Last month, controversy broke out over a pastoral document issued by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith dealing with non-liturgical blessings for people in irregular relationships.
The DDF doc, Fiducia supplicans, was seized upon by sensationalist news outlets in the Death Cult and radical traditionalist media to libel Pope Francis. In the wake of these fake news stories, rumors ran rampant online, falsely claiming that Francis had allowed Catholic priests to bless same-sex unions.
Yet even a cursory reading of the actual document revealed that it reaffirmed unchanging Catholic doctrine on marriage as between one man and one woman.
The DDF doc even stipulated that such blessings could only be given licitly to those who repent of their sinful behavior.
Related: Media Slanders Francis With Fake News
Trained theologians who’d read Fiducia, including yours truly, advised against rash judgment based on wild media reports.
In response to stories of rogue priests blessing same-sex unions per se, it was pointed out that such actions constituted brazen liturgical abuses forbidden by the document.
Related: The Cure for Francis Derangement Syndrome
Now, the DDF has weighed in with new authoritative guidance that further explains the parts of the original document which gave rise to the confusion.
The understandable statements of some Episcopal Conferences regarding the document Fiducia supplicans have the value of highlighting the need for a more extended period of pastoral reflection. What is expressed by these Episcopal Conferences cannot be interpreted as doctrinal opposition, because the document is clear and definitive about marriage and sexuality. There are several indisputable phrases in the Declaration that leave this in no doubt:
«This Declaration remains firm on the traditional doctrine of the Church about marriage, not allowing any type of liturgical rite or blessing similar to a liturgical rite that can create confusion». One acts in these situations of couples in irregular situations «without officially validating their status or changing in any way the Church’s perennial teaching on marriage» (Presentation).
«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» (4).
«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» (5).
«For this reason, since the Church has always considered only those sexual relations that are lived out within marriage to be morally licit, the Church does not have the power to confer its liturgical blessing when that would somehow offer a form of moral legitimacy to a union that presumes to be a marriage or to an extra-marital sexual practice» (11).
Evidently, there is no room to distance ourselves doctrinally from this Declaration or to consider it heretical, contrary to the Tradition of the Church or blasphemous.
To be clearly distinguished from liturgical or ritualized blessings, “pastoral blessings” must above all be very short (see n. 38). These are blessings lasting a few seconds, without an approved ritual and without a book of blessings. If two people approach together to seek the blessing, one simply asks the Lord for peace, health and other good things for these two people who request it. At the same time, one asks that they may live the Gospel of Christ in full fidelity and so that the Holy Spirit can free these two people from everything that does not correspond to his divine will and from everything that requires purification.
With its strong denunciation of same-sex “marriage” and guidance for prayers that those who receive such blessings be freed from and purified of what does not conform to the Gospel, the new doc vindicates Francis on Fiducia.
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I feel like I should start a Cardinal Fernandez fan club. So much better than the previous DDF heads.
Well, he is only the second prefect it’s had since being renamed.
Too funny, yes laughing out loud. Besides savings souls, the other modern function of the Catholic Church is renaming things. Alas, nobody will be going to CCD in the future, thereby making me the best graduate they ever had. 🙂