the Vatican’s doctrine office that said the church cannot bless same-sex unions.
In 2008, the Vatican declined to sign onto a U.N. declaration that called for the decriminalization of homosexuality, complaining the text went beyond the original scope. In a statement at the time, the Vatican urged countries to avoid “unjust discrimination” against gay people and end penalties against them.
It seems like official Vatican position on homosexuality has not changed, however, as the controversy of Pope's unnatural attraction and support towards them keeps increasing. The division within the Catholic Church on this issue has been growing to a dangerous level. The 18 Dec 2023 decree that affirms non-marital, unofficial blessing of homosexuals is described as "a radical shift in policy that aimed at making the church more inclusive while maintaining its strict ban on gay marriage" (AP). Pope Francis has been hesitantly progressing towards the similar path of the COE and various similar "Churches", and his progression seems to be stronger and bolder by the day, as revealed by his speeches.
Redefining Blessing
Cardinal Fernández said the declaration "remains firm on the
traditional doctrine of the Church about marriage, not allowing any
type of liturgical rite or blessing similar to a liturgical rite that
can create confusion," but it also explores the "pastoral meaning of
blessings" in a way that opens "the possibility of blessing couples in
irregular situations and same-sex couples without officially
validating their status or changing in any way the Church's perennial
teaching on marriage."
"Blessings are among the most widespread and evolving sacramentals. Indeed, they lead us to grasp God's presence in all the events of life and remind us that, even in the use of created things, human beings are invited to seek God, to love him, and to serve him faithfully," the declaration said. That is why people, meals, rosaries, homes, pets and myriad other things can be and are blessed on various occasions.
"From a strictly liturgical point of view," the declaration said, "a
blessing requires that what is blessed be conformed to God's will, as
expressed in the teachings of the Church," which is why the
then-doctrinal congregation in 2021 excluded the possibility of
blessing gay couples.
But, the new document said, Catholics should "avoid the risk of
reducing the meaning of blessings" to their formal, liturgical use
because that "would lead us to expect the same moral conditions for a
simple blessing that are called for in the reception of the
sacraments."
The church "remains firm" in teaching that marriage can be contracted
only between one woman and one man, he said, and continues to insist
that "rites and prayers that could create confusion" about a marriage
and another form of relationship "are inadmissible."
"Indeed, there is the danger that a pastoral gesture that is so
beloved and widespread will be subjected to too many moral
prerequisites, which, under the claim of control, could overshadow the
unconditional power of God's love that forms the basis for the gesture
of blessing," it said.
A person who asks for God's blessing, the declaration said, "shows
himself to be in need of God's saving presence in his life and one who
asks for a blessing from the Church recognizes the latter as a
sacrament of the salvation that God offers."
The church, it said, should be grateful when people ask for a blessing
and should see it as a sign that they know they need God's help.
"When people ask for a blessing, an exhaustive moral analysis should
not be placed as a precondition for conferring it. For, those seeking
a blessing should not be required to have prior moral perfection," it
said.
The Vatican has redefined blessing to be given to unrepentant sinners. Particularly, even to certain kind of people, to whom the ancient Israelites were willing to offer their daughters to be raped to avoid those "irregular" acts. Repentance should not longer a prerequisite for blessing someone as holy. It sounds like the Protestant doctrine of a sinner-saint; Simul justus et peccator means that a Christian is at the same time both righteous and a sinner. It is indeed interesting that one may mistake the Pope Francis' words with Martin Luther or Joel Osteen, in his teachings which typically lump up the eternal moral law with the obsolete Moses law, to render it obsolete. Catholic News Agency writes about Pope's speech, Aug, 2021: Look to Christ, not the law, to receive new life, pope says at audience
“The law, however, does not give life, it does not offer the
fulfillment of (God’s) promise, because it is not capable of being
able to fulfill it. Those who seek life need to look to the promise
and to its fulfillment in Christ,” he said.
This was the problem — when people put more importance on observing
the law than with encountering Christ, he said.
This passage of St. Paul to the Galatians “presents the radical
newness of the Christian life: All those who have faith in Jesus
Christ are called to live in the Holy Spirit, who liberates from the
law and, at the same time, brings it to fulfillment according to the
commandment of love,” he said.
The law is a path and “may the Lord help people walk along the path of
the Ten Commandments, however, by looking at Christ’s love, the
encounter with Christ, knowing that the encounter with Jesus is more
important than all the commandments,” he said.
The new decree that wants to bless sinners without calling for repentance and conversion, therefore, is not a general ethical teaching like "bless those who curse and persecute you", as the context is not blessing the persecutors. It is a reformation of the Catholic theology itself in the direction of Protestant position of faith alone, as the context has nothing to do with an emergence of a Moses law keeping heresy. Just 3 days after the decree, on 21 December, the Pope further clarifies by condemning the traditional view as rigid, monotonous, legalistic and perfectionism. He endorsed a progressive moral relativism world-view, as opposed to the outdated law of God by condemning it as theories and ideas. We should follow our own hearts, not old-fashioned laws for truths, and that people are always superior to laws. Cf. Galatians 1:10.
Cruxnow reports on this speech:
ROME – In his annual Christmas address to members of the Roman Curia,
Pope Francis urged the Church’s governing bureaucracy to be open to
change and to resist “rigid ideological positions” that prevent them
from moving forward.
Speaking to members of the curia during a Dec. 21 audience, Pope
Francis stressed the need to “remain vigilant against rigid
ideological positions that often, under the guise of good intentions,
separate us from reality and prevent us from moving forward.”
“We are called, instead, to set out and journey, like the Magi,
following the light that always desires to lead us on, at times along
unexplored paths and new roads,” he said.
Referring to something he said was once told to him by a “zealous
priest,” the pope said “it is not easy to rekindle the embers under
the ashes of the Church. Today we strive to kindle passion in those
who have long since lost it.”
“Sixty years after the Council, we are still debating the division
between ‘progressives’ and ‘conservatives,’ while the real difference
is between lovers and those who have lost that initial passion,” he
said.
God, the pope said, shows that people “are, and will always remain,
superior to ideas and theories.”
“We need, then, to practice spiritual discernment, to seek God’s will,
to be sensitive to the deeper stirrings of our hearts, and then to
assess our possibilities and the decisions that we need to take,” he
said, saying the practice of real discernment will help the curia “to
choose procedures and make decisions based not on worldly criteria, or
simply by applying rules, but in accordance with the Gospel.”
“The Christian faith – let us remember – is not meant to confirm our
sense of security, to let us settle into comfortable religious
certitudes, and to offer us quick answers to life’s complex problems,”
he said.
In this regard, Francis said that whenever God calls, he “draws us out
of our comfort zones, our complacency about what we have already done,
and, in this way, he sets us free.”
Within the curia, “it is important to keep faring forward, to keep
searching and growing in our understanding of the truth, overcoming
the temptation to stand still and never leave the labyrinth of our
fears,” he said.
“Fear, rigidity and monotony make for an immobility that has the
apparent advantage of not creating problems – ‘stay put, don’t move’ –
but lead us to wander aimlessly within our labyrinths, to the
detriment of the service we are called to offer the church and the
whole world,” he said.
Pope Francis urged curial officials to guard against ideology and to
be flexible and open to new ideas.
“When service becomes dull and “enclosed in the labyrinth of rigidity
or mediocrity, whenever we find ourselves entangled in the web of
bureaucracy and content ‘just to get by,’ let us always remember to
look up, to start afresh from God, to be enlightened by his word and
to find the courage needed to start anew,” he said.
Who Am I to Judge? Moral Truths not Written in Stones
Pope Francis has judged the Bible followers as judgmental law keepers, who are intentionally guising their pretentious ideologies as good intentions. Johnathan Cahn, a popular American Evangelical author has interpreted the Pope's words as strong condemnation of the Bible believers, in his video titled The Pope Francis End-Time Apostasy:
"under the guise of Good Intentions", that means that those who uphold the word of God, well it said they don't really have good intentions. It's only a
guise they have evil intentions this is also not an accident because though he
speaks as if his directives are for mercy and inclusivity he has spoken of
those who hold to the Bible or who are conservative as evil so it's not just
don't hold firmly to the word of God but that those who do hold firmly or
strongly to God's word are actually evil he goes on holding to such positions
meaning biblical positions "separate us from reality and prevent us
from moving forward" so according to the pope holding to the word of God
separates us from reality and prevents us from moving forward moving forward in
to what it has to be moving forward away from the positions of the word of God. If
moving forward means moving forward off a cliff, then I don't want to be part of
that forward moving movement, because it's not really forward it's downward
Pope's progressive moral compass which is ever shifting as the political opinion and the Magi's star. He maybe currently way behind to the COE in the chasing that relative moral compass, but he may soon catch up to them. Only time will tell. The official position will only depend according to the level of backlash the Vatican faces from global law keeping Catholics. So far, only the blessing has been redifined, not the marriage. On Jan 6, 2024, the Pope indicated his fear of possible schism in his Church, as he struggles to convince others to push the popular morality. AP reports: Pope Francis Warns Against Ideological Splits in Catholic Church:
Amid resistance to some Vatican policy by more conservative factions
of the Catholic Church, Pope Francis on Saturday cautioned the
faithful against fracturing into groups “based on our own ideas."
He issued the call to abandon “ecclesiastical ideologies” in his
homily in St. Peter's Basilica during Epiphany Day Mass, the last
major Christmas season holiday.
