Belgium’s Flemish-speaking bishops have approved a blessing ceremony for homosexual couples, using several statements by Pope Francis to challenge the Vatican doctrinal office’s ban that said God “cannot bless sin”.
The three-page Belgian document said “such a prayerful moment can be quite simple. The difference with what the Church understands as a sacramental marriage must also remain clear.”
After suggesting prayer texts for the couple and the whole congregation, the document says the ceremony should end with an “intercession, Our Father, closing prayer (and) blessing”.
The document in Flemish, entitled “Being near homosexual persons pastorally – For a welcoming church that excludes no one”, emphasises church efforts to welcome homosexuals and instructs dioceses to appoint a contact person for pastoral work with them.
“We want to continue on that path by giving this pastoral work a more structural character,” added the bishops, who included Brussels Cardinal Jozef De Kesel.
The initiative, apparently the first such official step in the Catholic world, frequently quoted the pope’s apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia to explain the bishops’ decision.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), now called a dicastery, ruled out same-sex blessings in March 2021 as contrary to Church teaching and therefore illicit. Pope Francis reacted shortly afterwards with criticism of “pretensions of legalism or of clerical moralism”.
Bishops in several European countries, including Belgium and neighbouring Germany, also reacted, expressing support for some form of blessing for faithful same-sex couples. A petition in Germany collected over 4,000 signatures from priests and pastoral workers who opposed the CDF decision.
“It is not our intention to preempt the universal church. Our intention is to do what has to be done here,” Antwerp Bishop Johan Bonny told Flemish television VRT. “If there's a couple, whether it's two men or two women, who want to say yes, for good and bad, who want to commit... Who are we to refuse that?”
Fr Jos Moons, a theologian at KU Leuven university, told VRT that “homosexual relationships have been celebrated by some bishops and priests in Flanders for some time, albeit clandestinely and secretly. The fact that people now speak out so clearly is good news.”
It was not immediately clear whether Belgium’s French-speaking bishops agreed with the Flemish prelates. Belgium has several institutions split according to language, so the document officially applies now only to Flemish-speaking areas in the country’s eight dioceses.
All Belgian bishops are due for an ad limina visit to Rome in late November, a date which could be the reason for the Flemish bishops to publish their document now.
The document was vague about the actual blessing, saying the ceremony should end with a zegenwens (blessing wish). Who would give the blessing was not specified.
Willy Bombeek, the gay man named interdiocesan coordinator for the “homosexuality and faith” contact persons, told the Dutch Christian daily Nederlands Dagblad that zegenwens was “expressly intended as a blessing for the gay couple”.
The bishops’ document says that pastoral outreach to faithful same-sex couples is “an important link to integration in the religious community”.
“This relationship, although not a religious marriage, can also be a source of peace and shared happiness,” it adds. “No one can be condemned forever, because that is not the logic of the Gospel!” the bishops quote Pope Francis as writing in his exhortation. The Pope said he meant “everyone, in whatever situation they find themselves”.
“Who would have thought it 10 years ago?” Bombeek asked in an interview with the Flemish Catholic news service Kerknet. “The bishops are sticking their necks out. This is a huge leap … a foundation has been laid, My task now is to enter into a dialogue.”
Media reports said the Vatican was not consulted before publication of the document and Rome had no immediate reaction.
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