Pope Leo rules out formalizing same-sex couple blessings

Pope Leo said Thursday he has no plans to go beyond Pope Francis's 2023 decision permitting informal blessings for same-sex couples, warning that any further step would cause "more disunity than unity" inside the 1.4-billion-member Catholic Church.

The statement clarifies where the new pontiff stands on one of the Catholic Church's most contested fault lines — neither reversing Francis's legacy nor extending it — and comes as at least one senior European cardinal has pushed to formalize such blessings in his own diocese.

Leo made the remarks during a press conference aboard the papal flight returning to Rome after a four-nation African tour, The Korea Times reported. "To go beyond that today, I think that the topic can cause more disunity than unity," he said.

The comments refer to a landmark decision by Pope Francis — who died in 2025 after 12 years leading the Church — that permitted pastors to give informal blessings to same-sex couples on a case-by-case basis outside formal religious services. The 2023 policy drew significant pushback; a number of bishops, particularly in Africa, refused to implement it.

Leo addressed specifically the plans of Cardinal Reinhard Marx to formalize such blessings in his German diocese. "The Holy See has made it clear that we do not agree with the formalized blessing of couples," Leo said, citing Vatican instructions previously sent to the German bishops' conference opposing the move.

The new pope, the first U.S.-born pontiff, also pushed back against what he called a narrow view of Catholic moral teaching. "We tend to think that when the Church is talking about morality, that the only issue of morality is sexual. In reality, I believe there are much greater and more important issues such as justice, equality, (and) freedom of men and women," Leo said.

Leo, who became the Catholic Church's first U.S.-born pope, has moved to hold the line Francis drew in 2023 while framing the Church's moral mission as extending well beyond questions of sexual ethics.