Cardinal Daniel Sturla, Archbishop of Montevideo,Uruguay, regarded as a friend and ally of Pope Francis, announced during an interview that he will refrain from blessing same sex couples in response to the release of the Vatican document Fiducia Supplicans.
During an interview with the local Uruguayan daily El País, Cardinal Sturla expressed his frustration with the decision of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) to release such a controversial document in late December. “I don’t think it was a topic to come up now at Christmas. (That decision) caught my attention powerfully, because it is a controversial issue and it is dividing waters within the Church.”
The Archbishop of Montevideo also said that he found the document unnecessary since “it is clear that a priest blesses all people. I have just been visiting a prison and I have blessed everyone who is there. If people come to ask me for my blessing, I always give it.”
“I remember when the ‘trans law’ was being discussed (in congress) I was at a procession in the
San Ignacio parish, and some trans people came to ask me for my blessing and I gave them the blessing; (but) it is a completely different thing to bless a homosexual couple,” Sturla said.
“Furthermore,” said the Uruguayan Cardinal, “this instruction creates confusion, because it says that you can bless, but not through a rite… It’s a ‘no but yes,’ and a ‘yes but no’.”
“Given the lack of clarity of the document, from my reading, I understand that we must continue with the practice that the Church has had until now, which is to bless all the people who ask for a blessing, but not to bless the couples of the same sex,” he said.
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Credit: romanuspontifex/wikipedia