The Declaration Fiducia Supplicans (FS), released Monday morning has, to put it mildly, roiled the waters and unleashed a torrent of reaction—not just within the Church, but in secular media and among many non-Catholic groups.
Here are three responses to the document: the first by a noted Evangelical Protestant theologian and Scripture scholar; the second by a Catholic layman who is an attorney and has an undergraduate degree in Catholic theology; and the third by a priest and regular Catholic World Report contributor. (The various views expressed are the authors’ and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of CWR staff or Ignatius Press.)
Pax Christi,
Carl E. Olson
Editor, Catholic World Report
Dr. Robert A. J. Gagnon
Philip Primeau
Fr. Jerry J. Pokorsky
Dr. Robert A. J. Gagnon is the author of The Bible and Homosexual Practice and professor of Bible at Houston Christian University. He holds a BA from Dartmouth, an MTS from Harvard Divinity School, and a PhD from the Princeton Theological Seminary.
The Vatican’s Dicastery (i.e., administration; formerly, Congregation) for the Doctrine of the Faith has issued, with Pope Francis’s approval, a document called Fiducia Supplicans (hereafter FS) that contains a section allowing priests to offer “non-ritualized blessings” to “couples of the same sex” (III.31-41). It is a master-class example of doublespeak.
On the one hand, the document denies that such a non-ritualized or informal blessing gives any legitimacy to homosexual unions. On the other hand, it provides the foundation for precisely such legitimation by treating the union as something that qualifies for a blessing.
Note well: I just used the word “union.” The prefect of the Dicastery that put out FS, Cardinal Victor Fernández, has since its publication attempted a distinction between a blessing of the “couple” and a non-blessing of the “union.” Yet, as his predecessor prefect, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, has rightly observed, “this is emptying a word of its meaning, since what defines a couple as couple is precisely their being a union.” I follow normal usage in treating “couple,” “union,” and “relationship” as more or less interchangeable.
The incest analogue
Substitute for “same-sex couple” an adult-committed “man-mother or sister-brother incestuous couple,” or worse still, a “pedophilic couple,” and you will get the point that “blessing” at any level is incompatible with a sexual behavior that is deemed morally abhorrent to God.
Can you imagine the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 5, who was outraged by the Corinthian toleration of an incestuous relationship, permitting the believers at Corinth to give a blessing for all that is good in that very same relationship between the Christian man and his stepmother? I can’t, because it is historically impossible. Nobody with even a bare minimum of theological and ethical acumen could possibly argue otherwise.
I understand that some will bristle at the comparisons with adult-consensual incest or pedophilia. Pedophilia is worse, and I cite it only as an example of the outermost extremes to which the logic of FS absurdly takes us, since even in pedophilic relationships (think classical Athens), some might argue, not everything that happens is without trace of any expression of care.
As for adult-committed incestuous relationships, the authors of Scripture (and implicitly Jesus himself) treat homosexual practice as worse. Both can be practiced as adult-committed relationships, and both are problematic because they attempt to unite persons who are too much alike structurally or formally (one on the level of sex or gender, the other on the level of kinship), exhibiting insufficient otherness.
Yet homosexual practice is not just an assault on a principle extrapolated secondarily from the foundation of sexual ethics. The male-female prerequisite is the foundation (as Genesis 1:27 and 2:24 make clear, both cited by Jesus in Mark 10:6-7 with parallel in Matt 19:4-5), as the basis for limiting the number of partners to two (no concurrent polygamy and serial remarriage after divorce). Likewise, we may infer that the principle for rejecting even adult-committed incestuous bonds (viz., excessive structural sameness) is first established at creation in God’s intentional creation of two complementary sexes.
Moreover, the uber-sameness is greater with homosexual couples than it is with incestuous couples, since sex or gender is a more essential component of sexuality than kinship. This explains why there are loopholes for incest prior to Levitical law but never any loopholes in ancient Israel for engaging in homosexual practice.
Again, if clerics should never bless an incestuous couple (and I assume that the authors of FS would not promote that, given the clarity of Paul’s response to the incestuous man at Corinth), they surely shouldn’t bless a homosexual couple, which Jesus and the authors of Scripture viewed as even worse than incest.
Don’t be cruel
We are not advocating here for cruelty toward those engaged in sexual sin. Jesus was known for reaching out in love both to sexual sinners and to exploitative tax collectors.
What is less well known, both then by the Pharisees and today by modern Pharisees on the left, is that Jesus conducted this outreach in the context of intensifying God’s ethical demand both for sexual purity and against exploiting the poor (tax collectors had a reputation for doing the latter). Indeed, Mark pinpoints as Jesus’ summary message, “The time has been fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the gospel” (1:15).
Everyone can be reclaimed by repentance and faith, which precludes a willful persistence in a pattern of egregious sexual sin. Withholding the blessing of an immoral union or of the “couple” essential to such a union is not the same as withholding a blessing to a sinful individual who wishes to cease from sinning. The “sinful woman” who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair as a response of gratitude to divine forgiveness is not going to exit the door to return to her sinful behavior with other persons.
What would be cruel is conveying the false impression that God is in some way blessing the immoral union. For that would leave the “couple” lost in their sins and dead to God, rather than (as in the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15) as found in repentance and alive to God. Such a false conveyance puts the immoral “couple” at high risk of being excluded eternally from the kingdom of God. That’s cruel.
Homosexual relationships are not marriage-lite
Contrary to what FS assumes, homosexual relationships are not just a diluted, less-thriving, second-order version of heterosexual marriage. Homosexual intercourse is viewed by Scripture as abhorrent to God (even more than adult-consensual incest), incurring for the impenitent the maximum penalty of exclusion from God’s eternal kingdom.
Homosexual relationships are held by Scripture to be an egregious dishonoring of the participants who treat themselves as half their own sex (two half-males make a whole male, two half-females make a whole female) in contradiction to the Creator’s creation of them as wholly male or wholly female.
Again, as Jesus taught us, the foundation of marriage is God’s intentional design of “male and female” as sexual counterparts. Each of the two sexes is one half of a sexual whole. Each completes sexually the other (anatomically, physiologically, psychologically). For Jesus, the sexual binary or twoness of the sexes established by God at creation was the basis for limiting the number of partners in a sexual union to two.
So, no, homosexual relationships are not just a deficient alternative to a male-female marriage. They are a categorical and absolute rejection of the very foundation of marriage. No blessing of any sort can be given to such a relationship without denying what Jesus viewed as foundational to all sexual ethics.
The flawed rationale behind blessing what is good about homosexual relationships
FS states that “there is no intention to legitimize anything, but rather to open one’s life to God, to ask for his help to live better, and also to invoke the Holy Spirit so that the values of the Gospel may be lived with greater faithfulness.” Again, this is doublespeak.
The only way to “live better” and to “live with greater faithfulness” is to dissolve the relationship completely. One can’t morally improve the homosexual relationship in any meaningful way that would honor God, any more than an incestuous relationship can be improved apart from dissolving it.
The document adds: “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.” This is more doublespeak.
Praying for a homosexual couple to have more patience with one another and to help each other does not provide even a partial fulfillment of God’s will for the relationship. For God has no will for the relationship to exist at all. The fundamental problem with the relationship is not an incapacity to demonstrate mutual patience and assistance but rather the fact that it is a homosexual relationship.
“To fulfill his will completely” suggests that a homosexual relationship partially fulfills God’s will when it is conducted in a loving fashion. Such an assumption is as false here as it would be for an incestuous, polyamorous, adulterous, or pedophilic relationship.
Still more doubletalk
It is mere window dressing when FS asserts that “the form of which [blessing] should not be fixed ritually by ecclesial authorities to avoid producing confusion with the blessing proper to the Sacrament of Marriage.” A sexual relationship that can be blessed informally will invariably over time be blessed in a formally ritualized way. We are just slowly boiling the frog here.
FS unseriously refers to a blessing “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” (my emphasis).
The very existence and continuance of the homosexual relationship represents a claim to legitimacy on the part of those in the relationship. To contend that those coming for a blessing “do not claim a legitimation of their own status” is false on its face. Else, they would not be in the relationship at all. And there is no “enriching” or “healing” of the relationship possible, which in God’s eyes needs to have stopped yesterday.
The document claims that the blessing can have as its purpose: “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.”
Again, the problem with homosexual relationships, what makes them abhorrent to God, is not that they need to further “mature and grow in fidelity to the Gospel,” as if they already reflected some minimal amount of fidelity to the gospel but just needed more of the same. The relationship by its very existence manifests a profound unfaithfulness to the gospel from the get-go.
The only way to free homosexual relationships from their imperfections
The only way that such relationships can be “freed from their imperfections” is to end them immediately. It is not a question of an “ever-increasing dimension of the divine love” as though the participants in the homosexual relationship are already on the right trajectory. This is akin to claiming that continuing to travel further in the wrong direction, only with greater ease, is an improvement of the journey.
The authors of FS, seeking to appease those who rightly see this “blessing” for what it is (viz., a first-step at full approval), warn that “this blessing should never [sic] be imparted in concurrence with the ceremonies of a civil union, and not even in connection with them. Nor can it be performed with any clothing, gestures, or words that are proper to a wedding.”
Prior to this document’s release, homosexual unions were “never” officially blessed at all in the Catholic Church (though some rogue clerics have violated the church’s official teaching). In fact, only two years ago in the 2021 Responsum of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Catholic Church declared, “It 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.”
“Never” in FS means only “never” in the present moment, not for all time to come. The logic of the informal blessing demands a move ultimately to a formal blessing in a context that approximates or appropriates marriage. For FS recognizes many goods in the homosexual union, speaks of improving that relationship, and treats it as a second-order form of marriage.
Be outraged
Pope Francis is, I think, ordering a seismic shift in the Catholic Church’s teaching on homosexual relationships with the ultimate goal of the full endorsement of such relationships. He is doing as much as he can do to hasten that development, short of provoking an all-out Catholic civil war.
The response of the Prefect Emeritus of the of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Müller, which I saw only after I had completed the penultimate version of this piece, has warmed the heart of this Protestant by his constant appeal to the biblical witness:
Innovations cannot go beyond what was revealed to them once and for all by the apostles as the word of God…. In fact, there are no biblical texts … to support the conclusions of FS…. A first observation is that there is no basis for this new usage in the biblical texts cited by FS…. For in the Bible, a blessing has to do with the order that God has created and that he has declared to be good. This order is based on the sexual difference of male and female, called to be one flesh. Blessing a reality that is contrary to creation is not only impossible, it is blasphemy.
Amen to that.
————
Philip Primeau is a layman of the Diocese of Providence. He is a husband, a father of four, and an attorney. He may be contacted at primeau.philip1@gmail.com.
Introduction
A faithful son or daughter of the Church, endowed with the faculty of reason and the virtue of prudence, must avoid two equally disastrous extremes in responding to the recent declaration of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, Fiducia Supplicans: On the Pastoral Meaning of Blessings (“FS”). These extremes may be given the colloquial labels of “popesplaining” and “popebashing.” The former tendency exhibits an utter inability to critically examine the words of the Holy Father; the latter tendency exhibits an utter inability to receive the words of the Holy Father with due care and reflection. Both tendencies require that the Holy Father be read in a dishonest and disjointed manner, so that his every pronouncement is rendered altogether wholesome or altogether poisonous. Unsurprisingly, FS has popesplainers and popebashers out in force. This article provides a measured look at the document, neither popesplaining nor popebashing, but candidly reviewing its substance and frankly identifying its strengths and weaknesses.
Briefly refuting two common arguments
Initially, two popular arguments concerning FS must be considered and refuted.
The first argument contends that FS “changes nothing.” This is manifestly false. FS claims to offer an “innovative contribution to the pastoral meaning of blessings,” and to constitute a “real development from what has been said about blessings” (Presentation, emphasis added). Undeniably, there is something new here – the only question is what.
The second argument is that FS does not endorse the blessing of irregular and same-sex relationships per se, but rather the blessing of individuals who happen to be in such relationships. Again, this is manifestly false. The express aim of FS is to ascertain “the possibility of blessings for couples in irregular situations and for couples of the same sex,” such that “all that is true, good, and humanly valid in their lives and their relationships [might] be enriched, healed, and elevated by the presence of the Holy Spirit” (31, emphasis added). In short, FS teaches that certain goods subsist in irregular and same-sex relationships, and that, insofar as these goods are present, the relationships themselves, and the “couples” produced by and through said relationships, are appropriate objects of blessing.
What does FS actually say?
Having dispensed with those meritless but common arguments, let us examine what FS actually says.
Preliminarily, FS affirms the “perennial Catholic doctrine of marriage”: namely, that marriage is the “exclusive, stable, and indissoluble union between a man and a woman, naturally open to the generation of children” (4). It also proposes that this vision of marriage is rooted in reason and revelation alike (4-5). Contrary to some extravagant headlines, there is no alteration to the Church’s constant teaching concerning marriage. Quite the opposite: FS reiterates the doctrine that the world finds so offensive.
Further, in an effort to safeguard marriage, FS rejects “rites and prayers” that might “create confusion between what constitutes marriage . . . and what contradicts it” (4). Indeed, FS forbids any ritual or “liturgical or semi-liturgical act” for the blessing of irregular and same-sex couples (36, 38). Relatedly, it states that blessings cannot occur during a civil union ceremony (“not even in connection [therewith]”); nor, for that matter, can blessings occur in circumstances that feature “any clothing, gestures, or words that are proper to a wedding” (39). In short, FS makes abundantly clear that there is a blessing proper to marriage, and that this blessing is absolutely inappropriate for alternative arrangements (4-6). Catholicism knows no “marriage-lite.”
So much for what FS disallows. What then does it allow? It principally contemplates and permits spontaneous and informal blessings of irregular and same-sex couples (21, 23, 28, 35, 36, 38) in contexts without any association with marriage or civil union (for a sample of such contexts, see 40). The purpose of these blessings is to give thanks and beg the increase of certain goods supposedly inhering in irregular and same-sex relationships – e.g., “peace, health, a spirit of patience, dialogue, and mutual assistance” (38) – and also to beseech an outpouring of grace meant to establish the divine will in the lives of those being blessed (id.).
Arguably, such blessings were heretofore proscribed by the then-CDF’s Responsum ad dubium de benedictione unionem personarum eiusdem sexus et Nota esplicativa of March 2021 (“Responsum”), which answered in the negative the question, “Does the Church have the power to give the blessing to unions of persons of the same sex?” The Responsum explained that “it is not licit to impart a blessing on relationships, or partnerships, even stable, that involve sexual activity outside of marriage (i.e., outside the indissoluble union of a man and a woman open in itself to the transmission of life), as is the case of the unions between persons of the same sex,” even if said relationships contain “positive elements,” because such elements “cannot justify these relationships and render them legitimate objects of an ecclesial blessing, since the positive elements exist within the context of a union not ordered to the Creator’s plan” (Explanatory Note).
Of course, FS positions itself as nuancing, rather than contradicting, the Responsum. It does so by ostensibly “broaden[ing] and enrich[ing]” the Church’s understanding of blessings (Presentation). In particular, it posits that blessings cannot be strictly viewed as sacramentals, nor necessarily tied to the liturgy (as supposed by the Responsum) (9-13). Instead, some blessings are best understood as “pastoral gesture[s]” (12), articulations of “popular piety,” whereby people ask priests to intervene with God on their behalf outside a sacramental-liturgical situation (23-30).
FS holds that, within this framework, both “ascending” and “descending” blessings (i.e., prayers thanking and imploring God) may appropriately be imparted upon couples in irregular and same-sex relationships. To what end? “[T]hat 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” (31, emphasis added). With such blessings, however, “there is no intention to legitimize anything, but rather to open one’s life to God, to ask for [H]is help to live better, and also to invoke the Holy Spirit” (40, emphasis added).
The good, the bad, the confusing
What can be said in favor of FS? Undeniably, it recites fundamental truths concerning marriage, and it does so directly and unapologetically. (Some will say that mere orthodoxy is a low bar for the Holy See, but nevertheless.) Additionally, it theoretically precludes any ritualization of blessings for irregular or same-sex couples, depriving progressives of a longtime desideratum. Moreover, FS rightly stresses that God lavishes His gifts upon all men, and that ministers of Christ must be ready to mediate between God and any person who wishes to praise Him and request the fruits of His kindness. If the Church has previously been unwilling to adequately intercede on behalf of a particular “category” of sinner owing to cultural prejudice, FS is a good reminder that the Church is and must be greater than the culture, which it is summoned to transform.
Yet the document’s deficiencies are several and significant. First, it fails to forthrightly acknowledge that irregular and same-sex relationships diverge materially from natural and divine law, and it avoids unequivocally calling persons engaged in such relationships to repentance, conversion, and chastity. Second, it gives the misimpression that the Church is reconsidering its doctrine of human sexuality, which is bound to disappoint those expecting radical change, since such a reconsideration is impossible. Third, it fails to anticipate its own exploitation by progressives inside and outside the Church, who will use FS as an opportunity to undermine the very doctrine it purports to preserve. Fourth, its attempt to evacuate blessings of sacramental and liturgical meaning is unconvincing, given that the blessings in question are bestowed by priests, who are distinguished by their peculiar role in the sacramental economy and the public worship of the Church.
Above all, FS raises, without answering, a serious question: How can the ministers of the Church, standing in and for Christ, bless a relationship – not just the individuals in the relationship, but the relationship itself, as shown above – that is, by its very nature, sinful? And how can it do so without “legitimizing” such a relationship, if only implicitly or accidentally? Granted, certain goods invariably arise within the course of irregular and same-sex relationships. But there is scarcely a human relationship, a human society, devoid of some good. Further, the distinction between the goods of the relationship and the relationship itself smacks of the very manualistic sophistry that Pope Francis habitually condemns. There is also a question as to whether the goods that FS seeks to make available for blessing are not in fact individual goods, and thus already lawful objects of blessing. For instance, the day before yesterday, apart from the broadened paradigm introduced by FS, a priest could ask God to grant to any sincere petitioner peace, health, a spirit of patience, a capacity for authentic dialogue, and so on. Why? Because these goods are proper to the individual, even if they find their fulfillment in the context of human relationship.
Conclusion(s)
Coming away from a close reading of FS, one wonders many things. Where is the hope of eternal gain? Where is the fear of eternal loss? Where is the call to perfection? Where is the crucifixion of the flesh with its passions and desires? Where is the contempt for this age? Where is the love of purity, continence, and separation from the world? Where is the hatred of sin? Where is the yearning for heavenly splendor and the redemption of the body? Where is the exhortation to weeping? Where is the promise of a new heart? Where is the warning of a darkened mind? The cry of the prophet is not here. The wisdom of the cross is not here. The charity of our Lord Jesus Christ is not here: that charity which is so luminous, so consuming, so spotless, so terrible, so grave.
FS apparently emerges from a worldview wherein irregular and same-sex relationships are less than ideal, maybe even problematic, but certainly not grievously displeasing to God and ruinous to the welfare of the human person. This is a worldview built not on the divine science of human salvation, informed by Holy Scripture and the wisdom of the fathers and doctors of the Church, but on the natural science of psycho-social human satisfaction, informed by the usual cast of secularized and anthropocentric disciplines. FS admittedly appeals to the Sacred Writings, but hastily and superficially. It makes only glancing reference to Sacred Tradition. It relies primarily on the teaching of Pope Francis. Given the document’s magnitude, its limited range of authorities is startling. It will take substantial theological work to integrate its contents into the greater body of Catholic teaching.
At present, FS creates an acute tension between pious practice and doctrine, complicating the ancient rule that the Church believes as it prays and prays as it believes. It therefore risks obscuring the truth and sowing confusion. Although its substance is amenable to an orthodox construction, it is liable to manipulation by antagonists of the faith inside and outside the Church, an outcome that Cardinal Fernandez and Pope Francis must have anticipated. That they opted to invite ambiguity and obfuscation is blameworthy. Some have speculated that FS is a masterful piece of Jesuitical triangulation, heading off schism by handing everyone half a loaf. Perhaps. Perhaps even this text will yield some fruit. It might, for instance, give pastors occasion to reflect on how they can better draw men of every circumstance, sinners all, into the depths of God’s mercy.
But one inevitably reaches a bleak conclusion: FS leaves the sheep bewildered and the wolves emboldened. It did not have to be this way. Our Lord appointed Peter to confirm his brethren. Now, however, bishop will war against bishop, local church against local church; in the haze of uncertainty, strife will prevail. Meanwhile, faithful Catholics will endure doubt and disturbance. It did not have to be this way. Regardless, let us eschew popesplaining and popebashing both, and pray for Francis, Bishop of Rome, mother and mistress of the churches of God. More than ever, let us pray for him.
————
Fr. Jerry J. Pokorsky is a priest of the Diocese of Arlington. He is pastor of St. Catherine of Siena parish in Great Falls, Virginia.
The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith recently released Fiducia Supplicans (“On the Pastoral Meaning of Blessings”), which allows the blessing of “same-sex couples.” In some ways, it is the crown jewel of the pontificate of Pope Francis. The Holy Father’s approval not only signals his endorsement for the blessing of homosexual unions, but he also retains plausible deniability.
This document is a word salad of ambiguity: A subordinate dicastery released the lengthy platitudinous narrative with the approval of the Pope. But its nomenclature and teaching status is deliberately unclear. (What does Cardinal Fernandez mean by “same-sex couples, for example? The reader immediately assumes he is speaking of homosexual couples–including various forms of sodomy. But the Cardinal–and the Pope—could easily deny the implication.)
The document unleashes “gay” activist priests like James Martin, S.J., to simulate marriage validations in the blessing of “gay” couples. (Martin has already leaped at the chance and will never suffer any censure by ecclesiastical authorities. After all, his frequent meetings with Pope Francis validate his reputation as a favored son.) The document allows the Pope to ignore the German bishops who are already blessing “gay” unions.
The document prompts worried (or merely self-deluded) bishops to stumble over themselves to affirm that it carries “no doctrinal changes.” It provokes faithful priests to outrage because they see the same thing the mainstream media sees. It pits faithful priests and bishops against one another.
The document leaves “gay” activists untouched in cultivating a willing public to expect the Church to approve “gay marriage” sometime soon down the road (expecting Catholic doctrine to succumb to events). For all intents and purposes, the document signals that Vatican authorities will permit “gay” priests to bless “gay” unions with impunity.
The document continues the tradition of “studied ambiguity” identified by then-Cardinal Ratzinger in his 1985 letter as prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In his “Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons”, he writes:
[T]his Congregation wishes to ask the Bishops to be especially cautious of any programmes which may seek to pressure the Church to change her teaching, even while claiming not to do so. A careful examination of their public statements and the activities they promote reveals a studied ambiguity by which they attempt to mislead the pastors and the faithful.
Many bishops likely see what the Pope intends but go through mental gymnastics to support papal policies and hold to Catholic teaching. The effort is futile and, at best, may, for a time, deflect Vatican retribution (avoiding the fate of Bishop Strickland and Cardinal Burke).
Faithful Catholics are again forsaken and abused. The handful of outraged priests are deemed hateful, unpastoral, rigid, and dangerous. Liberals no longer claim a monopoly on those smears that extend back to the 1960s. The liberals now have allies from across the spectrum. Bishops and priests who refuse to acknowledge the “studied ambiguity” of the document and insist it carries “no doctrinal changes” will look at outraged priests with suspicion because they refuse to conform to their delusions. The mainstream press sees through the studied ambiguities and recognizes the reality that many bishops and priests refuse to see.
The document is a genius Machiavellian move because it divides faithful priests and bishops. It is even more sinister because the Vatican released it the week before Christmas, sabotaging Catholic focus on the Birth of Jesus. The document brilliantly weaponizes platitudes, cruelly taking advantage of the goodwill of priests and bishops.
But the Holy Father (and many of the ostrich bishops) may have forgotten an unexploded bomb from the pontificate of Pope John Paul II. In 2001, Pope John Paul II famously apologized for the extensive historical sins of members of the Church. In 1999, then-Cardinal Ratzinger commissioned a theological study that acknowledged: “An historical hermeneutic is therefore more necessary than ever in order to distinguish correctly between the action of the Church as community of faith and that of society in the times when an osmosis existed between them.”
Within a decade [please, God!] or a century, a future pope will likely apologize for the distortions of Catholic doctrine by Pope Francis and his collaborators.
Here is another unexploded bomb from Saint Paul:
For I am not ashamed of the gospel… For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of men who by their wickedness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his invisible nature, namely, his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse; for although they knew God they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man or birds or animals or reptiles.
Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen.
For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. Their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in their own persons the due penalty for their error.
And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a base mind and to improper conduct. They were filled with all manner of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity, they are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s decree that those who do such things deserve to die, they not only do them but approve those who practice them. (Rom. 1:16-32)
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