Priests Vow to Defy Vatican on Same-Sex Marriage Ruling

The Catholic Church has been engaged in a bit of an identity crisis of late, thanks to the undulating cultural landscape of the world around them, as well as their own very poor behavior.

The church has been fending off thousands upon thousands of sex abuse allegations, going back several decades into the past, and with little sign of slowing down in the modern day.  This alone has created an incredible credibility issue for the Vatican, who’ve largely been seen as accomplices in the cases, looking to keep everything as quiet as possible when it comes to this habitual, pedophiliac problem.

And then theres the current high pontiff, Pope Francis, who appears to be aligning himself a little further to the left than his predecessors, and who doesn’t seem at all concerned about weighing in on modern political issues either.

To top it all off, the Vatican appears to be pulling the organization back to the right, (not even the center), which has led to some confusion and angst among the clergy.

Some are even openly defying the Vatican on certain subjects.

A dissident band of Roman Catholic priests leading a disobedience campaign against the Vatican said on Tuesday they would carry on blessing same-sex couples in defiance of Church orders.

The Vatican said on Monday that priests cannot bless same-sex unions and that such blessings are not valid, in a ruling that disappointed gay Catholics who had hoped their Church was becoming more welcoming under Pope Francis.

In some countries, parishes and ministers have begun blessing same-sex unions in lieu of marriage, and there have been calls for bishops to institutionalise de facto such blessings. Conservatives in the 1.3 billion-member Roman Catholic Church have expressed alarm over such practices.

And they were adamant.

“We members of the Parish Priests Initiative are deeply appalled by the new Roman decree that seeks to prohibit the blessing of same-sex loving couples. This is a relapse into times that we had hoped to have overcome with Pope Francis,” the Austrian-based group said in a statement.

“We will — in solidarity with so many — not reject any loving couple in the future who ask to celebrate God’s blessing, which they experience every day, also in a worship service.”

The group is known for their vocal opposition to many of the Vatican’s practice, and it was somewhat expected that the religious world would hear from them on the subject.