Imagine for a moment you’ve been estranged from your family due to something outside your control. You haven’t seen them for years and miss them deeply.
Suddenly, you receive an invitation to the annual family reunion, something you never imagined would happen. You get excited at the prospect of receiving the blessing of gathering in community.
As you read through your invitation, however, you notice a series of conditions that you and only you would have to abide by to come: You have to arrive late and leave early. You don’t get the family t-shirt everyone else will be wearing. You don’t get to be in the family picture. You can’t partake of the food provided so you have to bring your own. You have to eat your meal in the backyard with the dog.
Yes, the invitation is progress, but what do you make of all the conditions? Do they make you feel blessed?
If you feel the slightest bit of dis-ease in the above scenario, then you understand, on a small level, my feelings about the Vatican’s announcement that the Catholic Church can now bless same-sex couples.
On the surface, it sounds incredibly inclusive, especially after the November announcement that the Catholic Church will allow trans folks to be baptized and serve as godparents if they so choose.
A closer look at this recent proclamation, though, reveals the motivation behind this document is to make abundantly clear that the Catholic Church insists the sacrament of marriage is reserved only for heterosexual couples, under the expectation that they’ll have children. On that belief, the Catholic Church has not budged an inch.
Instead, it suggests ministers would be allowed to provide a “spontaneous blessing” on couples in what it calls “irregular situations” and same-sex couples if they approach the minister seeking spiritual guidance. The document makes it clear the minister cannot bless the relationship between the couples, only the individuals within the pairing.
The document also makes it clear the Catholic Church views a blessing as something entirely different from a sacrament. A sacrament is reserved for those who have faithfully committed to the ways of the Catholic Church. A blessing, on the other hand, could be bestowed upon anyone who is seeking God’s assistance to live a better life.
While those of us in Protestant traditions may view marriage as a blessing, it would be inaccurate to conflate a blessing and a sacrament when reading this recent proclamation. For the Catholic Church, a wedding service may include a blessing, but the service is not the blessing itself.
The proclamation makes that distinction incredibly clear, particularly as it goes to great lengths to inform the readers they won’t provide a blessing if it is connected to the same-sex couple’s relationship in any way.
Article 39 of the proclamation goes so far as to say, “…this blessing should never be imparted in concurrence with the ceremonies of a civil union, and not even in connection with them. Nor can it be performed with any clothing, gestures, or words that are proper to a wedding.” In other words, this blessing can’t look, sound, smell or feel the tiniest bit like a wedding.
Adding salt to the wound, a later article in the proclamation states, “The Church is thus the sacrament of God’s infinite love. Therefore, even when a person’s relationship with God is clouded by sin, he can always ask for a blessing…”
This 45-article proclamation, as great as news headlines have made it sound, is simply a long-winded way to say, “Love the sinner, hate the sin.” That statement is one the LGBTQ+ community has long understood as conservative Christians’ way to pass judgment upon us queer folks without actually believing they’re committing the sin of passing judgment.
While the one who says the phrase usually believes they are acting lovingly toward queer folks, the mindset simply allows people to feel comfortable with their disdain toward the LGBTQ+ community. It would be like saying, “Love the person, hate the eyes.” You can’t hate an intimate part of me without hating me.
We should celebrate progress when progress is made, and the fact the Pope has said something even remotely positive about queer people is indeed progress within the Catholic Church. Pope Francis is to be commended for nudging the Catholic Church toward a more compassionate, modern place.
But we shouldn’t let such minuscule crumbs of progress distract us from how full inclusion is still explicitly denied. We are children of God, beautifully, wonderfully, and queerfully made.
We can be thankful for the invitation while recognizing there is still much more to do. It is not arrogant for us to assert that we deserve better than eating crumbs out back with the dog, away from the real celebration and blessing.
Jesus once taught us that we can tell a tree’s quality by the fruit it produces (Matthew 7:17-18). For decades, the tree of teaching that being LGBTQ+ is a sin has created the fruit of anxiety, depression, harassment and even death in the lives of queer people.
How much more queer suffering must the Catholic Church bear witness to before it cuts down this terrible tree and throws it into the fire (Matthew 7:19)?
Article 19 of the Vatican’s proclamation states, “In his mystery of love, through Christ, God communicates to his Church the power to bless. Granted by God to human beings and bestowed by them on their neighbors, the blessing is transformed into inclusion, solidarity, and peacemaking. It is a positive message of comfort, care, and encouragement. The blessing expresses God’s merciful embrace and the Church’s motherhood, which invites the faithful to have the same feelings as God toward their brothers and sisters.”
From this understanding, cutting down the tree of LGBTQ+ exclusion would be a blessing indeed. I pray the Catholic Church finds within itself the courage to grant such a blessing so it might bear witness to the good fruit of inclusion, solidarity and peacemaking.
A bivocational pastor, writer and spiritual director based in Atlanta, Georgia, she currently works as a Spiritual Director at Reclamation Theology. Cawthon-Freels is the author of Reclamation: A Queer Pastor’s Guide to Finding Spiritual Growth in the Passages Used to Harm Us (Nurturing Faith Books), and a contributing correspondent at Good Faith Media.
