"The parchment request service is suspended due to the daily limit reached. We apologise for the inconvenience," reads a notice displayed on the page.
The Office for Blessing Certificates is responsible for issuing Apostolic Blessings, which can be ordered online for specific occasions or collected locally in Vatican City.
Papal blessings are granted for baptisms, first communions, confirmations, weddings, ordinations and religious profession. Blessings are also issued for anniversaries of marriage, ordination, religious orders and birthdays.
The Blessing Office does not issue blessing certificates for other occasions.
Proceeds go to charitable causes
The Blessing Office does not charge for the blessing itself, but does charge a fee for materials and postage.
Any surpluses generated are donated to the charitable activities carried out by the Dicastery for Charity in the name of the Pope in favour of the poor.
It usually takes two to three weeks from order to completion of the document. Most of the documents are produced by machine and decorated by a team of eleven calligraphers.
Back in the summer, Cardinal Konrad Krajewski, the Papal Almoner, reported that more requests for blessing certificates had been received than ever before: around 20,000 requests in June alone.
Normally, the Vatican issues 12,000 to 15,000 of these documents every month.
Even in the early days of the pontificate, the dispatch of blessings had to be temporarily suspended in order to cope with the rush.