Arch­bish­op Charles Ja­son Gor­don says Pope Fran­cis’ mes­sage on Mon­day that priests can now bless same-sex cou­ples should not be con­fused with civ­il unions or mar­riage.

Gor­don said peo­ple had been con­flat­ing the two, say­ing the “me­dia had in­vent­ed its own nar­ra­tive” in an is­sue which con­tin­ues to di­vide the church.

Arch­bish­op Gor­don al­so en­cour­aged peo­ple to re­fer to the ac­tu­al text for an ac­cu­rate un­der­stand­ing of what the Pope meant.

Speak­ing dur­ing a mass at the Arch­bish­op’s Chapel in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, the Arch­bish­op said the rul­ing specif­i­cal­ly ad­dress­es the act of seek­ing a bless­ing, which should be ap­proached with open­ness and with­out pre­con­di­tions.

“The bless­ing would al­low a grace to open for a per­son to come to see God in a new way, and make a new step to­wards God who would know where that grace would go,” Arch­bish­op Gor­don said.

“So, the Holy Fa­ther has not sanc­tioned same-sex mar­riage. That’s just wrong. It’s not in the text, it’s not what he said. What he did say is if peo­ple come who are same-sex cou­ple and they do ask for bless­ing, that the church should not ask about the state of moral­i­ty of the per­son. The church should bless them.”

The Vat­i­can has since said Ro­man Catholic priests can ad­min­is­ter bless­ings to same-sex cou­ples as long as they are not part of reg­u­lar church rit­u­als or litur­gies. Such bless­ings would not le­git­imise ir­reg­u­lar sit­u­a­tions but be a sign that God wel­comes all, it added.

“The love of God does not dis­crim­i­nate based on our par­tic­u­lar state of sin, or state of grace. The love of God comes on all good and bad, alike, just and un­just alike,” Arch­bish­op Gor­don said.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia ear­li­er this week, Mon­sign­or Chris­t­ian Pereira said he could not pre­dict how Ro­man Catholics in T&T would re­act to this change in the pol­i­cy, but added that every­one de­served God’s bless­ings. Pres­i­dent of the In­ter-Re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion (IRO) Lloyd Mukram Sir­joo said he would have to con­fer with mem­bers be­fore mak­ing a state­ment, but in his per­son­al ca­pac­i­ty, he said he did not sup­port the Pope’s stance.

Mean­while, PrideTT co-founder Rudolph Hanamji wel­comed the Pope’s change in pol­i­cy.