No, Pope Francis Did Not Approve the Blessing of Same-Sex Unions
“…the Church does not have the power to impart blessings on unions of persons of the same sex.”
(Yes, I have the same headline as Ed Morrissey at Hot Air. Yes, I told him before I published my piece! No, I did not read it before I scheduled my piece!)
I am tired of everyone thinking that everything Pope Francis says changes Catholic teaching.
I am tired of everyone burying the lede when it comes to Pope Francis and the Catholic Church.
I see this on X:
ROME (AP) — Pope formally approves same-sex blessings, says people shouldn’t be subject to 'exhaustive moral analysis' to get them.
— Seung Min Kim (@seungminkim) December 18, 2023
The news comes from the “Declaration ‘Fiducia Supplicans’ On the Pastoral Meaning of Blessings.”
No one bothered to read the document. In paragraphs 5 and 38 (emphasis mine):
5. Such is also the meaning of the Responsum of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which states that the Church does not have the power to impart blessings on unions of persons of the same sex.
—
38. For this reason, one should neither provide for nor promote a ritual for the blessings of couples in an irregular situation. At the same time, one should not prevent or prohibit the Church’s closeness to people in every situation in which they might seek God’s help through a simple blessing. In a brief prayer preceding this spontaneous blessing, the ordained minister could ask that the individuals have peace, health, a spirit of patience, dialogue, and mutual assistance—but also God’s light and strength to be able to fulfill his will completely.
Got it? Ok. Time for the deep dive!
The forward to Fiducia Supplicans stresses that nothing within the text changes the Church’s teachings on marriage. The Vatican knew people would twist the subject matter to fit their agenda.
That’s how we can tell who did not read the document because it literally says from the get-go that nothing changes concerning the Church’s teaching on marriage (emphasis mine):
As with the Holy Father’s above-mentioned response to the Dubia of two Cardinals, this Declaration remains firm on the traditional doctrine of the Church about marriage, not allowing any type of liturgical rite or blessing similar to a liturgical rite that can create confusion. The value of this document, however, is that it offers a specific and innovative contribution to the pastoral meaning of blessings, permitting a broadening and enrichment of the classical understanding of blessings, which is closely linked to a liturgical perspective. Such theological reflection, based on the pastoral vision of Pope Francis, implies a real development from what has been said about blessings in the Magisterium and the official texts of the Church. This explains why this text has taken on the typology of a “Declaration.”
It is precisely in this context that one can understand the possibility of blessing couples in irregular situations and same-sex couples without officially validating their status or changing in any way the Church’s perennial teaching on marriage.
This Declaration is also intended as a tribute to the faithful People of God, who worship the Lord with so many gestures of deep trust in his mercy and who, with this confidence, constantly come to seek a blessing from Mother Church.
The Church teaches marriage as an “exclusive, stable, and indissoluble union between a man and a woman, naturally open to the generation of children.” Anything else is not allowed.
(Notice the word OPEN regarding children. So, yeah, the Catholic Church also doesn’t treat women as solely baby-makers. You don’t HAVE to have children.)
Marriage is so important to the Catholic Church that it is considered a sacrament. You cannot just walk into a Catholic Church and request a wedding. One person has to be a Catholic in good standing with the Church. The priest then has to interview you, ensuring you will live according to the Church and raise your kids according to the Church (he also asks you these questions during the wedding). If the priest believes you won’t live by the Church’s teaching, then he won’t allow you to go to the next step, and the Church won’t allow you to partake in the sacrament of marriage.
So yes, even the Church can deny Catholics a marriage/union blessing.
If you do pass with the priest, you must go through retreats or, for the lack of a better term, couples therapy with an established married couple at your church.
If, after this step, they have reason to believe you won’t live according to the Church, you won’t receive the sacrament of marriage.
The wedding is in the background. The Church places the importance on the marriage. The purpose of these retreats and meetings is to prepare the couple for the actual marriage and how to live as a married couple within the Church.
It is a process in the Catholic Church, much like converting. I am a convert, and my RCIA lasted over a year. Even then, if the teacher and priests do not think you’ll live as a Catholic, they can choose not to give you the sacraments.
Anyway, back to the document.
The individuals in the union can receive the blessing. The actual union cannot receive the blessing.
The Church cannot issue any blessing that goes against that teaching. It must avoid wording that could confuse, too. As I posted above, paragraph 5 has the clincher, while paragraph 6 includes gestures:
5. This is also the understanding of marriage that is offered by the Gospel. For this reason, when it comes to blessings, the Church has the right and the duty to avoid any rite that might contradict this conviction or lead to confusion. Such is also the meaning of the Responsum of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which states that the Church does not have the power to impart blessings on unions of persons of the same sex.
6. It should be emphasized that in the Rite of the Sacrament of Marriage, this concerns not just any blessing but a gesture reserved to the ordained minister. In this case, the blessing given by the ordained minister is tied directly to the specific union of a man and a woman, who establish an exclusive and indissoluble covenant by their consent. This fact allows us to highlight the risk of confusing a blessing given to any other union with the Rite that is proper to the Sacrament of Marriage.
The priests cannot bless the union or relationship. Paragraph 11 (emphasis mine):
Basing itself on these considerations, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s Explanatory Note to its 2021 Responsum recalls that when a blessing is invoked on certain human relationships by a special liturgical rite, it is necessary that what is blessed corresponds with God’s designs written in creation and fully revealed by Christ the Lord. For this reason, since the Church has always considered only those sexual relations that are lived out within marriage to be morally licit, the Church does not have the power to confer its liturgical blessing when that would somehow offer a form of moral legitimacy to a union that presumes to be a marriage or to an extra-marital sexual practice. The Holy Father reiterated the substance of this Declaration in his Respuestas to the Dubia of two Cardinals.
This is also important because unless your first marriage is annulled, you cannot remarry in the Catholic Church. It’s hard to annul a marriage, too. In the eyes of the Church, my mom and father are still married.
However, the document reminds people that there are other types of blessings. These are not liturgical or sacraments.
There are numerous occasions in the Bible when God and Jesus blessed people. Who did Jesus walk with in the Gospels? The sinners, the poor, and those down on their luck.
Fiducia Supplicans reiterates that those who seek out blessings show “himself to be in need of God’s saving presence in his life and one who asks for a blessing from the Church recognizes the latter as a sacrament of the salvation that God offers.”
Those who ask for a blessing acknowledge “that the life of the Church springs from the womb of God’s mercy and helps us to move forward, to live better, and to respond to the Lord’s will.”
In other words, the priest can bless the individuals within the union to bring them closer to God.
It reminds me of the priest blessing me at Communion before I could take Communion. You walk to the front with others, cross your arms across your chest, and the priest knows to bless you instead of giving you Communion. They do the same with children before they receive their First Communion.
Those blessings are to bring you closer to God and the Church, much like the blessings placed upon the individuals in the unions.
The post on X from the AP writer invoked a portion of paragraph 25. But if you read what I wrote or, even better, read Fiducia Supplicans, then you know the paragraph is about the individual, not the union:
25. The Church, moreover, must shy away from resting its pastoral praxis on the fixed nature of certain doctrinal or disciplinary schemes, especially when they lead to “a narcissistic and authoritarian elitism, whereby instead of evangelizing, one analyzes and classifies others, and instead of opening the door to grace, one exhausts his or her energies in inspecting and verifying.”[16] Thus, when people ask for a blessing, an exhaustive moral analysis should not be placed as a precondition for conferring it. For, those seeking a blessing should not be required to have prior moral perfection.
The words “those” and “people” have been twisted by journalists and the left even though, in this case, the words mean exactly what is written in the dictionary. It has everything to do with the person, not unions or those in irregular situations.
Also, to ever imply that the Catholic Church only welcomes individuals with a clean slate is wrong, cruel, and insulting. Again, Jesus sought out, walked, and dined with the sinners, the poor, and the weak because those people needed Him the most. The Church has a beautiful prison ministry because those people need Jesus and His love.
It is not a big deal when Pope Francis dines with transgender people, gay people, etc. It’s what Jesus would have done. Loving people does not mean you approve of their lifestyle or choices.
Fiducia Supplicans continues to stress that any blessing cannot resemble marriage blessings and is for individuals. In the section “Blessings of Couples in Irregular Situations and of Couples of the Same Sex,” the wording does not mention unions or couples. It’s all about the individuals in the relationship:
31. Within the horizon outlined here appears the possibility of blessings for couples in irregular situations and for couples of the same sex, the form of which should not be fixed ritually by ecclesial authorities to avoid producing confusion with the blessing proper to the Sacrament of Marriage. In such cases, a blessing may be imparted that not only has an ascending value but also involves the invocation of a blessing that descends from God upon those who—recognizing themselves to be destitute and in need of his help—do not claim a legitimation of their own status, but who beg that all that is true, good, and humanly valid in their lives and their relationships be enriched, healed, and elevated by the presence of the Holy Spirit. These forms of blessing express a supplication that God may grant those aids that come from the impulses of his Spirit—what classical theology calls “actual grace”—so that human relationships may mature and grow in fidelity to the Gospel, that they may be freed from their imperfections and frailties, and that they may express themselves in the ever-increasing dimension of the divine love.
The following paragraph reminds the world that the Church welcomes people “who approach God with humble hearts, accompanying them with those spiritual aids that enable everyone to understand and realize God’s will fully in their existence.”
I mean, it’s not hard to understand:
33. This is a blessing that, although not included in any liturgical rite,[23] unites intercessory prayer with the invocation of God’s help by those who humbly turn to him. God never turns away anyone who approaches him! Ultimately, a blessing offers people a means to increase their trust in God. The request for a blessing, thus, expresses and nurtures openness to the transcendence, mercy, and closeness to God in a thousand concrete circumstances of life, which is no small thing in the world in which we live. It is a seed of the Holy Spirit that must be nurtured, not hindered.
In conclusion, the Catholic Church does not bless same-sex unions or irregular situations. The priests will bless the individuals to bring them closer to God and the Church.
Marriage is only between one man and one woman.
The Catholic Church welcomes everyone. However, you cannot partake in any sacrament if you are not Catholic. (With marriage, one person has to be a Catholic in good standing with the Church.)
*UPDATE: Ed Morrissey included the media’s skewing of the document and language. “Unions” to “couples.” Language is important! He also included examples of “irregular situations,” such as living together before marriage.
Ed also included a response from Francis Rocca about why the Vatican published the document because I know Catholics wonder why now?! Ah, yes. The rebels in Germany!
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Comments
This cuckoo pope has done many bad things this is not one of them.
He allowed for the blessing of people engaged ion same sex unions. Note that Christ blessed all kinds of sinning people,, taxpayers and “harlots” come to mind. He did not bless their actions.
In fact blessing will help in general and may help in their redemption. Look at Rosaria Butterfield.
Then what changed? Gay people have always been allowed to be blessed. I’ll tell you what changed and I’ll quote the “Fiducia Supplicans”
It is precisely in this context that one can understand the possibility of blessing COUPLE IN IRREGULAR SITUATIONS and same-sex couples without officially validating their status or changing in any way the Church’s perennial teaching on marriage.
It doesn’t say bless the individuals. IT SAYS COUPLES. Why stop there? Why not add polyamorous?
Who says it does stop there? There’s no limit to how many people can ask for a blessing. The more the better.
A couple is two individuals. And the blessing is for them, not for their union. The same would apply to three or five or twenty.
I understand that they do form unions among themselves regularly in such numbers.
Therein lies the problem. Yeah, a couple is two and the nature of the ongoing relationship between these two, in other words there couple “status,” is inherently wrong, from the moral and religious standpoint of some.
Again, it’s not “people” as people have always been able to receive blessings. The change here is “couples”. They are able to receive blessings as a couple. It says it right there in the edict. Not my problem if you can’t see the difference.
Thanks, Mary. Catholic doctrine always distinguishes between sin and sinner. It is also a church of the “yes” in that any work that it cannot do that is not a sin will be subject to blessing. But, oh boy, will this one be abused by those who want to denigrate the church and scandalize the faithful and the potential converts. I hope this wasn’t imprudent by the pope, but I have my doubts.
But why bless the relationship? Bless the individual But the couple, the “relationship,” is a concept that defines itself by the underlying conduct the Church condemns.
Poorly worded on my part, Not a blessing of the relationship per se, but the individuals in the relationship. My issue is that the individuals, in this context, define themselves as a same sex couple. This will cause some confusion if the individuals want to stand as a couple to receive a blessing.
Not “poorly worded.” Cleverly worded, so suckers can take this first step as harmless—as is intended with all leftist initiatives.
It is precisely in this context that one can understand the possibility of blessing COUPLES IN IRREGULAR SITUATIONS and same-sex couples without officially validating their status or changing in any way the Church’s perennial teaching on marriage.
Not individuals in the relationship, but bless the COUPLE!!!
Priests have always been able to bless the individual sinner. They wouldn’t be able to bless otherwise. As others have said, why not bless “the couple” in an adulterous relationship?
Frankly still struggling with this language. Maybe, upon further consideration, this was intended to respond to concerns that certain blessings couldn’t be bestowed on some individuals by virtue of the nature of their ongoing, shall we say, irregular situations?
Maybe, but I keep going back the use of “couples”. The treatise, and Mary’s defense, keep pointing to the fact they are not sanctioning MARRIAGE. They seem to making fine point between a couple and a marriage. Blessing a couple is not the same as sanctioning a marriage.
Given the language, I don’t believe my interpretation is tenable. The language is what it is.
This is what Francis does. He speaks in words that have many meanings or no interpretation. It is imprecise language with a purpose.
In this case, if they are not blessing the couple (they are both standing in front of the priest), then what is the purpose of the document.
If they were addressing the problem of same sex unions (as Mary alleges) in Germany and other places, then why produce such tortured language. All they had to say is that they could bless the individuals but not the couples (why are they a couple?). The couple can’t stand before the priest and get the blessing, but that is exactly what they do.
The confusing language is a feature (not a defect). As others have said, the document can be used to authorize same-sex blessings. They only have to say they were actually blessing the individuals. But, everyone in the church at the time of the blessing will see (without question) that the couple’s sin is being blessed. That is the intent of document.
The appropriate place for the blessing of the individuals seeking the blessing is in the confessional. The blessing is no less a blessing in the absence of spectators. If “the couple” does not want the absolution and blessing in that form, they can request to meet with the blessor in private elsewhere.
This very document says yes, you can and should bless them too. They are in an irregular and undesirable situation, and need blessing.
A “couple” means the two individuals. That’s what the word means. A couple is two individuals who are in a relationship, but it is not the relationship itself. Francis is simply reminding people that they are still individuals, and each still eligible for a blessing, so long as it is to them and not to their relationship.
The individuals need a blessing, the ongoing relationship needs disapproval.
I am an individual. I am a couple with my girlfriend. Couple is explicitly two people in a relationship. It’s not that hard. By blessing the couple he is blessing the relationship. I’ll repeat so you will understand; individuals have always been able to be blessed. The change here is he is blessing the relationship.
There is no change. The document is very clear that the priest can not bless the relationship. He can’t even bless the individuals in a way that makes it appear to be blessing the relationship. All he can do is bless the couple themselves.
And a couple is nothing more or less than two individuals; it is not their relationship. The relationship is a separate thing from the couple. It is something the couple are in; it is not them.
Just consider that “couple” is not a singular; you don’t say the couple “is” going somewhere, you say they “are”. You don’t say “it is in a relationship”, you say “they are in a relationship”. So the term “couple” doesn’t refer to the relationship, it refers only to the individuals; there are two of them, so you can only speak about the couple in the plural.
I’m afraid you’re dead wrong Milhouse. This was intended to respond to, and modify, 2021 guidance that specifically advised against any blessing of illicit relationships. It has everything to do with the relationship. It says so quite plainly in the document in language ignored by the author here. I don’t like it but the language is what it is.
That is a far cry from the condemnation of pretend gay marriage. It certainly sounds like a transitional step.
Read the fine print. When you think of “union” do you think of casual relationship or something more formal? They are saying they can’t bless something more formal. But as the statement reads, they will be blessing “couples”—just not “unions”.
No, the document says a priest can’t bless a sinful relationship, but he can and should bless the couple (i.e. the two individuals) who are in it.
“No one bothered to read the document.”
That pretty much describes most of the people who post comments here. Don’t read the post or the document. Just spout off your personal opinions.
Pot. Meet kettle.
Including, it appears, the author. The statement clearly states the blessing of “irregular couples.” Unless my understanding of the English language is on par with Mary’s, the Pope is blessing couples not individuals. They intentionally tried to parse out “couples” as something different than formal unions or marriage. If you bless the couple, his language not mine, that is blessing the relationship.
Couples are individuals.
A couple IS TWO….. yes it is TWO individuals…. If you are standing alone …. You will not be referred to as a couple… you would be an individual…. Understand yet…? I can pull the crayons…..
Yes, a couple has two members; not one and not three or more, but exactly two. But the couple is two individuals, and that is all. When you address a couple, you are addressing each member of that couple individually, not the two of them as a single entity and certainly not the relationship itself.
You’re tying yourself in knots trying to define your way out of the plain meaning of the language. A couple is a relationship status. When one addresses a couple your addressing the individuals as they are part of that relationship. If want to address only the individual, there is no need to make reference to a “couple,” at all.
No, a couple is NOT a relationship status. That is simply not what the word means and not how it is used. The word “couple” refers only to people, not to any status.
Listen to yourself. You are addressing the individuals. You said it yourself. The individuals, not the relationship that they are in. When you address a couple you are speaking to each of them individually, not to “them” as a single unit.
No, they are not. That’s why it’s a different word. Hate to break out Webster on ya old man, but….
a
: two persons married, engaged, or otherwise romantically paired
b
: two persons paired together
A marriage is also COMPOSED of two people. If you bless a marriage you are blessing the relationship. If you bless a couple you are blessing the relationship.
Listen to yourself again. A couple is “two persons”.
And no, a marriage is NOT “composed of two people”; a marriage is not people, it’s a relationship between people.
Look, have you ever done any database work? An entity relationship diagram? A couple is two rectangles linked by a diamond; a relationship (of which a marriage is one example) is the diamond. You can bless the rectangles but not the diamond.
You are correct. Not quite sure why Mary and so many others are trying to provide cover for this false pope. The slippery words…telling us they don’t mean what they actually say…defining what is “is”… very much has the whiff of sulfur about it as does much of what that pope does.
Mary, thanks for the explanation. I hope you won’t be disillusioned in the future, when through public pressure, the Pope capitulates on gay marriage. My wife and I are believers but not Catholic – nevertheless have Catholic friends who support gay marriage.
There’s a memorable example of such capitulation in the Mormon church (which I’m more familiar with than the Catholic church (by study, not by faith)). Mormons originally held that blacks could be priests in the LDS church – believing that black skin was the “mark of Cain” mentioned in Genesis. My (high school) Mormon girlfriend told me a story commonly told among Mormons of a service in the temple at SLC where the ushers could not close the doors to begin the service. The minister asked those in attendance if anyone was black or partly black. Someone said “yes” and was escorted out and then the doors would shut.
Their belief became a big problem for them in the 1970’s and in 1978, their “prophet(s)” declared that God had acquiesced to public pressure and the church would now admit blacks to the priesthood.
https://time.com/3905811/mormon-priesthood-men-women-integration/
Proofreading button, please! (No need for an EDIT button if I’d just read it before hitting Submit!)
blacks could be priests = blacks could NOT be priests
Actually, Joseph Smith allowed black priests.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Smith%27s_views_on_Black_people
Churches founded upon the revelation of their namesake often embrace restrictive rules upon incorporation. Since leaving the institutional church scene over 20 years ago, I’ve seen a number of simple house church fellowships get coopted by an ordained seminarian and herded into yet another business church. No one ever seems to ask “how did our sweet freedom” come to this?
A reflection that seems appropriate for me this time of year … how an infant, born in a barn, laid to rest in hay, never had a home of his own, came to be represented by numerous religious franchises earning Billion$ annually – with 501(c)3 boards of directors and congregations as voting stock-holders.
Well, the 501(c)3 part of it comes from a corruption of our Government tax system – social engineering through the tax code. It has nothing to do with churches specifically, but with anything deemed “charitable.” And lots of mischief can be accomplished while being “charitable.” Frankly, I would get rid of the 501(c)3 tax status in exchange for being able to speak freely over the pulpit, but that’s me.
If by “proofreading button” you mean the “Preview” button, it’s already there.
Blessing couples who define their relationship by conduct that is sinful? How is it possible to distinguish the “couple” from the reprehensible conduct that describes their relationship? The underlying objective, I fear, seems to be to accord some moral approbation to this conduct. Otherwise why bless the “relationship”?
The INDIVIDUAL gets blessed, not the union or relationship. I said it numerous times in my piece: INDIVIDUAL.
That’s what you say, but the blessing is being extended to individuals who are couples in the relationship. It isn’t a general doctrine on any individual in any circumstance. In context it is specifically referring to individuals who are couple in the relationship. That’s the whole point of this.
Yup.
That is precisely what it is. All the document does is point out that the couple are still individuals, and therefore the general doctrine applies to them too. This is not a change in anything; it’s just an answer to a question about existing doctrine.
Granted perhaps poorly phrased on my account but the document section in question specifically referred to “Blessings of Couples in Irregular Situations and of Couples of the Same Sex” and this was the the specific context in which the guidance was issued. It wasn’t entitled “All individuals in any circumstance”
Nobody asked about all individuals in any circumstance. The question was specifically about couples, because the Church had forbidden blessing their relationship. That’s why the question arose about blessing the individuals who are in the relationship, and the answer was yes, of course you can bless them.
Although I disagree with the Pope’s politics, I often defend him in other comments sections. I’d like to be wrong but having difficulty accepting when in practice the gay coupe is going to go jointly to receive a blessing. Hard to see this as not reflecting some kind of approval on that relationship.
Not what the edict says. Mary glossed over it.
It is precisely in this context that one can understand the possibility of BLESSING COUPLES IN IRREGULAR SITUATIONS AND SAME SEX COUPLES without officially validating their status or changing in any way the Church’s perennial teaching on marriage.
What part of “blessing the couple” are you guys not grasping?
You said it, but it’s not true. And I quote:
It is precisely in this context that one can understand the possibility of BLESSING COUPLES in irregular situations and same-sex couples without officially validating their status or changing in any way the Church’s perennial teaching on marriage..
He literally says blessing the couple. He did not say bless the individual in an irregular relationship.
A couple is individuals.
“No, Pope Francis Did Not Approve the Blessing of Same-Sex Unions”
“(Yes, I have the same headline as Ed Morrissey at Hot Air. Yes, I told him before I published my piece! No, I did not read it before I scheduled my piece!)”
It is long past time to end the use of “No . . . ” and “Yes . . . ” in this fashion for headlines and other statements.
Not since Bill Clinton’s meaning of “is” is have I encountered such pusillanimous double talk. The church is DEAD. The “pope” is a homosexualist apostate.
I’m not quite sure what part of “blessing couples” they are not understanding. It doesn’t say bless the individual in an irregular relationship. It says bless the couple.
It is precisely in this context that one can understand the possibility of BLESSING COUPLES in irregular situations and same-sex couples without officially validating their status or changing in any way the Church’s perennial teaching on marriage.
The Church is not dead. Actually, if you have faith, it can never be. But we don’t always have a John Paul II as pope.
You need to go to Hell. And I mean that literally, not figuratively. I know I shouldn’t say this, and I will probably be banned from LI for a while, but you need to crawl back under the bigoted anti-Catholic rock that you crawled out of. You do this time and time and time again on LI. If you were a worm, I would step on you and rejoice as your guts get spilled on the ground.
Bless you
I saw the headline this morning, maybe on Citizens Free Press, and thought to myself, yeah, there’s probably more to the story here, let’s just wait a bit before getting all enraged. Sure enough. Thanks for going to the source and publishing this.
Personally, I suspect that Pope Francis is a closet-Episcopalian. He just hasn’t come out yet. That would explain a lot.
“Loving people does not mean you approve of their lifestyle or choices.”
Yes! THIS!!
.
In blessing the couple, the priest presumes that the couple will draw closer to the Lord in the hope that they will eventually become celibate in their relationship.
Since these couples are Catholic, it would seem prudent and efficacious to their salvation that the priest also provide the opportunity for them to attend the sacrament of confession and thus receive the sanctifying grace of absolution.
Is that mentioned in the document, Mary?
“The individuals in the union can receive the blessing. The actual union cannot receive the blessing.”
Can you say ‘semantic games’? The Commie Pope knows exactly what he’s doing.
Destroying the Catholic Church from within.
Semantic games is how the left works. Get this word changed, ban that word, redefine this other one.
Read 1984 to get a clue how this works –and then think of all the words no longer used, all the self censorship people impose upon themselves to avoid being punished for offending leftist diktats.
Think of what that’s doing to all of our minds.
Of course Red Francis is gearing up to bless same sex unions outright. Wait till they unveil the Sacrament of Homophilia.
The Commie Pope, like other subversive leftists, first sows confusion with semantic games (and insults the intelligence of Catholics in doing so). From here the cancer spreads little by little until there is no longer any distinction between the sacrament of marriage and the “blessing” of gay “couples”. No one is fooled by the semantics. The shear length of the explanation begs us to recognize it as the horse manure it is.
Thank you, Mary, for the careful explanation. It is very reassuring;however, the lack of clarity is very confusing to the laity and can be exploited by those who hate the Church and its fundamental teachings. The confusion is widespread and it can only be corrected by a Papal announcement which I doubt will be forthcoming.
The purpose of the document was not to clarify that blessings of individuals in sinful situations are licit; a doctrine that has never been in question.
So what was the purpose?
I think it is quite certain that it was to sow uncertainty, and nothing more.
The modern age Christian has decided that calling people to turn from sin is somebody else’s job, perhaps the Holy Spirit’s, because its just not “loving” to bring the subject up. So much so that you won’t hear about sin in any context from anyone. How is someone to turn from sin if they don’t know what it is?
That is exactly the document’s purpose. A question had arisen because the church had banned any kind of blessing for such relationships that could give the appearance of approving of them. So it had to be clarified that the couple themselves could still be blessed.
Here’s something to consider: A priest might have thought that he must insist such a couple come up for blessings separately, as if they had nothing to do with each other, perhaps not even one after the other but with at least several strangers in between them. This guidance tells the priest that this is not the case, and they can come together to be blessed. They can even be blessed together, just as any random group may be blessed together; but still as individuals.
Perhaps the Pope intends to “bless them” in accord with 1 Corinthians 6:9-10.
I’m tired of pretending the Catholic Church is Christian
Here is how the US Bishops spoke of this:
“WHILE ALSO”
That means, in this context, as opposed to what one would assume from what was just stated, “The Church’s teaching on marriage has not changed”.
This is clearly transitional regarding the Catholic church and pretend gay marriage. “while also” …
While I do understand that from time to time this Pope, as with other Popes, has been wilfully misquoted and paraphrased in ways not in keeping with either Catholic or general Christian traditions and teaching, I have to side with the folks who see this as a charade to preserve a hair-split difference between ‘blessing a pair of individuals in a (unspecified but not marriage) relationship’ and ‘blessing a same-sex marriage’. No Christian seriously disputes that the Church as a body and Christians as individuals are called to respond with care and love to all people as individuals, recognizing that we too are fallen in sin and in need of God’s grace. However, it certainly seems that a lot of effort is being expended to create a distinction where there is little difference. It is clear this policy is intended to give cover to priests who wish to bless couples who are openly continuing in relationships that include sexual activity clearly prohibited by Catholic and many other Christian teachings by defining a legalistic formula that somehow two individuals who jointly present themselves can be blessed individually without their relationship, the very reason they are presenting themselves as a couple, also being formally recognized.
One also has to question, given the number of times this has happened and the directionality of the supposed ‘misquotations’, whether this is simply the normally working of a media that is generally uninformed about Christian and Catholic doctrines, or if the ambiguity is purposeful.
https://crisismagazine.com/opinion/breaking-down-fiducia-supplicans please read
also read this: https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2023/12/21/on-the-public-meaning-of-priestly-blessings/
This is the finest of all the seriously analyses of the issue and it demonstrates the lack of weight, not to say complete vacuity of Chastain’s opinion in the matter.
I believe that this link has been superceded in its value by this at The Pillar:https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/muller-fiducia-supplicans-is-self. Cardinal Muller is the author.