St. Paul was wrong! His first Letter to the Corinthians, the apostle not hiding his anger and frustration, is loaded with corrections to the neophyte Christian community. And here is Paul’s first complaint against them:
It actually is reported that there is lewd conduct among you of a kind not even found among the pagans—a man living with his father’s wife. Still you continue to be satisfied, instead of grieving and getting rid of the offender! As for me, though absent in body I am present in spirit and have already passed sentence in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ on the man who did this deed. …I hand him over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord. …Expel the wicked man from your midst.
Two thousand years later, according to a peculiar “development of doctrine,” the man expelled by Paul, and his mistress/stepmother, far from being excommunicated, may actually receive a priestly blessing as a couple in an “irregular union” according to the arguments and logic of Fiducia Supplicans (FS)—the formal declaration issued from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith by Cardinal Victor Fernández with the approval of Pope Francis. If you think the reference to St. Paul’s discipline is hyperbolic—let us closely examine how the new declaration makes it possible, for the first time in the history of the Church, for priests to bless couples in objectively sinful relationships—including same-sex unions.
Economics in One Lesson
Buy New $12.30
(as of 12:27 UTC - Details)
In October of this year, Cardinal Fernández granted LifeSiteNews an interview which may be considered a prelude to the DDF’s December 18th declaration. In that interview, Fernández already defended the blessing of same-sex couples—and with language that nearly word for word is found in the declaration itself, namely:
Blessing is a sign of the “opera pastorale” [pastoral work], to every people in every situation, and we [need to] know nothing [about] the people with how is his Christian life, the morals and other things [in order] to give the blessing.
The declaration is very clear that “couples in irregular situations and same sex couples” may now receive a blessing. In 2021, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, as it was then called, issued a completely opposite statement! That year the CDF, under prefect Cardinal Luis F. Ladaria, S.J., responded to a dubium. To the question proposed: “Does the Church have the power to give the blessing to unions of persons of the same sex?” The response was: “Negative,” and Pope Francis approved of the response. “[I]t is not licit to impart a blessing on relationships, or partnerships, even stable, that involve sexual activity outside of marriage…as is the case of the unions between persons of the same sex.”
And the ultimate reason why the Church cannot bless same-sex unions, according to the CDF, is because: “[God] does not and cannot bless sin.”
How does FS justify a complete reversal of the 2021 CDF’s Responsum? First of all, FS states that it actually is “offering new clarifications” on the Responsum ad dubium published on February 22, 2021. However, this is Fernández’s sleight of hand, giving the impression that somehow the conclusions of the Responsum are respected, when in fact FS represents a radical departure—even a repudiation. In order to achieve its conclusion, FS doesn’t hide the fact, nor could it really hide the fact, that it is “a real development from what has been said about blessings in the Magisterium and the official texts of the Church,” with “new clarifications,” a “broadening …of the classical understanding of blessings”; and FS doesn’t shy away from even characterizing its “contribution” as “innovative.”
FS is consistent with the 2021 Responsum in that FS bends over backward to ensure that in no way may the blessing of same-sex couples give the impression: “…that something that is not marriage is being recognized as marriage.” Therefore, rites and prayers that could create confusion between what constitutes marriage—which is the “exclusive, stable, and indissoluble union between a man and a woman, naturally open to the generation of children”—and what contradicts it are inadmissible. This conviction is grounded in the perennial Catholic doctrine of marriage; it is only in this context that sexual relations find their natural, proper, and fully human meaning. The Church’s doctrine on this point remains firm.
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.”
FS claims the reason the 2021 Responsum forbade blessing same-sex couples is because “the Church has the right and the duty to avoid any rite that might contradict [the Church’s teaching on marriage] or lead to confusion. In other words, FS makes it appear that the 2021 CDF statement banning such blessings was ultimately, if not solely, due to the danger of confusion. Thus, if that danger is removed, the way is open to permitting the blessing of “irregular unions.”
Christian Economics in...
Best Price: $10.99
Buy New $14.99
(as of 10:57 UTC - Details)
The innovation comes next. The danger is removed by developing a “broader understanding of blessings” according to “Pope Francis’ fatherly and pastoral approach.” FS justifies blessings for those in “irregular situations and same-sex couples” by arguing that there is a distinction between formal liturgical blessings and simple, pious, spontaneous blessings—noting that the 2021 Responsum indicated 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.”
Thus, such formal “liturgical blessings” may not be given to those whose lives do not correspond “with God’s designs written in creation and fully revealed by Christ the Lord.” It is article 12 that finalizes the argument:
One must also avoid the risk of reducing the meaning of blessings to this point of view alone, for it would lead us to expect the same moral conditions for a simple blessing that are called for in the reception of the sacraments. Such a risk requires that we broaden this perspective further. Indeed, there is the danger that a pastoral gesture that is so beloved and widespread will be subjected to too many moral prerequisites, which, under the claim of control, could overshadow the unconditional power of God’s love that forms the basis for the gesture of blessing.
In a strained and tortured argument, Fernández and the pope have created a new category of blessings by which couples living in situations that are objectively sinful may receive a priestly blessing. Retired Professor of Theology Larry Chapp explains that all blessings bestowed by a priest have:
…an inherent orientation to the liturgical and sacramental life of the Church. Indeed, is this not why people want a priest to bless them, their houses, and their devotional objects in the first place? I could ask any random lay person to bless those things “in the name of Christ Jesus.” But we seek out instead priests to make such blessings because of his sacramental character as one possessing Holy Orders, which in turn is what links him to Christ and all of the other sacraments in a preeminent way. In other words, we seek out priestly blessings because we rightly sense the full weight of the Church, in all of her sacramental glory, behind those blessings. Thus, all priestly blessings are inherently sacramental and liturgical in a real way.
Distinguishing between blessings with a liturgical/sacramental orientation and those without one might seem to make a useful pastoral distinction, but it is a distinction that smacks of a clever theological parlor room trick rather than of a genuine theological development. Cardinal Fernández calls it a development of doctrine, but it is not evident how this constitutes a true and organic development of the doctrines concerning blessings instead of just some slight-of-hand [sic] in order to achieve a predetermined result.
