On Monday, the Vatican’s orthodoxy office issued a statement clarifying that the Roman Catholic Church cannot bless same-sex unions, as God “does not and cannot bless sin.” While many conservatives applauded the Church’s unchanged stance, some members of the Catholic community are pushing the Vatican to take a more progressive position.
The Parish Priests Initiative, an Austria-based group of Catholics led by Father Helmut Schueller, issued a statement saying its members are “deeply appalled” by the Roman Catholic Church’s March 15 release, which was notably approved by Pope Francis before its publication.
“We will — in solidarity with so many — not reject any loving couple in the future who ask to celebrate God’s blessing, which they experience every day, also in a worship service.”
The Parish Priests Initiative is composed of more than 350 members from the official Church and has around 3,000 lay supporters, according to Reuters.
While the initiative has gained support from priests in both the US and Europe, it has also been critiqued for calling on the Vatican to do away with priestly celibacy. Many members of the group also advocate for the ordination of women.
Additional groups and individuals belonging to the 1.3 billion-member Roman Catholic Church have expressed that if the Vatican fails to modernize its approach to same-sex unions, then lay Catholics will have to step in.
Robert Shine, associate director of the ministry, published an op-ed on Tuesday in which he slammed the Vatican’s statement as a product of “misguided logic.”
“It seems church leaders have yet to learn a simple lesson: you cannot just order the faithful to stop conversing about a disputed topic,” Shine wrote. “This approach did not work with birth control in the 1960s, nor with the discussion over women priests in the 1990s, and it will not work now.”
Sourse: sputniknews.com
