Same-Sex Marriage: Vatican States Position On Church Blessing

The Vatican has described as unchristian the blessing of same-sex-marriages irrespective of their positive elements.

The Vatican’s powerful office responsible for church doctrine, on Monday, March 15 declared that it was impossible for God to ‘bless’ sin, hence, it is not licit to impart a blessing on relationships, or partnerships, even stable, that involve sexual activity outside of marriage.

Naija News understands that the congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), while responding to the question, “Does the Church have the power to give the blessing to unions of persons of the same sex?” said “Negative”.

The response signed and delivered by the Cardinal Luis Ladaria, read: “Blessings are not allowed, wrote the CDF, because what is to be blessed needs to be “objectively and positively ordered to receive and express the grace, according to the designs of God inscribed in creation, and fully revealed by Christ the Lord”.

“For this reason, it is not licit to impart a blessing on relationships, or partnerships, even stable, that involve sexual activity outside of marriage (i.e., outside the indissoluble union of a man and a woman open in itself to the transmission of life), as is the case of the unions between persons of the same sex,” it wrote.

The CDF reiterated that though such relationships might have positive elements to be valued, that did not make them “legitimate objects of an ecclesial blessing, since the positive elements exist within the context of a union not ordered to the creator’s plan”.

CDF added that while God “never ceases to bless each of His pilgrim children in this world… he does not and cannot bless sin.”

It further denied that its declaration was “a form of unjust discrimination”. Instead, it said it was a “reminder of the truth of the liturgical rite and of the very nature of the sacramentals, as the Church understands them.”

Meanwhile, a few weeks ago, Naija News reported that suspected kidnappers have abducted 25 marriage guests along Wukari-Takum road in Taraba State on Wednesday.

It was gathered that the youths were taken at about 6 pm on their way back to Takum from Wukari where they attended a marriage ceremony.