A Catholic prelate said the Church is merely affirming its teaching on marriage when the Vatican said priests cannot bless same sex unions.
"We are just affirming the teaching of the Church regarding marriage. It is the union of man and woman," Cubao Bishop Honesto Ongtioco said in an interview Tuesday, March 16.
Father Jerome Secillano, executive secretary of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Philippines Public Affairs Committee, explained that same sex relationships are not permitted by the church.
"So, it's simply logical that priests are not supposed to give blessings to same sex unions," he said.
"Doing so will give such unions a semblance of acceptance from the church," added Secillano.
The Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith on Monday said "it is not licit to impart a blessing on relationships, or partnerships, even stable, that involve sexual activity outside of marriage, as is the case of the unions between persons of the same sex."
"Furthermore, since blessings on persons are in relationship with the sacraments, the blessing of homosexual unions cannot be considered licit. This is because they would constitute a certain imitation or analogue of the nuptial blessing invoked on the man and woman united in the sacrament of Matrimony, while in fact 'there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family,'" read the Explanatory Note.
"The declaration of the unlawfulness of blessings of unions between persons of the same sex is not therefore, and is not intended to be, a form of unjust discrimination, but rather a reminder of the truth of the liturgical rite and of the very nature of the sacramentals, as the Church understands them," it further read.