The Vatican says the Catholic Church cannot bless gay unions since God “cannot bless sin.”
The Vatican’s latest decree, which was issued on Monday, came from its orthodoxy office, which is the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
It was giving a formal response to a question about whether Catholic clergy can bless same-sex unions.
The answer, contained in a two-page explanation published in seven languages and approved by Pope Francis, was “negative.”
The decree distinguished between the church’s welcoming and blessing of gay people, which it upheld, but not their unions since any such sacramental recognition could be confused with marriage.
According to Vatican teaching, gay people must be treated with dignity and respect, but gay sex is “intrinsically disordered”.
Catholic teaching also holds that marriage, a lifelong union between a man and woman, is part of God’s plan and is intended for the sake of creating new life. Since gay unions are not intended to be part of that plan, they cannot be blessed by the church, the document said.
Pope Francis has consistently supported providing gay couples with legal protections in same-sex unions, but has insisted that is only in reference to the civil sphere, not within the church.
In 2003, the same Vatican office issued a similar decree saying that the church’s respect for gay people “cannot lead in any way to approval of homosexual behavior or to legal recognition of homosexual unions”.
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