Vatican City, Mar 15, 2021 / 14:24 pm
After the Vatican’s doctrinal office clarified that the Catholic Church does not have the power to give liturgical blessings to homosexual unions, music icon Elton John criticized the Vatican in a post on Twitter.
“How can the Vatican refuse to bless gay marriages because they ‘are sin’, yet happily make a profit from investing millions in ‘Rocketman’ - a film which celebrates my finding happiness from my marriage to David?? #hypocrisy,” he tweeted.
John’s tweet came after the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on Monday clarified that the Church does not “have the power to give the blessing to unions of persons of the same sex.”
The congregation explained that blessings are sacramentals, and “consequently, in order to conform with the nature of sacramentals, when a blessing is invoked on particular human relationships, in addition to the right intention of those who participate, it is necessary that what is blessed be objectively and positively ordered to receive and express grace, according to the designs of God inscribed in creation, and fully revealed by Christ the Lord.”
“For this reason, it is not licit to impart a blessing on relationships, or partnerships, even stable, that involve sexual activity outside of marriage (i.e., outside the indissoluble union of a man and a woman open in itself to the transmission of life), as is the case of the unions between persons of the same sex,” said the statement, which was approved for publication by Pope Francis.
In December 2019, the Centurion Global Fund made headlines for its use of Vatican assets under its management to invest in Hollywood films, including the Elton John biopic “Rocketman,” which depicts John’s same-sex romantic relationship.
Italian newspaper Corriere della Serra reported that the Centurion Global Fund had raised around 70 million euro in cash, and that the Holy See’s Secretariat of State was the source of at least two-thirds of the fund’s assets. The Vatican’s investment was reported to include funds from the Peter’s Pence collection, intended to support charitable works and the ministry of the Vatican Curia.
The investments are linked to a broader Vatican financial scandal, which is under investigation.
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