‘A small step’: LGBTQ+ Angelenos, allies see progress in Vatican’s blessings for same-sex couples
The Vatican’s surprise announcement Monday that authorized the blessing of same-sex couples — while still upholding the church’s ban on gay marriage — was celebrated by many queer Catholics and their allies as a significant win for inclusivity, though one more of philosophy than practice.
“This is huge for the LGBTQ community,” said Richard Zaldivar, the founder and executive director of the Wall Las Memorias Project, a Los Angeles health nonprofit serving Latinos and the LGBTQ+ community. Zaldivar — also a self-described proud, gay Catholic — said, “It’s about dignity and respect.”
When he came out, Zaldivar said he stopped attending Mass regularly, unsure of where he fit in the church. But his faith was important to him, and now he sits weekly in the front row at the L.A. Cathedral with his partner, making sure they kiss during the sign of the peace. He is hopeful this very public acceptance by Pope Francis will help more queer Catholics feel welcome and accepted, even if it still falls far from marriage equality.
“I think we’re very blessed to have Pope Francis with us in the world today,” Zaldivar said. “I applaud him; I know that change is very difficult and slow.”
The new papal declaration is not a directive to Catholic leaders, but extends the opportunity for clergy to bless same-sex couples in certain circumstances “without officially validating their status or changing in any way the Church’s perennial teaching on marriage,” the document says. It also emphasizes that such a blessing should not be performed during a civil union or with clothes or gestures affiliated with a wedding.
Still, observers say it’s a major shift in Catholic policies, falling in line with the pope’s continued efforts to make the church more welcoming while maintaining its rules.
A new anti-gay-marriage push, energized by the overturning of abortion rights, is trying to make Americans believe the institution of marriage is diminished by same-sex unions.
“This message greets LGBTQ Catholics with an acknowledgment rather than a condemnation, and that is a change,” said Peggy Ehling, the co-chair of the L.A. Archdiocese’s Ministry With Lesbian and Gay Persons. Becoming involved in the ministry after one of her children came out as transgender, she wanted to ensure all queer Catholics felt the same support her son did.
Ehling said she wasn’t sure yet how the directive would play out across L.A., noting that some people on both sides of the issue will be upset — either because it goes too far or not far enough — but she is hopeful that priests will feel safer offering such blessings, especially if they previously worried about retribution.
L.A. Archbishop José H. Gomez, who is widely considered to be much more conservative than the pope, did not respond to questions about the latest papal document. In a statement, archdiocese spokesperson Yannina Diaz said that the archdiocese “is still reviewing the announcement at this time.”
But Gomez has not been seen as very friendly to LGBTQ+ issues, taking a widely criticized stance this summer in opposition to the Dodgers honoring the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a queer satirical — and charitable — group who dress as nuns. He argued that the nonprofit group mocks nuns and Catholics.
A new document explains a radical change in Vatican policy by insisting that people seeking God’s love and mercy shouldn’t be subject to ‘an exhaustive moral analysis’ to receive it.
But the Vatican’s new directive was bound to make waves, even as it makes a sharp distinction between a blessing and the church’s marriage sacrament, which can be bestowed only on unions between a man and a woman. Some Catholic leaders across the country have called the pope’s document on same-sex blessings a “disaster” for how it changes the church’s approach to sin. Homosexuality is considered a sin in the Catholic Church, something the pope earlier this year clarified as he denounced laws that deem it a crime.
San Francisco’s Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone, who has strongly opposed gay marriage, did not overtly support the new papal guidance, instead emphasizing that the blessings rely on leaders’ discretion and that the directive does not change the church’s teaching on marriage.
“I encourage those who have questions to read the Vatican declaration closely, and in continuity with the Church’s unchanging teaching,” Cordileone said in a statement. “Doing so will enable one to understand how it encourages pastoral solicitude while maintaining fidelity to the Lord Jesus Christ.”
San Diego’s Cardinal Robert McElroy did not respond Tuesday to a request for comment.
The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which has clashed with the Vatican at times in recent years, took a stance similar to Cordileone’s, focusing on the Vatican’s unchanged position on marriage. Gomez served as the conference’s president from 2019 to 2022.
Christian and Catholic groups protested at Dodger Stadium hours before the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence were honored on Dodgers’ Pride Night.
“The Church’s teaching on marriage has not changed, and this declaration affirms that, while also making an effort to accompany people through the imparting of pastoral blessings because each of us needs God’s healing love and mercy in our lives,” the conference’s spokesperson, Chieko Noguchi, said in a statement.
Cecilia González-Andrieu, professor of theology at Loyola Marymount University, a Jesuit school, said it’s hard to know how California’s top Catholics will interpret or utilize the declaration. But in her view, it’s important to note that the pope focuses the new document on the grassroots.
“I think the document says purposefully, ‘Let’s have this come out of the community … let’s not try to control this from the top,” González-Andrieu said. She said this gives priests and parishioners the ability to take advantage of such blessings without fear or guilt.
As Pope Francis nudges the Roman Catholic Church to the left globally, layman Tim Busch of Irvine is pushing American Catholicism to the right.
She said the Vatican’s announcement could make the biggest difference in the perception of the church by younger Catholics, who she said have most openly struggled with the church’s anti-LGBTQ+ doctrines.
“It’s a small step in the big desires that a lot of my students might have, but it is a step,” she said. “In my imagination, it just opens wide the arms of the Catholic faith community: We see you, we love you, we want to pray with you, we want to be supportive of everything you are and who you are.”
She said, theologically, it reinforces Jesus’ own practices of “absolute and unconditional love,” no matter someone’s life journey.
“It doesn’t get us to same-sex marriage — the document is very clear on that — but it does provide a way to really support people’s desire to be in a relationship with God and the [church] community,” González-Andrieu said. “And to not feel like the door has been closed on them.”
Ehling said the pope’s declaration gives a new type of affirmation to queer Catholics, one she hopes will expand.
“I think it gives priests and other ministers in the church a little flexibility to be more pastoral, to meet people where they are and to acknowledge that they have a relationship with God,” Ehling said, even if it may not be the most traditional relationship. “They are still a child of God and still beloved.”
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