RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Ro­man Catholic Priest Fr David Khan has spo­ken out about the bless­ing of same-sex cou­ples, say­ing the church can­not sanc­ti­fy what it deems as sin, nor can it le­git­imise what it per­ceives as in­her­ent­ly wrong.

His com­ments were in align­ment with the Vat­i­can’s guid­ance from Pope Fran­cis, who is now per­mit­ting priests to bless same-sex cou­ples.

De­liv­er­ing the Christ­mas ser­mon at Our La­dy of Per­pet­u­al Help Church in San Fer­nan­do on Christ­mas morn­ing yes­ter­day, Fr Khan said bless­ings fall on both the right­eous and those per­ceived as sin­ners.

Say­ing that it was not the du­ty of the church to judge oth­ers, Fr Khan said: “Let those with­out sin cast the first stone.”

He em­pha­sised that when in­di­vid­u­als seek bless­ings, the per­ti­nent ques­tion re­volves around their in­tent.

“If some­one comes and asks for a bless­ing, all you have to do is ask one ques­tion—What are you seek­ing?” Fr Khan said, il­lus­trat­ing sce­nar­ios where in­di­vid­u­als might re­quest a bless­ing for var­i­ous rea­sons such as heal­ing from ill­ness.

Draw­ing par­al­lels to the sacra­ment of con­fes­sion, he high­light­ed that ac­knowl­edg­ing one’s sins pre­cedes seek­ing di­vine bless­ing.

“Are you not say­ing you are a sin­ner when you go to con­fes­sion?” he asked, un­der­lin­ing that seek­ing a bless­ing sig­ni­fies a com­mit­ment to do­ing God’s will.

Fr Khan clar­i­fied the church’s stance, as­sert­ing that while it bless­es in­di­vid­u­als in var­i­ous re­la­tion­ships, it does not en­dorse sin.

“The church is not teach­ing that we are go­ing to bless sin. We could nev­er bless sin,” he re­it­er­at­ed, em­pha­sis­ing the dis­tinc­tion be­tween bless­ing in­di­vid­u­als and val­i­dat­ing their choic­es.

High­light­ing an anal­o­gy, Fr Khan il­lus­trat­ed that while bless­ings may fall up­on every­one, whether in mar­riages or re­la­tion­ships, the church doesn’t for­mal­ly recog­nise the im­pact of these bless­ings might not take root.

“If I say we are go­ing to bless mar­riages for male and fe­male and peo­ple of the same gen­der stand up, the church is taught that the bless­ing of a mar­riage is for male and fe­male,” he clar­i­fied.

Speak­ing about the bound­aries of bless­ings, he said some­one who prays to God to es­cape be­ing caught in a rob­bery will not be blessed.

Sim­i­lar­ly, he said bless­ing some­one en­gaged in sin­ful acts seek­ing di­vine in­ter­ven­tion to evade con­se­quences will not be done.

“If a man says tonight I am go­ing to com­mit a rob­bery but wants a bless­ing, ob­vi­ous­ly I am not go­ing to bless that,” Fr Khan em­pha­sised.

Fr Khan un­der­lined the church’s core mes­sage cen­tred around the birth of a Sav­iour, re­mind­ing the con­gre­ga­tion that sal­va­tion comes through be­lief in this mes­sage.

“A wrong can nev­er be right. But peo­ple de­serve a bless­ing. It is our du­ty to fol­low our mas­ter (Je­sus Christ) in do­ing good,” he not­ed, stress­ing the im­por­tance of com­pas­sion and avoid­ing judge­ment.

In his ad­dress, he al­so touched up­on so­ci­etal dis­cord and the ne­ces­si­ty for good­will to achieve peace. He lament­ed the state of con­flict in the world, draw­ing ref­er­ence from the war be­tween Is­rael and Pales­tine.

“Some peo­ple have gone astray just like the peo­ple of Is­rael. The war now has reached a state of ridicu­lous­ness.

“One thing is to de­fend our­selves but now what are they re­al­ly de­fend­ing? The have-nots know they can­not win but they still refuse to put down their arms.

They are not peo­ple of good­will. If they are not on good­will, there will nev­er be peace,” Fr Khan said.

He al­so stressed the im­por­tance of em­brac­ing the spir­it of Christ­mas be­yond just the sea­son and ac­cept­ing that Je­sus Christ died to al­low peo­ple the chance to at­tain eter­nal life.

Ear­li­er this month, Pope Fran­cis for­mal­ly en­dorsed priests grant­i­ng bless­ings to same-sex cou­ples, mark­ing a sig­nif­i­cant shift in Vat­i­can pol­i­cy.

A re­cent doc­u­ment from the Vat­i­can’s doc­trine of­fice clar­i­fied the change, say­ing in­di­vid­u­als seek­ing God’s love and mer­cy should not face rig­or­ous moral scruti­ny to re­ceive it.

The doc­u­ment ex­pands up­on Pope Fran­cis’ ear­li­er com­mu­ni­ca­tion, in­di­cat­ing po­ten­tial cir­cum­stances for such bless­ings, pro­vid­ed they don’t blur with the sacra­ment of mar­riage. The Vat­i­can reaf­firmed mar­riage as a life­long union be­tween a man and a woman, while em­pha­sis­ing that these bless­ings shouldn’t mim­ic wed­ding rit­u­als or oc­cur si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly with civ­il unions.

While up­hold­ing tra­di­tion­al views on mar­riage, the doc­u­ment as­serts that re­quests for these bless­ings should not be cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly re­ject­ed.

Main­tain­ing mar­riage as be­tween a man and a woman, the Vat­i­can pre­vi­ous­ly stat­ed the in­abil­i­ty to bless same-sex unions due to the be­lief that “God can­not bless sin.” How­ev­er, the re­cent doc­u­ment ac­knowl­edged in­di­vid­u­als in “ir­reg­u­lar” unions, em­pha­sis­ing their en­ti­tle­ment to God’s love and mer­cy re­gard­less of their state of sin.

Arch­bish­op Ja­son Gor­don, in ad­dress­ing the is­sue last week, had not­ed many peo­ple were mis­in­ter­pret­ing what Pope Fran­cis said re­gard­ing the di­rec­tive, while the me­dia had its own nar­ra­tive in the is­sue.

Speak­ing dur­ing a mass at the Arch­bish­op’s Chapel in Port-of-Spain, Arch­bish­op Gor­don said the rul­ing specif­i­cal­ly ad­dress­es the act of seek­ing a bless­ing, which should be ap­proached with open­ness and with­out pre­con­di­tions.

“The bless­ing would al­low a grace to open for a per­son to come to see God in a new way, and make a new step to­wards God who would know where that grace would go,” Arch­bish­op Gor­don said.

“So, the Holy Fa­ther has not sanc­tioned same-sex mar­riage. That’s just wrong. It’s not in the text, it’s not what he said. What he did say is if peo­ple come who are same-sex cou­ple and they do ask for bless­ing, that the church should not ask about the state of moral­i­ty of the per­son. The church should bless them.”