Ruadhán Jones
Bishop Donal McKeown, Apostolic Administrator of the Diocese of Down and Connor “It’s not pastoral care” to bless the relationships of same-sex couples, says Bishop Donal McKeown of Derry, following backlash over a Vatican document on the blessing of same-sex unions.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith’s (CDF) recent document which ruled that the Church cannot bless same-sex unions sparked controversy, as priests and bishops in Germany spoke out in protest.
Speaking to The Irish Catholic, Bishop McKeown said the document was a “pastorally sensitive” response to a specific question regarding the blessing of same-sex unions.
“The question was for a formal, religious recognition of that sort of union,” Dr McKeown said. “The Vatican was simply saying, sorry, that is not an option for us.
“It is not pastoral care to say we are going down the route of saying, we are actually blessing homosexual couples’ unions as if they were equivalent to heterosexual couples’ unions.”
The bishop of Derry added that it is in no way a criticism of individuals, but that it was important to answer the question put to the CDF.
“I think all clergy know homosexual couples, many of them are church-goers,” Bishop McKeown continued. “We’re happy to walk with them and take them seriously. I think the document says that does not mean to give religious recognition which is precisely what people wanted the Vatican do.”
The controversy following the document’s release “raises a broad question about how we in the Church discern God’s way forward”, Bishop McKeown added.
“There’s a temptation to assume that if we have shrill voices in a sort of party parliamentary context we can get a way forward,” he said. “In the context of the synodal Church, it’s not just a case if who can shout loudest… It’s about how are we as a Church discerning God’s way forward, about how we discern teaching in the Church.”