Pope Francis Responds to Resistance to Fiducia Supplicans: ‘The Lord Blesses Everyone’

[Buzzard3]

the point that Fiducia Supplicans makes is that, unless there are reasons to suggest otherwise, a spontaneous blessing may be given to even same-sex couples (or those that appear to be, anyway) or those in irregular situations (these are usually more obvious) without any fear of scandal.

Hilarious. Unsurprisingly, thousands of notable Catholics - including theologians, priests, bishops and even Cadrinals - have publicly expressed vehement opposition to FS. No doubt there are many, many more who haven't expressed their opposition publicly.

 

[Buzzard3]

Because the spontaneous blessing, like any constitutive blessing, is designed to lead people to greater love & fidelity to God

If the sole aim of blessing a same-sex couple is not their separation and the dissolution of their relationship, the blessing won't lead anyone "to a greater love & fidelity to God".

Relationships that are "objectively disordered" do not bring people closer to God.

 

[Michie]

Hilarious. Unsurprisingly, thousands of notable Catholics - including theologians, priests, bishops and even Cadrinals - have publicly expressed vehement opposition to FS. No doubt there are many, many more who haven't expressed their opposition publicly.

Yes. I’ve posted on it but there are certain folks that ignore it. Icy Chain was one but it seems he’s been replaced or changed his name.

 

[Buzzard3]

allowing an ordained minister to bless a same-sex couple under the circumstances of Fiducia Supplicans & the DDF's Clarification is does not amount to the Catholic Church approving, legitimizing, nor even affirming a same-sex relationship.

Unless the sole aim of blessing a same-sex couple is their separation and the dissolution of their relationship, yes it does.

As far as I know, FS says nothing at all about the aim of the blessing being the separation of a same-sex couple and the dissolution of their relationship.

Why should it? I don't think that's one of its aims at all. On the contrary, the think it's aim is the acceptance of same-sex couples in the Church. Jorge Mario Bergoglio has a history of supporting LGBTQ causes in the secular world that goes back decades - long before he (somehow) became Pope

Friend, I think you've been conned.

 

[Wolseley]

In all my long years on this forum (more than twenty), I don't think I have ever seen this amount of digital ink spilled on a topic like this one has.

I see people twisting themselves up into amazing complex knots trying to defend this document, going into levels of transmundane verbiage that it takes an advanced degree in philosophical reasoning and a Rosetta Stone to try to decipher. I merely skimmed through this thread; I don't expect I would live long enough to read the posts with the amount of concentration needed to comprehend the writer's line of reasoning. Nor do I have any desire to.

To me, it's simple: Cardinal Fernandez and the Pope are both wrong. This document never should have been released in the first place; regardless of its intended purpose, all it's doing is causing confusion, scandal, and division....these threads on this very forum are proof enough of that. Anything that is as ambiguous and open to misinterpretation and innuendo as Fiducia Supplicans is, is something that shouldn't have been promulgated to begin with.

There. Short, sweet, and to the point. You may all now go back to your high-falutin' theological bromides, written in the "Gee, Ma, see how good I can write? I is edjukated!" style. Forgive me, however, if I don't spend too much time digging up obscure texts by everyone from Thomas Aquinas to Richard McBrien in an attempt to translate your English into English; the document is erroneous, and the prelates who released it are in error, as well. Period, full stop.

 

[Michie]

In all my long years on this forum (more than twenty), I don't think I have ever seen this amount of digital ink spilled on a topic like this one has.

I see people twisting themselves up into amazing complex knots trying to defend this document, going into levels of transmundane verbiage that it takes an advanced degree in philosophical reasoning and a Rosetta Stone to try to decipher. I merely skimmed through this thread; I don't expect I would live long enough to read the posts with the amount of concentration needed to comprehend the writer's line of reasoning. Nor do I have any desire to.

To me, it's simple: Cardinal Fernandez and the Pope are both wrong. This document never should have been released in the first place; regardless of its intended purpose, all it's doing is causing confusion, scandal, and division....these threads on this very forum are proof enough of that. Anything that is as ambiguous and open to misinterpretation and innuendo as Fiducia Supplicans is, is something that shouldn't have been promulgated to begin with.

There. Short, sweet, and to the point. You may all now go back to your high-falutin' theological bromides, written in the "Gee, Ma, see how good I can write? I is edjukated!" style. Forgive me, however, if I don't spend too much time digging up obscure texts by everyone from Thomas Aquinas to Richard McBrien in an attempt to translate your English into English; the document is erroneous, and the prelates who released it are in error, as well. Period, full stop.

Oh Wols, you just have not read it or understand it. Even worse, you refuse to understand it.

 

[Reader Antonius]

Bless individuals, not couples. Blessing a couple says, "The Church approves of your same-sex relationship".

That may be how it appears, but that's besides the point. Many cultures were convinced that the sun literally rose in the morning and went away at night. By all appearances, they weren't wrong. But that wasn't what was really going on was it? Ultimately, here, your argument rests on appearances, which does speak to the possible prudential issues with the document, but not what it says.

Where does FS speak of a same-sex couple couple separating?

It doesn't and needn't. The obvious assumption to anyone with even a basic catechesis of Catholic moral theology knows that the couple remaining a couple and having sex is what Fiducia Supplicans refers clearly to in the opening portions of the document, which I'm now tired to quoting. Suffice this line:

"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.

Ergo, it's obvious that separation at some point, whether immediately (if feasible) or later after a pastoral response, is patently obvious. No Church document is read alone; it is read in the entire Tradition of the Church. Hence, FS simply doesn't need to say: "Same-sex couples must separate!"

Your objection is like Pope Benedict XVI's Deus Caritas Est "requiring" him to note that murdering people is not loving. It's obvious. Let's not be pedantic here; I'm sure neither of us has the patience for that.

 

[Reader Antonius]

A priest who blesses a same-sex couple whom he knows are engaged in homosexual acts and who have no intention of repenting of those acts is himself sinning.

Agreed! The key there being the three aspects of mortal sin: full knowledge, full consent, grave matter. In the case of a same-sex couple who has no intent to repent, or (worse) seek legitimation, cannot be blessed if the priest is *aware* of this.

Try to imagine Jesus blessing a same-sex couple whom he knows are engaged in homosexual acts and who have no intention of repenting of those acts - the very idea is blasphemous.

Absurd.

Yep. But that's not what Fiducia Supplicans envisions. You are fighting, rather valiantly, against a windmill so far.

 

[Reader Antonius]

Sophistry. Unlike the case of blessing a same-sex couple, blessing a heterosexual couple is not blessing a relationships that is "objectively disordered". In fact, such a thing is counterintuitive.

Fascinating. Now we might be getting to the meat to your objections. It's the gay part, isn't it? That's the part you find so problematic. And no, you can't just cry "sophistry" and have it mean anything. You deal with an argument substantively or not. Even Socrates debated with Sophists.

Regardless of a "disordered attraction," the mortality of a sin committed by according to the standards of mortal sin by either a homosexual or a heterosexual will damn just as handily, making the distinction merely theological rather than pastoral. Moreover, are you sure you grasp what "objectively disordered" means? I ask because "objectively disordered" also applies to non-marital acts of any kind. From masturbation to fornication to homosexuality to adultery, etc., etc. All are "objectively disordered." Why? Because they are objectively not ordered to God's Will (which, btw, is exactly what Fiducia Supplicans uses in terms of language. This isn't accidental.

On the contrary, blessing a relationship that the Church teaches is "objectively disordered" is not only counterintuitive, it's objectively disordered.

Again, you joust against a windmill dragon. Fiducia Supplicans explicitly denies the Church's ability to bless relationships contrary to God's Will. It says it over and over again! But she can bless persons...and so on, and so on. To be perfectly honest, brother, I don't have the interest or time to watch a battle-royale of strawmen.

 

[Reader Antonius]

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states that homosexual inclinations are "objectively disordered" (#2358), so the only rational aim of blessing a same-sex couple would be their separation and the dissolution of their relationship.

What sort of Catholic would imagine that God will bless an ongoing relationship that his Church teaches is "objectively disordered"? Bizarre.

But that assumes that the priest or deacon being approached knows with certainty that those asking for the blessing are a same-sex couple. As with my friends above; they aren't gay nor living in sin, but because people thought they were, one priest rejected blessing them. This was deeply unjust.

But again you cannot seem to distinguish between blessing a relationship (with all that this entails) with blessing persons. And until you can understand and grasp that distinction sufficiently, you will never understand the Pope's teaching...and, frankly, this conversation will go nowhere.

I'm beginning to suspect you want Fiducia Supplicans to be promoting blessing gay & irregular unions. Why is beyond me! But either that, or you just can't make a logical distinction. Regardless, you are hacking desperately at something that doesn't exist, either in the document or the clarification. It just doesn't. I can't be more clear. Heck, the documents can't be more clear!

 

[Reader Antonius]

Irrelevant.

Again, you can't just say things and it be so. It's not irrelevant if you understand Catholic doctrine on blessings. Liturgical blessings with a basis deriving from Sacraments are very different from spontaneous blessings. For example, even I, as an Instituted Lector, *cannot* bless water and create holy water. No layman or laywoman can do that. Only the ordained. And this involves many other things too. It won't work. That's because these liturgical blessings are tied to the Sacraments. Pardon my frankness, but this is basic Catholic stuff. There's a huge difference between a liturgical blessing and otherwise, but you don't seem aware of that.

Which may be directing us to the source of the problem here.

 

[Reader Antonius]

Hilarious. Unsurprisingly, thousands of notable Catholics - including theologians, priests, bishops and even Cadrinals - have publicly expressed vehement opposition to FS. No doubt there are many, many more who haven't expressed their opposition publicly.

And this matters to the Truth because....? How about when the entire East was Arian, Semi-Arian, or Iconoclast (in that latter, along with the Gallic West)? Or when the French Gallicans & German Catholics were infested with Modernism & Gallican heresies about the Papacy? Or when Eutychianism dragged down the entire Patriarchates of Coptic Alexandria & Syriac Antioch? Or when the vast majority of moral theologians told St. Paul VI contraception was okay? And on, and on, and on.

Truth is not determined by a majority opinion. Moreover, as Vatican I taught us:

"6. [...] Indeed, [Papal] Apostolic teaching was embraced [because] they knew very well that this See of St. Peter always remains unblemished by any error, in accordance with the divine promise of our Lord and Savior to the prince of his disciples...

7. This gift of truth and never-failing faith was therefore Divinely conferred on Peter and his successors in this See so that they might discharge their exalted office for the salvation of all, and so that the whole flock of Christ might be kept away by them from the poisonous food of error and be nourished with the sustenance of heavenly doctrine. Thus the tendency to schism is removed and the whole Church is preserved in unity, and, resting on its foundation, can stand firm against the Gates of Hell."

I have demonstrated that this "never-failing faith" of Peter is acting in Fiducia Supplicans and the DDF clarification through the use of theological information and necessary distinctions.

So far, the most you've offered is strawmen, baseless claims, a lack of understanding of Catholic doctrine, and an apparent inability to distinguish between relationships & individuals.

I'll let the readers decide who's making the more reasonable argument, because frankly I'm exhausted with the running around in circles here.

 

[Reader Antonius]

In all my long years on this forum (more than twenty), I don't think I have ever seen this amount of digital ink spilled on a topic like this one has.

I see people twisting themselves up into amazing complex knots trying to defend this document, going into levels of transmundane verbiage that it takes an advanced degree in philosophical reasoning and a Rosetta Stone to try to decipher. I merely skimmed through this thread; I don't expect I would live long enough to read the posts with the amount of concentration needed to comprehend the writer's line of reasoning. Nor do I have any desire to.

To me, it's simple: Cardinal Fernandez and the Pope are both wrong. This document never should have been released in the first place; regardless of its intended purpose, all it's doing is causing confusion, scandal, and division....these threads on this very forum are proof enough of that. Anything that is as ambiguous and open to misinterpretation and innuendo as Fiducia Supplicans is, is something that shouldn't have been promulgated to begin with.

There. Short, sweet, and to the point. You may all now go back to your high-falutin' theological bromides, written in the "Gee, Ma, see how good I can write? I is edjukated!" style. Forgive me, however, if I don't spend too much time digging up obscure texts by everyone from Thomas Aquinas to Richard McBrien in an attempt to translate your English into English; the document is erroneous, and the prelates who released it are in error, as well. Period, full stop.

Honestly, this is probably the saddest post I've ever read here.

Distilled it amounts to: "The Faith of the Apostles must be simple or its wrong on the face of it."

Have you dared to read the Patristic corpus on Trinitarianism or the Hypostatic Union & Incarnation? Have you ever seriously read through a Catholic moral theology manual that priests often use in pastoral care during confessions? Have you even considered how much thought, apologetic explanation, and use of philosophical & ancient concepts were brought to bear to give us a way to preach the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist? And that's just getting started.

You can say what you wish; you're free to do so. But, if you aren't willing or capable of engaging in any kind of intellectual discussion based in Christian Revelation in Scripture & Tradition, you would do better to go elsewhere, by your own admission.

This is not a good look for any Catholic who seriously considers theology, faith & reason, and a general engagement with the Apostolic Tradition or the Bible. As a former fundamentalist, I'll take intelligent debate over complex applications of Apostolic Teaching over "Muh Baibul sayahs!!!" any day.

 

[Wolseley]

Honestly, this is probably the saddest post I've ever read here.

Distilled it amounts to: "The Faith of the Apostles must be simple or its wrong on the face of it."

The Faith of the Apostles does not, nor ever did, include blessings of sinful behavior, whether the justifications of it are simple or not.

Have you dared to read the Patristic corpus on Trinitarianism or the Hypostatic Union & Incarnation?

Have you ever read The Baltimore Catechism?

Have you ever seriously read through a Catholic moral theology manual that priests often use in pastoral care during confessions? Have you even considered how much thought, apologetic explanation, and use of philosophical & ancient concepts were brought to bear to give us a way to preach the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist? And that's just getting started.

Pardon me, but what does the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist (which I firmly believe, by the way) have to do with bestowing blessings on people who are actively in a state of mortal sin, and who are steadfastly refusing to abandon their sinful activity?

You can say what you wish; you're free to do so.

Thank you so much.

But, if you aren't willing or capable of engaging in any kind of intellectual discussion based in Christian Revelation in Scripture & Tradition, you would do better to go elsewhere, by your own admission.

Look, Your Eminence: simply because I'm not willing to sit here and hash deep philosophical theology with you does not make me any less a faithful Catholic than you are. You know diddly-squat about my background, about what I've read, about what I know. You can be forgiven for that. But telling me I need to go elsewhere because I refuse to get tangled up in semantics with you on this, or any other topic, is not your call to make, capisce?

This is not a good look for any Catholic who seriously considers theology, faith & reason, and a general engagement with the Apostolic Tradition or the Bible. As a former fundamentalist, I'll take intelligent debate over complex applications of Apostolic Teaching over "Muh Baibul sayahs!!!" any day.

Good for you. Sincerely. I'm not a Protestant fundy myself, and anybody who takes the King James Bible alone is cutting one leg off their faith---they need the Deuterocanon, they need the Apostolic Fathers, they need the Councils.

But identifying Fiducia Supplicans as a poorly-written document that departs from the established Catholic Deposit, and as such, is liable to cause error and division, does not make me the equivalent of an east Tennessee snake-handler.

It's obvious that you enjoy deep theological debate. Again, good for you. I used to, many years ago. But at this stage in my life, I'm just too tired to get into it any more. I am a military veteran who is classified as 100% disabled by VA for PTSD, adjustment disorder, depression, anxiety, hypertension, Type II diabetes, gastro-esophageal reflux disease, neuropathy in both legs, degenerative disc disease, extensive osteoarthritis, and various other physical goodies, such as shrapnel embedded in my left arm, a four-inch scar across the top of my skull, several longer scars across my lower back, and other little chunks of metal in other places. I deal with an incredibly severe amount of physical pain 24 hours a day, and sometimes, it's just about all I can to do to walk around my house.

I have enough on my plate just getting up in the morning and doing what I necessarily have to do; I don't have the ambition to prepare 5,000-word dissertations on the Summa Theologica, okay? You wanna debate, swell. Find somebody younger, stronger, and more energetic than I am. I don't have too many years left on this infected little dustball (thanks be to God for His ineffable mercies!), and what's left of them I'd like to spend in relative peace, without arguing theology. I'm sorry if I come across as flippant or irritable. It's simply that I know what is right, and I know what is wrong; I know what the Catholic Faith teaches, and no non-ex cathedra document from the Vatican skating close to the wire is going to change that.

Have a good day. Benedicat vos omnipotens Deus, Pater +, et Filius +, et Spiritus Sanctus +.

 

[Michie]

The Coming Fiducia Fallout | Fr. Dwight Longenecker

The recent document Fiducia Supplicans signed off by Pope Francis is probably the most disastrous piece of work in what will be seen as the worst papacy in the 20th-21st centuries. My comments here have nothing to do with the issue of same sex attraction. I have no opinion on those matters...

dwightlongenecker.com

 

[Michie]

Müller - ‘Fiducia supplicans’ is ‘self-contradictory’

'The only blessing of Mother Church is the truth' writes Cardinal Gerhard Müller

www.pillarcatholic.com

 

[Michie]

Vatican Prefect: ‘Fiducia Supplicans’ Draws ‘Some Negative Reactions’ From Christian Leaders

In his interview with EWTN, which will be aired on Sunday, Jan. 21, on ‘Vaticano,’ Cardinal Kurt Koch further discussed the implications of the declaration and how the issue of same-sex blessings has divided the Western churches. Cardinal Koch also indicated that he wrote to Cardinal Víctor...

www.ncregister.com

 

[Michie]

Former gay activist: Fiducia Supplicans hurts those ‘struggling for chastity’

Luca Di Tolve, Mister Gay Italy 1990 and a former homosexual activist, posted a reflection on his website regarding the declaration Fiducia Supplicans.

www.catholicnewsagency.com

 

[Michie]

The Good News About Fiducia Supplicans

Fiducia Supplicans does, as Cardinal Fernández and Pope Francis hoped it would, provide clarity; it just isn’t the clarity they wanted.

crisismagazine.com

 

[Michie]

Marking One Month of ‘Fiducia Supplicans’: Opposition Shows No Signs of Abating

Criticism of the document that authorized the blessing of same-sex couples is seen as unprecedented by some Church historians.

www.ncregister.com

‘Fiducia Supplicans’: A Pastor’s View

The great joy of a parish priest is to be with the people of God, elbow deep in the midst of their joys, sorrows and sufferings. The fatherly vocation of the parish priest is to teach, govern and sanctify his parishioners in Christ’s name. This is done by teaching and shepherding, exhorting and...

www.christianforums.com

Etc. and this not even the tip of the iceberg when it comes to concern with this document from clergy within the RCC.