While the Catholic Church cannot bless unions that are not sacramental marriages, the church will always welcome and accompany everyone, no matter th… - Kevin Farrell

I believe that our Holy Father, Pope Francis, has made tremendous progress in the Church, and has changed in many ways the mentality of so many, both clerics and non-clerics. I think the laity feel much more comfortable within the structures of the Church nowadays than they did ten years ago when Pope Francis came into office. I believe that Pope Francis saw as his mission to continue the Second Vatican Council, the Council that called the laity to be an active, not only 'participant,' but 'member,' with all the rights due to baptism, that every person in the Church has. That was not so well known. [...] Certainly in this Dicastery [Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life], and in several other Dicasteries, the laity are very prominent. In this Dicastery, the ordained ministers are the least noticeable. [...] There are three priests in this dicastery out of 35. I happen to be Prefect, and, I don't know, but can imagine I may have the distinct honor of being the last cleric to be the Prefect of this Dicastery.

It is essential and very important that we always open our arms to receive and to accompany all people in their different stages of life and in their different life situations. When the Church speaks about marriage, it speaks about sacramental marriage. It doesn’t speak about civil unions. Blessing is something that is a sacramental, that is related to the sacrament of marriage. That does not mean that those who are only married in the Church receive the benefits of the pastoral care of the Church. 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.

Fr. Giussani placed great emphasis on God’s free and surprising initiative in coming to us, made "encounterable" and "experienceable" in the concreteness of the human life of His Son, in the historical Jesus of Nazareth, who remains forever "a historical fact." This prompted his strong emphasis on Christianity not as a sentiment, a philosophical intuition of sublime truths, or a rigid set of ethical demands, but as an "event" perennially present in history. [...] Thus Fr. Giussani was able to unite “the questions of the human person” and “God’s answer,” showing the reasonableness of the Christian announcement inasmuch as it is the complete fulfillment of the human. His charism as an educator meant he was able to elicit the great questions of the heart, bring to the light the aspirations of the human person, and show how Christ is the definitive answer to those questions. This fascinated thousands of people in the course of his lifetime.