The Catholic Church’s approval of blessings of couples in same-sex relationships “will remain” under Pope Leo XIV, the head of the Vatican’s doctrine office told an Italian reporter in a brief interview.

Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández made the statement in response to a question from a journalist for the Rome-based daily Il Messaggero as he left the Holy See Press Office on July 3.

Fernández’s remarks are the clearest indication to date since Pope Leo’s election of a likely continuation of Pope Francis’ gay-blessings declaration. However, the impromptu interview falls short of an explicit, official statement from the Vatican.

Under Francis, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith in December 2023 released a document entitled “Fiducia Supplicans: On the Pastoral Meaning of Blessings,” which opened the door to church blessings for couples in “irregular” situations, including same-sex relationships.

The document, signed by Fernández and his deputy Msgr. Armando Matteo, and approved by Pope Francis, stressed that such blessings could not take the form of a liturgical rite, and did not imply formal approval of “irregular” unions.

The blessings document generated considerable conservative backlash, and some critics of the late Pope Francis had expressed hope that Pope Leo would rescind or ignore it.

  • don@lemmy.ca
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    21 hours ago

    The blessings document generated considerable conservative backlash, and some critics of the late Pope Francis had expressed hope that Pope Leo would rescind or ignore it.

    Conservatives as always doing a fantasticdemonstrating why they should be chronodeported 2 millennia back.

    • Paddzr@lemmy.world
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      3 hours ago

      Are the American conservatives even following Vatican? Who gives a fuck about them? That’s like British being upset about whatever pope says.

  • Zier@fedia.io
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    17 hours ago

    You will be shocked to learn that gays don’t need a ‘blessing’ or the ‘church’. We are quite happy (gay!!) without any of that.

    • angrystego@lemmy.world
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      14 hours ago

      Apart from directly catholic gays, there are also gays in very catholic countries, where their lives are influenced heavily by catholic stances no matter whether they believe or not.

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      17 hours ago

      There are gay members of the catholic church who would disagree with you. This is important to them.

      • Dharma Curious (he/him)@slrpnk.net
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        17 hours ago

        There are also us gays who aren’t members of the church, but really wish we could be (but won’t, because of gestures wildly at the church with frantic, panicked eyes)

          • GiuseppeAndTheYeti@midwest.social
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            7 hours ago

            I’m going to speak for them since I haven’t seen a reply, so this is just an assumption and should be taken as such until they reply. But, there’s plenty of positive aspects of local churches outside of faith. Many churches run community-based philanthropy efforts and provide a gathering space for members and nonmembers which is especially helpful in locations that don’t have much in the way of things to do or other places to gather. Humans are social creatures and whether gay or not, the church is a large community.

            Hell, no one trusts the Internet, but still comes back to participate.

          • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
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            10 hours ago

            In almost every case it’s because they were indoctrinated at an early age. Feels like child abuse to me, but since the vast majority of people are Christians in most countries, it’s considered a-okay.

          • Dharma Curious (he/him)@slrpnk.net
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            14 hours ago

            Spiritual tradition, for starters. I also feel deep connection to liturgical traditions, and there’s a lot besides that I like about the RCC. I like that, generally, there’s someone at the church at any given time, that the building doesn’t stand empty for all but a few hours once per week. That I could go, and light a candle, and sit in contemplation, or speak with a priest. I like confession, I like a lot about the way the RCC functions. I just dislike the scandals, the bigotry, the, frankly, hatefulness that the church has proudly warn over the centuries. A big reason why I’m an Episcopalian is that it’s progressive, while also being liturgical. There are more progressive churches like the MCC, but they’re more congregational and remind me too much of the baptist churches I grew up in.

            While it’s probably not important for a lot of people, for me, having that line of demarcation between the sacred and the secular, the robes and the chalices and the incense and bells, the line that says “this is a sacred space, one for meditation, contemplation, prayer” is important. It allows me to leave behind a certain mindset and enter a new one. Regardless of our ideas behind religion and spirituality, humans have been doing ritual for thousands, and potentially millions, of years. There’s a power behind it, even if it’s just in our heads. Nobody in Christendom does ritual quite like the Catholics. The episcopalians are good at it, but only on Sunday morning, and as much as I love the tradition, it lacks a lot of the spiritual tradition, like intercession of saints and a Marian ideology that I also crave. Anglocatholics are pretty good for that, but they tend to be conservative and anti gay, and most of them have moved to the ACNA, a schismatic group founded against the ordination of women and gay men.

            There’s a lot to dislike about the RCC, and organized religion in general. I disagree with a huge chunk of it. The prohibition against marriage for priests has lead to so many problems. There’s too much to list, from the way nuns are treated, the prohibitions against birth control, LGBTQ+ issues, abortion, surrogacy… There’s a lot wrong with the institution. But I don’t think we should throw the baby out with the bathwater. It’ll never happen, but I dream of a day when there’s major reform within the Church.

            I just want a hyper progressive RCC with a married trans woman pope :(

            Edit to add:

            Feel a bit like I’ve misrepresented myself, so to clarify: I’m an Episcopalian, but I’m also a nondualist Advaitin (Hindu). I am not your average viewer or really anyone’s target audience, so don’t extrapolate my comments to the larger religious/gay community. Haha.

            • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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              3 hours ago

              I’m an Episcopalian, but I’m also a nondualist Advaitin (Hindu).

              I’m no expert on Hinduism, so maybe I’m completely wrong here, but I feel like those two things are in direct conflict with one another.

              You’re breaking like 2 or 3 of the 10 commandments, right off the bat. Yahweh is very jealous.

            • elucubra@sopuli.xyz
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              12 hours ago

              Being a recovering catholic, from a country that is also recovering catholic, I cannot relate to most of your post.

              I respect most faiths, but denounce all organized religion, “churches” if you will.

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                11 hours ago

                Yeah, there’s a lot of damage the church has done. I don’t support the RCC. I just wish the RCC could be progressive and keep the liturgical/tradition side of things. Total pipe dream

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      15 hours ago

      Some want that and it’s not your place to judge. Not to blow this out of proportion but I have to say the militant atheism on Lemmy feels like 4chan debates sometimes.

      • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        3 hours ago

        That’s interesting, because I see a ton of apologetics on here in threads about religion. More than I used to see on reddit before I left a while back.

  • bdjukemgood@lemmy.world
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    20 hours ago

    Jokes on them. I don’t even want to go to heaven unless I can suck a bag of dicks on the other side of the gates.

    • Match!!@pawb.social
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      19 hours ago

      Sucking Dick Through The Pearly Gates would be a great name for an autobiography if you want to use it

    • Forester@pawb.social
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      19 hours ago

      Depending on your interpretation of the Bible, you’re at least minimum guaranteed marriage to Jesus. Revelations 19

      But from my lay perspective there is not a passage in the Bible that says gay sex is worse than eating shellfish so do with that what you will. The thing Jesus actually mentions several times explicitly was adultery aka being unfaithful as in cheating. So as long as its consensual and your not wrecking houses…

      • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        3 hours ago

        Isn’t Jesus already married to every Nun?

        Also, just to note, there is a whole lot of talk about "sexual immorality"in the Bible, which is nearly universally translated to mean “homosexuality”.

        What the fuck does “sexual immorality” even mean? The only thing I can think of would be rape, but I sincerely doubt that was the intention.

        • Forester@pawb.social
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          3 hours ago

          Rape incest and pedophilia are the immoralities as written out in the Bible. Also lust to an extent.

          Also, technically yes, all the nuns who have taken vows of Chastity are married to the church as are the pastors…

          • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            2 hours ago

            Rape, incest and pedophilia

            Oh so kind of like when Lot’s daughters raped him?

            How did humanity arise from Adam and Eve without incest?

            • Forester@pawb.social
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              20 minutes ago

              The Bible isn’t always meant to be taken literally good luck trying to explain that to a Baptist though. (Jesus almost exclusively spoke in metaphors AKA parables ) The first part of Genesis is describing how early hominids became humans. Personally I like the idea that God is more of a 4th dimensional entity that time does not constrain in any form. Basically a mad scientist using what we call evolution to slowly shape and change his petri dish of a planet.

    • garbagebagel@lemmy.world
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      18 hours ago

      If heaven is really what they say it is, then absolutely you can suck a bag of dicks. I bet JC himself would join you.

  • elucubra@sopuli.xyz
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    12 hours ago

    “exclusive, stable, and indissoluble union between a man and a woman, naturally open to the generation of children”

  • brucethemoose@lemmy.world
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    16 hours ago

    In the future, when we’re transcendent tentacled robofurries doing poly in virtual space, on drugs (think Yivo from Futurama), we will look back in confusion at why so many people hate homosexuality so much. Like… don’t they have other things to worry about?

    Or humanity will be all dead, I guess.

    And I’m talking about the mega conservatives protesting this; at least the Vatican is baby stepping and trying to minimize their cruelty.

    • P00ptart@lemmy.world
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      15 hours ago

      The second part. It’s the second part. Whether you consider “humanity” as all human life, or just modern civilization, is what changes this point.

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    20 hours ago

    If I am going to choose between imaginary symbolic gestures I rather have G̵̡͖̜̊Ã̴̩̐͂̽Y̴͖̘̤̌́ ̷̨̦͍̜́͊ Ç̷̲̺͕̅͛̌̎͠U̶̟̦͎̼̎R̴̝͚̲̭̣͛̂̕Ś̴̲̼̟͚̈̅E̶̙̩͖͐̑̿̚S̷͈̺̐͆ 😈

  • betterdeadthanreddit@lemmy.world
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    21 hours ago

    How is this news? Magic isn’t real and they still think the gays are icky, let’s not imagine meaningful progress where none exists.

      • FerretyFever0@fedia.io
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        20 hours ago

        I mean, sometimes. But this is still like a… few decades behind. This is like white people not saying the n-word in public anymore. That’s technically better than before, but still woefully behind. The Catholic Church is never going to be on the forefront of real progress.

    • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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      18 hours ago

      How is this news?

      Because something new that plenty of people care about happened? Like, I do think it’s ridiculous but there are more than a billion Catholic people out there who do care what this guy says.