Pope Leo will bless same-sex unions despite having once decried the “homosexual lifestyle”

Pope Leo XIV during an audience with the media (May 12, 2025)
Photo: Wikimedia Commons

The new pope will continue to bless same-sex couples, according to the head of the Vatican’s doctrine office.

Asked by a journalist if Pope Leo XIV would revoke the blessings put in place by the late Pope Francis, Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández reportedly replied, “I really don’t think so. The declaration will remain.”

In 2023, Pope Francis approved the blessing of same-sex unions, releasing a declaration through the Vatican’s Office of the Doctrine of the Faith that allowed priests to do so for the first time.

The declaration did not amend “the traditional doctrine of the church about marriage,” Fernández said at the time, because there is no liturgical rite that could be confused with the marriage sacrament. The Church still maintains that marriage can only be between a man and a woman, and the document explains the form of the blessing “should not be fixed ritually by ecclesial authorities to avoid producing confusion with the blessing proper to the Sacrament of Marriage.”

“Ultimately, a blessing offers people a means to increase their trust in God,” Fernández wrote at the time. “The request for a blessing, thus, expresses and nurtures openness to the transcendence, mercy, and closeness to God in a thousand concrete circumstances of life, which is no small thing in the world in which we live.”

While Fernández indicated Pope Leo would continue these blessings, the new head of the Catholic Church has also made it clear he…

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