issues and the hurts experienced by people identifying as LGBT+ have certainly been heard very loudly within the Church. I do hope that people who may have felt excluded in the past, will see this as some step toward them with the love and mercy of Christ. The pope is very much exercising his pastoral role in accompanying people. One of the great gifts of the priesthood is being able to offer people a blessing. These informal, pastoral, but beautiful moments, where you are able to bless someone where they are at, is something we do every day as a priest. This particular declaration makes somebody like me or any priest a little bit more comfortable that they can do this without feeling, “Am I contradicting the teaching of the Church?” So, there is a clarity here, which I think will help pastors on the ground. Bishop José Ignacio Munilla, Bishop of Orihuela-Alicante, Spain I would have expected another way of approaching the subject. I believe that a mistake has been made by not consulting the entire episcopate, especially when pastoral reasons are alleged in the declaration. It’s surprising that they did not proceed in a synodal manner, in line Archbishop Eamon Martin of Armagh, <strong>No</strong>rthern Ireland, blesses delegates during a prayer walk at a pre-synodal assembly in the sixth-century monastic site of Clonmacnoise in Ireland June 18, 2022. | CNS/CLODAGH KILCOYNE, REUTERS with the ecclesiology of the Second Vatican Council. We would have been spared the dissenting reactions of episcopal conferences that we are witnessing, for example. There would be no problem in performing a blessing, carried out in the privacy of pastoral accompaniment, with a formulation along the following lines: “Lord, bless your children N. and N., and grant them to continue walking in humility, so that at the same time that they recognize your gifts, they also recognize that their union is not in accordance with your design. Pour out upon them your grace, for them to become coherent in their lives and accept with courage and determination your call to conversion. Amen.” Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, Archbishop of Bologna and President of the Bishops’ Conference of Italy Some things you can say after you have made people feel at home again. So it will be possible to learn the rules — beautiful — of a home from which you were estranged, which you think you do not understand and which is not understood. The Church communicates the love that explains the rule and makes it alive, and this is done by reestablishing a relationship with everyone. The world is not black and white and requires listening, discernment, acceptance. Someone may think: this way you lose the truth. In contrast, no, this is how you rediscover it: by living, by encountering, by talking about Jesus. And you discover that Christianity has deeper roots than you think. The altar is draped with a rainbow flag during the blessing service “Love Wins” in the Church of St. Martin in Geldern, Germany, in 2021. For the last several years, many Catholic leaders in the country have been pushing the Vatican to change its teaching on marriage and sexuality to be more open to samesex couples. | CNS/RUDOLF WICHERT, KNA 14 • ANGELUS • <strong>January</strong> <strong>12</strong>, <strong>2024</strong>
<strong>January</strong> <strong>12</strong>, <strong>2024</strong> • ANGELUS • 15