As it was already circulating on the internet, the Vatican decided to go public with a 2024 letter to the German bishops reiterating that blessings for same-sex couples could not be formalized.

The Vatican released a letter May 4 but dated November 2024 in which the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) categorically rejected a proposal from the German episcopate to introduce ritualized blessings for couples in same-sex unions and irregular situations, warning that such blessings could be interpreted as the legitimization of unions incompatible with Church doctrine.

The letter is signed by the prefect of the dicastery, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, and addressed to Stephan Ackermann, bishop of Trier, and through him to the entire German episcopate.

In the letter, dated Nov. 18, 2024, Rome issued a categorical rejection of a text proposing the implementation of blessings with a prescribed ritual form.

The DDF in the letter responds to a “vademecum” (an authoritative handbook or reference guide) drafted by the German episcopate in October 2024 as a guide for priests. Written in German and Italian, it was intended to serve as a practical aid for “Blessings for Couples Who Love Each Other” and was presented as an application of the declaration Fiducia Supplicans to the “pastoral reality” in Germany.

The background: Fiducia Supplicans

In 2023, the DDF published the document Fiducia Supplicans, which opened the possibility of blessing couples “in irregular situations” or of the same sex, without equating them to marriage. The text specified that such blessings could not be performed with a precise ritual nor with signs characteristic of a wedding.

The Church in Africa subsequently expressed its unanimous rejection of the document and requested clarifications from Pope Francis. Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the leader of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, said the document did not apply to the Eastern Catholic Churches.

In the November 2024 letter, which it has published on its website, the DDF recalled that Fiducia Supplicans clearly establishes that the “Church does not have the power to confer its liturgical blessing when this, in any way, might offer a form of moral legitimation to a union that purports to be a marriage or to an extramarital sexual practice,” nor to those who claim “the legitimation of their own status.”

In light of this, Fernández’s letter notes that the German “vademecum” “speaks of a union and of an ‘official regulation’ on the part of pastors of couples who love one another outside of marriage” and even of an “acclamation,” a “gesture normally prescribed in the marriage rite.” In this regard, the Vatican states that such an act legitimizes “the status of such couples, in a manner contrary to what was affirmed by Fiducia Supplicans.”

Why the Vatican is publishing it now

The November 2024 letter began circulating widely on the internet this week, causing confusion as it was presented as if it were a recent pronouncement. 

“The Holy Father stated on the return flight from Africa that the Holy See had already sent a response regarding this matter to the German bishops, and many were asking where that response was or what it said. For that reason, we decided to make it public,” Fernández explained in a statement to ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News.

The Holy See ‘does not agree’

During his return flight to Rome following an 11-day tour of Africa, Pope Leo XIV stated to journalists on April 23 that the Holy See “does not agree with the formal blessing of homosexual couples.”

The pontiff was responding to a question from a journalist regarding a directive issued by German Cardinal Reinhard Marx, archbishop of Munich and Freising, who had urged priests and pastoral workers to offer blessings in a uniform manner to same-sex couples or to divorced and remarried individuals within his archdiocese.

Before responding directly, Leo XIV emphasized that “the unity or division of the Church should not revolve around sexual matters” and lamented the tendency to reduce Christian morality solely to that area. “In reality, I believe there are much greater and more important issues, such as justice, the equality, freedom of men and women, freedom of religion, that would all take priority before that particular issue,” he stated.

Nevertheless, the pope noted that “the Holy See has already addressed the German bishops and has made it clear that it does not agree with the formal blessing of same-sex couples.” 

“When a priest gives the blessing at the end of Mass, or when the pope gives a blessing at the end of a great celebration, like the one we had today, there are blessings for all people,” he noted, recalling the famous expression of his predecessor, Francis: “Tutti, tutti, tutti” (“everyone, everyone, everyone”).

Going beyond this, Leo XIV warned, “can cause more disunity than unity.” “Everyone is invited to follow Jesus, and everyone is invited to seek conversion in their own lives,” he explained.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language sister service of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.