Kazakhstan: archbishop prohibits priests from performing ‘any form of blessing’ of same-sex couples
December 20, 2023
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CWN Editor's Note: Responding to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith’s declaration on blessing same-sex couples outside of the liturgy, Archbishop Tomash Peta of Astana (Kazakhstan) has forbidden the priests and laity of his archdiocese from “accepting or performing any form of blessing whatsoever of couples in an irregular situation and same-sex couples.”
“It goes without saying that every sincerely repentant sinner with the firm intention to no longer sin and to put an end to his public sinful situation (such as, e.g., cohabitation outside of a canonically valid marriage, union between people of the same sex) can receive a blessing,” he added.
Joined by Auxiliary Bishop Athanasius Schneider, Archbishop Peta wrote that “the fact that the document does not give permission for the ‘marriage’ of same-sex couples should not blind pastors and faithful to the great deception and the evil that resides in the very permission to bless couples in irregular situations and same-sex couples.”
“Such a blessing directly and seriously contradicts Divine Revelation and the uninterrupted, bimillennial doctrine and practice of the Catholic Church,” he continued. “To bless couples in an irregular situation and same-sex couples is a serious abuse of the most Holy Name of God, since this name is invoked upon an objectively sinful union of adultery or of homosexual activity.”
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