Prioritize Marriage, Not Same-Sex Blessings

The secular world will fix its attention Sunday on the Super Bowl — an annual sporting spectacle that will be played this year in Las Vegas. On that same Sunday, the Catholic Church’s celebration of World Marriage Day should direct our attention to an institution that’s infinitely more important than a mere football game — yet recent events have left many Catholics concerned about whether the significance of marriage is being sidelined within the Church itself. Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández’s controversial new instruction regarding blessings of persons in irregular unions raises the same question that was generated when the first Synod on Synodality assembly concluded in Rome last October: Does the Church have its priorities straight?