The Vatican has ruled that it is acceptable under certain circumstances for transgender people to receive baptism and for homosexual couples to baptize their children.
The document was signed by Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernandez, the Prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF), and approved by Pope Francis on Oct. 31.
The Vatican News, the official news portal of the Vatican Holy See, announced the story in a Nov. 9 post. The post read:
Transsexual persons, even if they have undergone hormone therapy or sex reassignment surgery, may receive the Sacrament of Baptism “if there are no situations in which there is a risk of generating public scandal or confusion among the faithful.” The children of homosexual couples should be baptized even if they are born from a surrogate mother, provided there is a well-founded hope that they will be educated in the Catholic faith.
The represents a move towards further acceptance of homosexual and transgender people in the Catholic Church, which has historically considered such orientations sinful. The Church still holds that homosexual marriage is illegitimate, but under the Pontificate of Francis it has come closer to accepting homosexual civil unions.
Vatican says it's permissible for transgender Catholics to be baptized https://t.co/69sud5FQ0v
— The Associated Press (@AP) November 9, 2023
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In September 2021, Pope Francis said, “same-sex civil unions are good and helpful to many,” but acknowledged his limited power to change doctrine: “Marriage is a sacrament,” he said, adding that the Catholic Church “doesn’t have the power to change a sacrament as it was instituted by the Lord.”
In September 2023, Pope Francis deemed it acceptable to bless gay couples as long as they did not claim to be married — as marriage for the Church can only be between one man and one woman.
The answer was prompted by a question submitted to the DDF by Bishop Jose Negri of Santo Amaro, Brazil.
The response from the DDF answered six different questions. The last answer deemed it legitimate for a “homoaffective person” (defined in the Church’s Catechism as persons “who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex”) to be a “witness” to a marriage even if that person is in a homosexual relationship. But that homosexual relationship must be one of “cohabitation” rather than more uxorio (after the fashion of marriage), meaning a private relationship that is not well-known to the community.
The DDF similarly ruled that homosexuals and transgender persons can be godparents of children if they hold close to the Catholic faith and are not in declarative relationships.
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