This is the second installment of a three-part series of interviews with Archbishop Paul R. Gallagher, the Vatican’s Secretary for Relations with States.

More than 230 professors of Catholic theology have signed a statement protesting the Vatican’s recent pronouncement that priests cannot bless same-sex unions, adding to dissent over the document.

A second Catholic cardinal has questioned the legitimacy of a recent decree by the Vatican to restrict the celebration of the old Latin Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica and forbid private Masses in its side chapels.

While the Catholic Church cannot bless unions that are not sacramental marriages, the church will always welcome and accompany everyone, no matter their situation in life, said the prefect of the Dicastery for Laity, the Family and Life.

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.”