Yesterday the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith under Cardinal Víctor Fernández, and with the approval of Pope Francis, released Fiducia Supplicans, which gives explicit approval for priests to impart a blessing on same-sex couples and couples in “irregular situations.” This declaration by the Vatican is another in a long line of shocking but sadly not surprising actions taken during the pontificate of Francis.
As commonly happens with such controversial documents, many Catholics are trying to blame the media for misrepresentations of the text. “The pope didn’t approve of blessings for same-sex relationships!” “This doesn’t change anything!” and other such nonsense. In an effort to determine what the document actually says, I’ve excerpted a number of paragraphs below with an explanation of its underlying meaning. The full text can be found at the link above.
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1. The supplicating trust of the faithful People of God receives the gift of blessing that flows from the Heart of Christ through his Church. Pope Francis offers this timely reminder: “The great blessing of God is Jesus Christ. He is the great gift of God, his own Son. He is a blessing for all humanity, a blessing that has saved us all. He is the Eternal Word, with whom the Father blessed us ‘while we were still sinners’ (Rom. 5:8), as St. Paul says. He is the Word made flesh, offered for us on the cross.”[1]
The guiding principle of this document is that it is a teaching of Pope Francis, and Pope Francis alone. Of the 31 footnotes found at the end of the text, 20 of them (65%) reference the current pope. There is absolutely no attempt to situate this novel practice within the Catholic tradition; in fact, we’ll see later that Fernández presents this as a “broadening” of the theology of blessings.
4. Pope Francis’ recent response to the second of the five questions posed by two Cardinals[4] offers an opportunity to explore this issue further, especially in its pastoral implications. It is a matter of avoiding that “something that is not marriage is being recognized as marriage.”[5] 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”[6]—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.
The most insidious aspect of modern heresy is that it loudly proclaims itself to be orthodox. But it divorces orthodoxy from orthopraxy. So while Fernández affirms “the Church’s doctrine on this point remains firm,” the reality is that blessing sinful romantic relationships undermines that very doctrine.
Progressive Catholics like Fernández (and Francis) strictly compartmentalize human behavior. There is what we believe, and completely separate from that belief is how we act. So on the one hand we can vocally proclaim that we affirm the Church’s teaching on marriage, while on the other hand we take actions to attack the very foundations of that teaching.
Contrast this with the perennial Catholic principle of lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi: “the law of what is prayed [is] what is believed [is] the law of what is lived.” Man is a unified composite of body and soul, and the soul is a unified composite of intellect, will, and the passions. It is anti-human to seek to separate these elements. Any physical action taken, including a blessing, imparts real meaning. If one takes an action that means one thing but then professes an opposing view, then one is either a schizophrenic or a liar.
7. The Holy Father’s above-mentioned response invites us to broaden and enrich the meaning of blessings.
This line, in a nutshell, represents the problematic nature of Francis’s entire pontificate. What is the role of a pope? Is it to “broaden and enrich” our theology? Or is it to profess and guard what has been handed down to us since the time of the apostles? If you are Catholic, there is only one correct answer to this question.
Pope Francis reminds me of those popular Protestant pastors who become too enamored with their own importance. Over time, they begin to believe that God has chosen them—and only them—for a special role of leading God’s people where no one ever did before. They cannot be questioned, even when their new teachings are clearly inconsistent with a plain reading of Scripture or even any basic understanding of Christianity.
A pope, on the other hand, does his job best when he “disappears,” when he allows the tradition to be his guide and simply points to it. He is to be like John the Baptist, pointing the way to the savior.
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9. From a strictly liturgical point of view, a blessing requires that what is blessed be conformed to God’s will, as expressed in the teachings of the Church.
Note the language used to constrict and even vilify the traditional Catholic meaning of blessings: “From a strictly liturgical point of view.” There should be no separation between liturgy and life. When a priest “spontaneously” blesses someone or something, it is a liturgical action, even if it’s not strictly defined in Church rubrics. This is because liturgy is our public worship of God, and the act of a priest imparting a blessing on a person, a thing, or a couple, is necessarily included in that public act. Fernández (and the pope) seek to separate that union of liturgy and life, making liturgy just something we do in Church and under specific guidelines. Liturgy becomes a dead letter instead of what gives us life.
12. 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.
A recurring theme of the Francis pontificate is that somehow rules restrict God’s love and mercy. They are rigid and controlling. Yet the reality is that these rules are made to help us better follow Him. A father who did not set any rules for his children is not just a bad father, he is an abuser. Yet Fernández blanches at the idea of “too many moral prerequisites,” thus undermining any prerequisites at all.
Is a father controlling when he tells his 5yo son he can’t play with a knife? Is it rigid for a parent to restrict how many desserts a child can have after dinner? The reason that the Church has always placed restrictions on the use of blessings is that she know that God does not bless all of human activity, and, in fact, some of that human activity is condemned because it separates us from His loving embrace.
20. One who asks for a blessing 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. To seek a blessing in the Church is to 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.
How does Fernández know the inner thoughts and feelings of someone asking for a blessing? Is he gifted with some type of universal telepathy? People can ask for blessings for a whole host of reasons: asking for God’s presence, asking for His approval, validating oneself to the Church and the world, cultural customs, etc.
