Vatican sources said they believe Pope Francis was distancing himself from a recent Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) statement in his Angelus of March 21.
The CDF Responsum said priests could not give blessings to same-sex unions because “God cannot bless sin”.
The statement has caused an outcry from LGBT+ Catholics and their supporters.
The sources who spoke with America Magazine did not wish to be identified as they were not authorized to comment.
They noted that when commenting on the Gospel of the day, which recounts that some Greeks wanted “to see Jesus,” Pope Francis said many people today also want to see, to meet and to know Jesus.
“We Christians and our communities” have “the great responsibility” to make this possible by “the witness of a life that is given in service, a life that takes upon itself the style of God: closeness, compassion and tenderness,” Francis said.
He explained that this “means sowing seeds of love, not with fleeting words but through concrete, simple and courageous examples; not with theoretical condemnations but with gestures of love.”
He added that “then the Lord, with his grace, makes us bear fruit, even when the soil is dry due to misunderstandings, difficulty or persecution or claims of legalism or clerical moralism.
“This is barren soil.
“Precisely then, in trials and in solitude, while the seed is dying, that is the moment in which life blossoms, to bear ripe fruit in due time.”
He followed up the comments on Tuesday, calling on Catholic moral theologians, missionaries and confessors to follow the example of St. Alphonsus Maria de Liguori, the famous moral theologian and founder of the Redemptorists, who showed how “to keep together the demands of the Gospel and human fragility.”
He invited them, following the example of the saint and bishop, “to enter into a living relationship with the members of God’s people and to look at life from their perspective in order to understand the real difficulties they encounter and to help heal their wounds.”
Moral theology, the pope said, cannot be only about principles and formulations, but must respond to the reality of the person in need, “because knowledge of theoretical principles alone, as St. Alphonsus himself reminds us, is not enough to accompany and sustain consciences in discerning the good to be done.”
Earlier, on eve of the Feast of St Joseph, Francis urged student priests of Rome’s Belgian Pontifical College to learn the art of fatherhood from St. Joseph.
“Saint Joseph is a welcoming father” who set aside his legitimate personal plans and loved and welcomed Mary and Jesus with faith, in a vision of a family life quite different from what he might have wished for.
In this regard, he is a master of spiritual life and discernment, who welcomes what happens in life.
As a shepherd, the Pope said, a priest always stays with his flock, sometimes in front to open the way, at times in the middle to encourage, or behind to gather the last ones.
Without being rigid, an attentive guardian, he said, is ready to change as situations require, always understanding the needs of his flock and avoiding the opposite temptations of domination and carelessness.