Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, a former Church’s doctrinal chief under Pope Benedict, said Sunday the former pontiff would never done what Pope Francis recently did in approving an edict allowing priests to bless people in same-sex relationships.
Mueller made this comment to Reuters while attending an event marking the one-year anniversary of Pope Benedict’s death.
In mid-December, the Vatican released a new policy stating that “people seeking God’s love and mercy shouldn’t be subject to ‘an exhaustive moral analysis’ to receive it.”
The new policy, while liberal, nevertheless reinforces the Church’s age-old belief that marriage is a lifelong sacrament between a man and a woman. The policy also mandates that blessings not be given at the same time as a civil union, using rituals related to weddings, or even with other actions or clothing related to weddings.
The Vatican’s doctrine office stated in a document that requests for blessings should not be denied.
The document emphasized that blessings nurture “openness to transcendence, mercy, and closeness to God,” saying that “it is a seed of the Holy Spirit that must be nurtured, not hindered,” and that people in “irregular” unions, both gay and straight, are in a state of sin but should not be deprived of God’s love or mercy. This means that while people in same-sex relationships can receive blessings, they are still in a state of sin before the Church.
The new policy, which is the first time the Catholic Church has put its position on blessings for same-sex couples in an official document, has been seen as a progressive move, especially since homosexuality has been historically condemned by the Vatican. However, the Church maintains its stance that being in an active same-sex relationship is a sin.