According to three sources, it was significant that Francis called on Christians and the church to give witness to Jesus “not with theoretical condemnations but with gestures of love.”

This week on “Inside the Vatican,” America’s Rome correspondent Gerard O’Connell reveals that the document was drafted by a much smaller group of people than would ordinarily be involved in writing this type of statement and that Pope Francis reviewed it just before his Iraq trip.

L.G.B.T. Catholics and their allies are reacting with dismay to a statement released Monday by the Vatican prohibiting priests from blessing same-sex unions, in which church officials assert that God “does not and cannot bless sin.”

The pope in late February accepted the resignation of Guinean Cardinal Robert Sarah, who had reached the normal retirement age of 75 last June. The cardinal had been prefect since 2014.

The Vatican has issued a statement in which it declares that “the church does not have, and cannot have, the power to give the blessing to unions of persons of the same sex.” It said Pope Francis “was informed and gave his assent” to its publication.

Pope Francis recalled that when the Christian message first arrived, “You received the joy of the Gospel: the good news that God so loved us that he gave his Son for us. And this joy is evident in your people.”