VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Fielding questions from journalists, synod members displayed a mixed view on the topic of same-sex blessings, while also revealing that Pope Francis has planned for next year’s synod meetings to address the topic specifically.
The topic of same-sex blessings and the Church’s relationship with LGBT-identifying individuals has been a key aspect of attention for those covering the Synod on Synodality, given their inclusion on the Instrumentum Laboris which guides the meetings and the arguments made in contradiction with Catholic teaching.
READ: Synod on Synodality discusses ‘pastoral’ approach to ‘love among gay couples’
That text raises the question of “in the light of the Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia, what concrete steps are needed to welcome those who feel excluded from the Church because of their status or sexuality (for example, remarried divorcees, people in polygamous marriages, LGBTQ+ people, etc.)?”
The issue has been further developed when synod member Cardinal Joseph Tobin expressed his personal hope that the synod would lead to a greater “welcoming” of “LGBTQ+ people” within the Church.
In light of this – and in light of relator general Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich’s request for “concrete steps” to be taken in the synod – LifeSiteNews asked one member at a press briefing if he anticipated change on the teaching prohibiting same-sex blessings.
READ: Synod official refuses to answer whether members must follow Church teaching in discussions
Responding to LifeSite’s question, Brazil’s Cardinal Leonardo Ulrich Steiner, O.F.M., the archbishop of Manaus, downplayed the suggestion that the October 2023 session of the multi-year Synod on Synodality would lead to change.
SYNOD NEWS: I asked Cdl. Leonardo Steiner if he anticipated change in #Catholic teaching on homosexuality from #synod2023.
Cdl. Steiner previously called for homosexual civil unions, & stated that “the Church is always seeking to read the signs of the times.”
Here is his reply: pic.twitter.com/TfvmTo1LSd— Michael Haynes 🇻🇦 (@MLJHaynes) October 18, 2023
“This synodal session is not going to lead to conclusions or determinations,” said Steiner, who has himself gone on record advocating for same-sex issues including homosexual civil unions.
However, he added that “it is a wish of the Holy Father that the next session will look to that, but it is a good thing that this debate has come up on these topics.”
“Let us not forget what Pope Francis said in Lisbon, the Church is for everyone, and he said in Portuguese, ‘todos,’” added Steiner.
READ: Archbishop Fernández says Synod will offer ‘no conclusions’ on female deacons, married priests
“We have all listened to interventions and we shall see what comes up,” Steiner added, “but as far as concrete issues are concerned, well they will have to be addressed during the next year’s session.”
Latvian prelate flip-flops on Church teaching
Answering a follow-up question on whether the Holy Spirit can “tell someone” that homosexual blessings are acceptable, Steiner’s fellow panelist at the press briefing took a different stance. Latvia’s Archbishop Zbigņev Stankevičs stated that “we need to be faithful to the Holy Scriptures and what the Church for 2,000 years has, let’s say, discovered by interpreting the Holy Scriptures.”
He presented a somewhat confusing attitude, stating Catholic teaching regarding homosexuality, but also repeating Pope Francis’ call for the Church to be open to “everyone” without qualification on that phrase.
Stankevičs noted that the Church’s “official attitude towards homosexuals was expressed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, it means that they are called upon to live in chastity.”
He noted that while a homosexual tendency “is not a sin per se, it should be faced, and if they start sexual relation with another person –and this is not just for homosexuals but for everyone – it is a sin.”
“Every sexual relation outside of marriage is a sin,” he added.
As for the subject of blessings, Stankevičs said that if a homosexual individual “asks that he wishes to live in the grace of God, I see that there are no contraindications in terms of praying for this person and helping him.” He also saw an opening for blessing couples, if they committed to live in chastity, while drawing the line at blessing people having sexual relations with each other:
Then if two come and they say ‘we want to live in chastity… and we are tempted,’ we can pray for them and also bless them to help them to live in chastity.
But if two come and say ‘we live together like a husband and wife and want to obtain a blessing,’ here I see there is a big problem because in this way we would bless living in sin.
Stankevičs again repeated the phrase of “todos” and having “room for everybody,” saying that this means not to “reject anyone.” While this appeared to argue against his previous stance of enforcing the teachings of chastity, Stankevičs then added that “true love cannot be separate from truth because if love is separated from truth it is no longer real love – it becomes just being permissive, and we just harm people.”
So if there is a person who lives in sin and we tell this person ‘everything is okay, go one like this’ we are doing something negative to this person, because this person is in danger. When this person dies he is in great spiritual danger.
Nevertheless, the Latvian prelate stated that he has undergone a “pastoral conversion,” meaning that now he takes to heart Pope Francis’ infamous 2013 phrase, “Who am I to judge?”
READ: Synod officials waffle when asked about following Catholic norms on ‘pastoral’ care for homosexuals
“Little by little I started understanding that it is evident to discover that Jesus says that we must love our neighbor, but also our enemy,” he closed. “Also homosexuals are my neighbors and I must love them, but how? Love in truth, so a true love, not just a permissiveness.”
The topic of same-sex blessings has already been clearly pronounced on by the Vatican, however. In 1986 the then Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) released its document “On the pastoral care of homosexual persons,” which stated that a “truly pastoral approach will appreciate the need for homosexual persons to avoid the near occasions of sin.”
Then, in 2021, the CDF issued a note clearly prohibiting same-sex blessings. The CDF noted that proponents of same-sex blessings argue for the blessings “so that those who manifest a homosexual orientation can receive the assistance they need to understand and fully carry out God’s will in their lives.”
While Stankevičs argued for blessings for chaste couples, the CDF stated only that a blessing to “individual persons with homosexual inclinations” who displayed the “will to live in fidelity to the revealed plans of God as proposed by Church teaching,” was acceptable.
On the contrary, the CDF declared “illicit any form of blessing that tends to acknowledge their unions as such,” i.e., as unions.