“In any case, the Church should always call [someone] to live out fully all the implications of the received baptism, which must always be understood and unfolded within the entire journey of Christian initiation,” it said.
Other related questions
The doctrinal office said a transgender-identifying person who has undergone hormonal treatment or sex-reassignment surgery can fulfill the role of godfather or godmother for a baptism “under certain conditions,” but added that such a role is not a right and should not be allowed if there is danger of causing scandal or confusion to the Church community.
It also said there was nothing in current Church law that prohibits people who identify as transgender or cohabiting homosexual people from acting as witnesses of a marriage.
In answer to a question about whether a cohabiting homosexual person can be a godparent, the document cited the Church’s Code of Canon Law, paragraph 874, to say a godparent can be anyone who possesses the aptitude and “who leads a life of faith in keeping with the function to be taken on.”
It stated that a homosexual person living, not a “simple cohabitation,” but a “stable and declared more uxorio” in the manner of a husband and wife “well recognized by the community,” is “a different case.”
Every case requires “pastoral prudence,” it went on to say, in order to safeguard the sacrament of baptism, and “it is necessary to consider the real value that the ecclesial community confers on the duties of godfather and godmother, the role they play in the community, and the consideration they show toward the teaching of the Church.”
The DDF also said it can be taken into account whether there are other people in the extended family who can guarantee the proper transmission of the Catholic faith to the baptized person without holding the role of godparent.
Hannah Brockhaus is Catholic News Agency’s senior Rome correspondent. She grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and has a degree in English from Truman State University in Missouri.
