The declaration of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was admirably succinct. To the question whether the Church has the power to bless same-sex unions there was a single word: Negative.

The Congregation went on to explain that “the blessing of homosexual unions cannot be considered licit. This is because they would constitute a certain imitation or analogue of the nuptial blessing invoked on the man and woman united in the Sacrament of Matrimony”.

So that would seem to be that. And the Congregation is right that same-sex blessings do, to the uninitiated, look very much like a wedding; one, at King’s College Chapel in Cambridge (not a Catholic ceremony), concluded with a bridal march as the happy couple processed down the aisle.