‘At best it is experienced as cold and distant, at worst hurtful and offensive’: words of Achonry Bishop Paul Dempsey, and an exact description of the impact on many people of the Responsum or reply by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) to the dubium, doubt or question, ‘Does the Church have the power to give the blessing to unions of persons of the same sex?’ As is the practice, the response is expressed in the Latin monosyllable ‘Negative’, and the reasons for this decision are set out in an attached Explanatory Note.