The Vatican’s statement that homosexuals are a sin the Roman Catholic Church cannot bless came as no surprise to LGBTQ Catholics in the United States – but it stung deeply nonetheless.
Marianne Duddy-Burke, executive director of DignityUSA, said her organization includes same-sex members who have been together for decades and persist in their love for one another despite family bias and rejection.
“The fact that our church at the highest level cannot recognize the grace in it and bestow any kind of blessing on these couples is just tragic,” she said.
She responded Monday to a formal statement by the Vatican’s Orthodoxy Office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, saying that Roman Catholic clergy should 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 us and knows us and loves us. “
Francis DeBernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, which advocates for greater acceptance of LGBTQ in the church, said that if the priests who have already blessed gay unions stop doing so now, lay Catholics could take their place.
“When priests and pastoral ministers no longer feel that they can perform such a blessing, the Catholic laity will step in and perform their own rituals,” said DeBernardo. “The toothpaste is out of the tube and cannot be put back in.”
Reverend Bryan Massingale, an openly gay Catholic priest and professor of theology and social ethics at Fordham University, said priests who want to make pastoral contributions to the gay and lesbian community “ will continue to do so, except it will be equal. more under the table … than before. “
For Catholics in same-sex relationships, he said, the Vatican’s new message will hurt.
“Every person is born with this innate desire to love,” he said. “For those targeting members of the same sex … to see it described as inherently or innately sinful without any qualification, that’s devastating.”
Vatican doctrine holds that gays and lesbians should be treated with dignity and respect, but that gay sex is “intrinsically disordered” and gay relationships are sinful.
Natalia Imperatori-Lee, a professor of religious studies at Manhattan College, said those teachings, added together, are problematic.
“It amazes the mind that the hierarchy can affirm that LGBTQ + persons are made in the image of God, but that their unions are a sin,” she said via email. “Are they made in God’s image except for their hearts? Except for their capacities and tendencies to love? “
Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of the US-based NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice and an advocate for more LGBTQ inclusion in the church, said she was relieved that the Vatican’s statement was no harder.
She interpreted it as, “You can bless the individuals (in a same-sex union), you just cannot bless the contract.”
“So it is possible that you have a ritual where the individuals are blessed as their devotee selves.”
However, the Vatican’s ruling was welcomed by some church conservatives, such as Bill Donohue, president of the New York-based Catholic League.
“There will be no recognition of homosexual unions or marriages by the Catholic Church. It’s non-negotiable. End of story, ”he said.
“Pope Francis is under significant pressure from gay activists, both inside and outside the Church, to give the green light to same-sex marriage,” added Donohue, calling Monday’s statement “the most decisive rejection of those efforts ever written. . “
Francis has agreed to provide legal protection to same-sex couples, but that is in the civil sphere and not in the church.
Juan Carlos Cruz, a Chilean advocate for gay sexual abuse victims, reported in 2018 that when he met Francis, the Pope had said to him, “God made you that way and he loves you.”
On Monday, Cruz said the Vatican officials who issued the new statement are “completely in a world of their own, away from the people and trying to defend the indefensible.”
He called for a change in the leadership of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, saying it undermined Francis’s efforts to create a more inclusive church.
“If the Church and the CDF don’t move forward with the world … Catholics will continue to flee.” he said.
In Francis’ home country, Argentina, LGBTQ activist Esteban Paulon said the Pope’s previous statements conveying empathy and understanding for gays and lesbians were mere gestures, without any official weight.
“They weren’t institutional statements,” said Paulon, executive director of the Institute of Public Policies LGBT +. “To say that homosexuality is a sin takes us back 200 years and promotes hate speech that is unfortunately on the rise in Latin America and Europe.”
Chile’s largest LGBTQ rights group, the Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation, denounced the decree as a “homophobic and anti-Christian action” of the Catholic hierarchy.
Spokesman Oscar Rementería contrasted the Vatican’s strict rhetoric against same-sex marriage with the many documented cases of Catholic leaders covering up the sexual abuse of children committed by clergy.
Associated Press Writers Eva Vergara in Santiago, Chile; Almudena Calatrava in Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Nicole Winfield in Rome and Mariam Fam in Cairo contributed to this report.
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