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

[Wolseley]

It’s pretty egotistical to talk about those including clergy that have real issues with this document as if they are schismatics. As if two or three of you here are the only gifted ones with the understanding to accept this document, which by the way, is not infallible.

They're egotistical and I'm prideful. Maybe we should all get together and go ask for a blessing.

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

I'm afraid that Father Dwight is right on the money. I was particularly taken with the last paragraph:

I do know what ordinary Catholics and Catholic clergy can do. We can be faithful to the gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ in our own lives, our own homes, parishes and schools. As I have said on this blog time and time again, “Don’t worry so much about what is happening in Rome. Worry about what is happening at home. Be faithful at the local level. Local is real. Do what you can with what you have where you are. The answer to confusion is clarity. Be clear in your faith, in your devotion and your Christian witness. Pray, work, witness joyfully and do not be afraid.

Which is precisely what I intend to do. God is not going to judge me on what kind of stuff the Pope or the Vatican churns out; He's going to judge me on how well *I*, personally, applied the teaching of the Faith in my own life. And I am a looooong ways from being perfect.

 

[zippy2006]

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.

I'm afraid you are facing a popesplainer, not someone with theological learning. Antonius' ideas are remarkably uninformed. For example, his thread arguing that no pope could ever be a heretic is filled with the most remarkable misreadings and strained arguments (link). That essay would receive a low grade even in a high school theology class. He has had a smattering of theological instruction and he's in over his head, trying to find arguments for his predetermined conclusion.

Oh, but he's a Lector! He keeps repeating that he's a lector. It's like clericalism without a cleric:

For example, even I, as an Instituted Lector, *cannot* bless water and create holy water.

...lol. I am a lector too. Millions of people are lectors. It doesn't mean much at all, and certainly has no authoritative standing. It means you were instituted to read at Mass. What it really means is that you dropped out of seminary. It is a relic of a bygone age which made use of the minor orders, not a substitute or bolster for argument.

This is a great example of a case where the common Catholic has more understanding than those who are wise in their own eyes. Pretzels indeed.

 

[zippy2006]

How would anyone bless someone as a competitive eater, for instance, when we know that gluttony is a sin? It is still possible to bless said person, of course, but wouldn't it make more sense to do so in a context that isn't constructed around their particular questionable activity, so as to avoid appearing to give cover to many sins, so long as they are identified as some kind of integral part of the person's being? (i.e., anything that can be answered with "As a __________ ...")

In other words, while I believe Pope Francis is correct that it is not possible to bless sin, I do believe that it is possible to present a blessing as blessing sin when that blessing is invoked upon a person in a context which is permissive to sinfulness. For sure, a drunkard should be blessed same as anyone, and it is great to see them in attendance at liturgy, but that is different than blessing the person as a drunkard (cf. blessing gays as members of same-sex couples), since we are not to attempt to have our sins redefined as something else.

So, yeah...it's kind of weird, and seems to be working against what the defenders of this document (and seemingly Pope Francis himself) maintain when they say that the new directive is not blessing same-sex unions.

Too. Much. Common. Sense.

 

[zippy2006]

For many, for whatever reason they cite, he is no longer such. And we cannot, as Vatican I taught, try to dissect the See of St. Peter from its occupant, as though they're separate entities.

Bad arguments don't get better with repetition. See my post here.

 

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