Blessing Same-Sex Unions—Did the Pope Really Say That?

blessing same-sex unions:

BLESSING SAME-SEX UNIONS. Many Catholics are struggling with the news that Pope Francis allows blessings on same-sex unions. But behind the headlines lies a different story. The document “On Blessings and the Catholic Church’s Desire for All to Come to the Grace of God,” reaffirms marriage. It calls marriage the ““exclusive, stable, and indissoluble union between a man and a woman.” Which is “naturally open to the generation of children.”

Also it says “the Church has the right and the duty to avoid any rite that might contradict this conviction.” For “the Church does not have the power to impart blessings on unions of persons of the same sex.”

It makes a distinction between two kinds of blessing. First, the “ascending” blessing of legitimizing a relationship. Second, the “descending” blessing “from God upon those who — recognizing themselves to be destitute and in need of his help — do not claim a legitimation of their own status, but who beg that all that is true, good, and humanly valid in their lives and their relationships be enriched, healed, and elevated by the presence of the Holy Spirit.”

Which door does blessing open?

In other words, those who seek a descending blessing admit they are destitute. They ask help from the Holy Spirit to elevate whatever is good in their relationship. So that they may “grow in fidelity to the Gospel, that they may be freed from their imperfections and frailties.”

Therefore, for the sake of “opening the door to grace. …when people ask for a blessing, an exhaustive moral analysis should not be placed as a precondition for conferring it.” In my opinion, a minister doesn’t need to make an exhaustive moral analysis in this case. A same-sex couple may ask for a blessing so that they can say their homosexual acts are blessed.

The truly biblical minister should just say no and explain why. Those who practice such things “will not inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Cor. 6:9-10). Ministers who say they will inherit God’s kingdom are deceptively opening the door to hell instead. However, ministers can in compassion share from Acts 3:26 that “God raised up His Servant and sent Him to bless you by turning every one of you from your wicked ways.” The gospel doesn’t approve of us, it changes us.

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Photo: Fczarnowski, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

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