My Take on “Same-sex Blessings” (with Ben Shapiro)

Welcome to the Counsel of Trent podcast, a production of Catholic Answers.

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the Counsel of Trent podcast. I’m your host, Catholic Answers’ apologist and speaker Trent Horn. I wasn’t planning on talking about the issue of the new Vatican document on blessings for same-sex couples and couples in irregular situations because a lot of other voices were addressing it. But Ben Shapiro asked me to come on to his show to give my perspective, so I thought this would be a good opportunity to discuss this issue and the Catholic faith in a broader way to his audience. In the interview that I had with Ben, which I’ll share with you shortly, I wanted to communicate that some reports about this new Vatican document are simply not true, like reports that the church has changed its teaching on marriage or that the church is now allowing for formal liturgical blessings for same-sex couples that resemble gay weddings. That’s not true.

The church has not changed its teaching on marriage, and it has prohibited the kinds of things being advocated for in Germany, like formal blessings in the ritual or liturgy for so-called same-sex couples. But I also wanted to affirm that this document is confusing, and Catholics can rightly criticize it for lacking certain elements, including references to things like seeking God’s blessing specifically to lead people to repentance from sin. One thing I should have added in our interview is the scandal of this document blurring the lines between blessing individuals who are in a sinful relationship so as to lead them closer to God and creating a situation where it looks like a priest is blessing the sinful relationship itself. Even the phrase gay couple in the document can create this impression and so it should have been avoided. The danger is that permission for a spontaneous blessing that could be okay for people in a sinful relationship who genuinely seek after God will become permission for so-called same-sex couples to purposefully seek out these blessings simply to validate their own sinful desires.

So my overall summary would be this. The document in principle is Orthodox because it speaks of sinners seeking spontaneous blessings in order to live better lives. But something can be technically true and still confuse people, so you probably shouldn’t phrase it that way. For example, it’s technically true Catholics worship Mary, but you have to add when you say that that we don’t worship Mary or we don’t give her honor/worship, we don’t give Mary the worship we give to God, we give her the honor/worship that is due to a creature, that is due to the most blessed of creatures that God chose to become incarnate through, chose to become the mother of our Savior, the mother of God. So if you don’t add that people, they’re going to misunderstand the Catholic faith. Likewise, saying a priest can bless gay couples is true, but you have to quickly qualify what you mean by that phrase in that you’re referring to the fact that the priest can bless the individuals in this relationship who are earnestly seeking after God and want to be better and holier in their lives.

So while the document is orthodox in principle, one can object to its effects in practice because it could lead to lots of abuse. So I wouldn’t have released the document myself or if I had written the document, I would’ve at least included the DDF line that God, quote, “Does not and cannot bless sin. He blesses sinful man so that He may recognize that He is part of his plan of love and allow himself to be changed by Him. He, in fact, God in fact, takes us as we are, but never leaves us as we are. In any case, I hope the interview I’m going to share with you is helpful, and if you’d like to help and bless me with a like and subscribe, I would greatly appreciate that. But as I said, that’s a little bit more of what I wish I would’ve added in a live interview. You don’t always share everything you would want in that moment, but I hope this is helpful for you all, and here’s my interview with Ben Shapiro.

Joining us on the line is Trent Horn. He’s an apologist for Catholic Answers and the host of the Council of Trent podcast and the author of nine books, including Persuasive Pro-Life and Answering Atheism. Trent, thanks so much for joining the show.

Thank you for having me, Ben.

So let’s talk about this very new missive from the Vatican that is creating all sorts of consternation in the media world-

Right.

… in the Catholic world and in the religious world at large. So all the headlines from the media are that the Pope basically just greenlit same-sex marriage, or at the very least that he committed to allowing blessings for same-sex couples. I’ve read the letter that has been issued by the Vatican on this. Frankly, it seems rather vague as to what exactly it is doing because if it’s changing nothing-

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… then what it would basically be saying is that sinners can receive blessings, which in my religion also, that’s what blessings… We’re all sinners, we all have sins.

Right.

Giving a blessing to a sinner is not really the issue. The real question is, what exactly is this letter doing that broadens anything out?

Well, I think what the letter is doing is that it is inviting people who are in these sinful situations who already have a desire to want to come to a priest and seek out God and seek out God’s blessing to be able to do that. But to put strict parameters around this, the other context related to this letter is the fact that the Pope and the Vatican for the past few years have had to deal with the Catholic Church in Germany offering formal blessings. So I think for a lot of people to understand this document, we have to look at three things: the sacrament of marriage, formal or liturgical blessings and then spontaneous blessings. So the document is very clear just as it has been in an Amoris laetitia previous document from the Pope that marriage is only for men and women. Sexual activity, as it says in this document, is only for men and women in a monogamous relationship open to the generation of children.

That has not changed, that cannot change. The document’s also clear about liturgical blessings, so these are formal blessings that are given in a very specific context. It says that to avoid any form of confusion or scandal, the prayer of blessing given by a couple, it cannot be done in any way that resembles a wedding or a marriage in any way like that. So you can’t do these kind of faux same-sex weddings under the guise of blessings that you’ve seen in the church in Germany, for example. But then there are spontaneous blessings. This would just be if somebody sees a priest on a pilgrimage or sees a priest in an airport and comes up to him and says, “Father, can you bless me?” Or, “Father, can you bless us?” I think the church is trying to walk a fine line here.

Like you said, well, what has really changed? People have always known you’re a sinner, you can come and have a blessing. Well, like I said, the church is a global church. There was a document recently released from the Vatican underscoring the fact that there are parts of South America where priests will not baptize children of single mothers. Even if the mother has gone to confession for fornication, they still, because of what happened in the past won’t baptize their children, which is wrong. That’s cutting off God’s mercy from people. So I think the church is wanting to invite people who are seeking out God in spite of their sins and trying to put up these parameters. But at the same time, I found the document very vague and ambiguous. It never mentions the word repentance, for example. So I think many people misunderstand the document, but they also have legitimate grounds to be critical of the things that it lacks.

So this is something that we’re seeing inside the Jewish community as well, even in some modern Orthodox circles is this vagary with regard to treatment of, quote, unquote, “same-sex couples.” This to, me, was the thing that jumped out in looking at this document was the vagueness. Because, again, if you are an individual who’s in a state of sin, which is legitimately everyone by pretty much every traditional religion, then the idea of receiving-

Right.

… a blessing is just the norm. My friend Larry O’Connor who does radio in Washington, D.C. among other things, so Larry is a Catholic, he’s also divorced. So he put up a post saying that he can’t receive the Eucharist. So what he does is he walks up with his arms crossed as an individual and then he’ll receive one of these blessings as an individual despite the fact that he is now remarried after having been divorced. But the distinction that I-

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… see in this document and the thing that actually, I think, is confusing and disturbing for those of us who actually want the church to hold the line, because I think for everyone-

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… of traditional religious bent more traditional institutions holding line on marriage is really, really important. The thing that is-

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… confusing is the idea of same-sex couples receiving a blessing. Because the idea of two people walking up and receiving a blessing simultaneously, even that’s not a big deal.

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The only way that you would recognize that it’s a same-sex couple receiving a blessing is if you know that it’s a same-sex couple receiving a blessing is that a tacit acceptance of the sin. If you don’t add to the blessing, and by the way, you should then go on and get married and have kids in the way that the church recommends.

Right.

If there’s no corrective, that’s attached to the blessing of the couple as a couple, it’s as a couple element of this that I found to be-

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… a difference, and certainly the church’s treating is a bit of a difference. Otherwise, there’s no purpose to the letter, I assume.

Yeah, I think what’s important here is to understand that a blessing is not simply a validation. A blessing is not, “Hey, this is great. Let’s just celebrate what’s being blessed here.” It’s a seeking of God’s help, including four people who are involved in different relationships or different sinful circumstances. What the document says in paragraph 40, it says that in the case of these spontaneous blessings, let’s say a divorced and remarried couple who are in an invalid marriage, or two men or two women who are in an illicit sexual relationship, that in spite of their sinfulness, they may come to a priest and seek out God. They want to be close to the church and they’ve got these difficulties. People are complicated, right? They want to seek out God. Maybe they’re not ready to let go of their sin yet, or they want to let go of their sin, but they feel like they can’t. Like I said, people are complicated.

What the document says in paragraph 40 is that in these kinds of blessings of the individuals who are in this relationship, there is no intention to legitimize anything, but rather to open one’s life to God, to ask for His help to live better, and also to invoke the Holy Spirit so that the values of the gospel maybe live with greater faithfulness even amidst the lives of these two individuals. Now, the ideal of course, is that in seeking God’s blessing, I would’ve been okay with the document if it had included the previous phrase from 2021 when the Vatican said that God cannot and does not bless sin, but He does, like you say, He blesses sinners. But in doing that, He always calls us to repentance. So in paragraph 44 of this new document released yesterday, it says, “Any blessing will be an opportunity for renewed proclamation of the kerygma, an invitation to draw ever closer to the love of Christ.”

So I think what’s important here to say is someone’s broken and they recognize their sinners, they come to God even as a couple seeking help, it should be an opportunity to encourage them to be healed from that brokenness. The Book of Blessings, for example, for Catholics, even as a formal blessing for drug addicts who are seeking the church’s help, but in there it says to break the chains of addiction. I would like to see more in saying of affirming what is good in those who are seeking God, but asking for God’s help to help them break the chains of any kind of sexual sin keeping them from God. That’s what’s difficult, seeing that it’s lacking, but it is helpful seeing that the document does very clearly state that marriage is the union of a man and a woman, that cannot change, and formal liturgical blessings like we’re seeing in Germany are simply off the table.

One of the things that I’ve seen in a lot of religious communities, and again, including my own, is this attempt to square a circle in which traditional religions will say, “Here is how we ought to treat gay and lesbian people,” as opposed to what religion actually says about human beings, which is, “Here is how we ought to treat people who engage in particular forms of activity or who have particular attractions.” Once the sin becomes the core of the identity from a theoreligious perspective, that is directly opposed to any traditional religious practice.

The idea would be, I would assume in Christianity the same as in Judaism, which is, okay, let’s say you’re a Jew in my religion, you’re a Jewish person who is committing this particular sin. The minute that you start saying that this person is the sin, right? You treat the person-

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… and say he’s a divorced man. That’s the core of his identity, he’s a divorced man, as opposed to a man who has done this thing in Catholicism-

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… that is considered sinful. You start to fall into an identity trap that is not bridgeable with traditional religion. The minute that you consider that someone’s core identity is the thing that is opposed to the diktats of the church, then it seems-

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… very difficult to even allow for the repentance to take place.

Right. No, I agree. That’s why I find phrases such as, “I am a gay Christian,” or, “a gay Jew,” for example, to be oxymorons. That it’s something we don’t say, “Oh, well, I’m an alcoholic Christian.” “No, I’m a Christian who struggles alcoholism,” or, “I’m just an adulterous Christian.” “Well, no, you’re a Christian who struggles with marital fidelity.” All of us struggle with various sins. But I think that you’re correct, Ben, that when people make the sin their identity, especially within a culture that praises, celebrates this behavior and condemns those who even refuse to celebrate, I remember when tolerance is the big thing in the ’90s, “Oh, well, we’re just asking for tolerance. Nowadays, if you merely tolerate, which just means you allow something to exist, even if you detest it, you would be considered bigoted and hateful. Now it’s, “Celebrate or else.” I think that that’s why when I use language and talk about this, I don’t use terms like gay Christian or anything like that.

I’d rather speak about those who have same-sex attractions, those who struggle with their gender identity, those who struggle with sexual sin and temptation, and that is all of us. So when we do talk about this, it is important to remember that we want to be firm on the line, as you say, but also I think what the Pope is doing here, and he’s a merciful man. When I met him in 2013, I could see that mercy beaming from him and that kindness, but I do worry about the confusion that comes with that. The other extreme, though, is to treat people with same-sex attraction as if they are a unique sin different from all of us who are the good people. Because frankly, Ben, the people who commit the sin of sodomy the most, that displeases God, are people with opposite sex attractions in marriages and think, “Oh, it’s not a big deal,” or fornication or divorce and remarriage, all of us are broken people. That’s why all of us need the love of Jesus Christ and to humbly submit to Him for our salvation.

One of the things that obviously is a major open question inside the church right now is what appears to be from the outside, the rising of a, I hesitate to use the word schism because we’re not there yet, but a gap-

Right.

… has emerged between more conservative Catholics and the direction of the Vatican. There’s been a lot of talk in recent weeks about supposed purges happening against more conservative cardinals in attempt to stack the top levels of the church with people who think more like Pope Francis as opposed to people who think more like Pope Benedict. How real is that?

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How much should people who are concerned about the future of the church be concerned about a papacy that seems to make these sorts of, quote, unquote-

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… “confusing moves a lot.” There’s a lot of clarification that comes from this Vatican-

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… that was never necessary under John Paul II or under Benedict. All the time it seems like the Vatican says a thing, and then the entire left press celebrates the thing, and then five seconds later-

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… it was mistranslated.

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Shockingly, that confusion never happened under Benedict or Pope John Paul II.

It did happen on occasion. For example, Pope Benedict XVI once spoke about how male prostitutes, for example, let’s say, in Africa, in using a condom to prevent the spread of AIDS with their clients or with others, that this can be an example of a moral progress that you’re caring for others, and at least it shows they’re trying to seek out the good in some way. Then what the media did with that was they said, “Pope Benedict says condoms are okay,” which is completely not what he said. So this is something that has been all throughout the church, I would say, to give people who are Catholic or looking at the Catholic Church to say that when we look at the history of the Catholic Church, we look at the history of God’s people, frankly. So going back to the Tanakh, to the Hebrew Bible, nothing has kept God from doing His will, not even the sinful people that He chooses to lead.

So we look at the Book of Judges, that God specifically raised up people to lead and deliver his people from bondage, and many of them in the Book of Judges were not the best. They did some things that were far from confusing that were really, really bad. We look at the history of the papacy. You have the medieval popes that would give people today who were concerned about Pope Francis would give them a heart attack the things that they had done. But the fact that the Catholic Church has stood in the midst of incompetent leadership for 2000 years, I would say it shows what the Holy Spirit is doing in guiding the church. It’s always something to pray for the leaders of the church but not to let it take one’s peace. As for the purging of conservatives, I was actually reading a study, Ben, looking at the theological attitudes of priests and those who have progressive liberal attitudes among Catholic priests is on the decline almost to the point of extinction.

Those who have very conservative attitudes, and that’s something that’s even in liberal Catholic publications, they notice this, priests who identify as conservative theologically has skyrocketed, and I think there’s a reason for that. Prior to 2002, it was cool to be a Catholic priest, and it wasn’t as cool to be gay. Even before 2002, right? You had democratic politicians who were opposed to same-sex marriage, even shortly after 2002, and being a priest was still a cool thing. If you need an exorcism to get rid of the demons you call a priest, you don’t call a Baptist minister. But after the sex abuse scandal suddenly… and so before 2002, you might have people who are more liberal-minded, not as firm in the faith becoming a priest, ’cause hey, it’s a nice job. People respect you.

Now, Ben, the only people who want to become priests knowing that people are going to make pedophile jokes about you when you go out is because you love the Lord, you love His church, and you are firmly committed to the things that the church teaches that cause scandal in our world, and it’s no longer just a cushy job for people. It’s for people who want to face the trials. Nowadays, and this is to be frankly honest with you, before the 2000s and the 20th century, there were a lot of people, self-identified gay men who probably joined the priesthood ’cause that was a respectable place for them to be. But nowadays, LGBT is celebrated. These people don’t choose the priesthood. They choose TikTok. They choose other places to be celebrated. So I’m actually very optimistic for the future of the Catholic Church that the young priests that we see today are fervent, they’re Orthodox, and I see a bright light ahead of the troubles we’re in right now.

That is Trent Horn, apologist for Catholic Answers. Really appreciate your time and clarification, Trent. Thanks so much.

No problem, Ben.

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