I imagine they are just really really clueless, like pure ivory tower intellectuals trying to repair a dishwasher or a leak under the kitchen sink, but the fact remains (as evidenced by Gov. Chris Christie) that the event of issuing the document has caused some public non-hypothetical amount of scandal for which someone is going to need to repent.
They are NOT “just really, really clueless.” Every step is calculated. Confusion, chaos, making a mess. This has been the agenda for the past 10 years.
Yeah, I don't really understand how to relate to Pope Francis anymore aside from daily prayers for his conversion.
If a woman finds messages on her husband's phone back and forth with another woman saying "that was a fun sleepover" or whatever, and the husband refuses to give any meaningful explanations for the years of back-and-forth between them that sound an awful lot like marital infidelity, she's not doing the right thing by "taking a charitable view" in excusing him, she's just lying to herself. It doesn't mean she'd be justified in divorce or infidelity of her own, but she'd be actively in denial of truth if she didn't admit to herself that something is terribly wrong with her husband.
Perhaps if enough conservative American Republicans weigh in and say they've changed their minds on same-sex marriage because of this document, Pope Francis will crack down and offer a stern, orthodox take on the issue.
The National Catholic Register also has an article about an interview the Cardinal gave to a German magazine yesterday. I honestly don't know what to make of all this anymore (also read the Ukrainian Catholic bishop's comments on FS), and so I'm just trying to be docile to the Holy Spirit. I do think it's good for me to continue to take in what the shepherds of the Church are saying about this topic, and I can trust God to lead me. Otherwise, I'm doomed. Lord have mercy!
As I have said elsewhere in this forum: the only interpretation needed for the intent of FS is the photo of Fr JM SJ in the NYT the very day after the publication of the document, blessing a couple of his long-time friends in his apartment in NYC. Do you think a photographer from the NYT just happened to be passing by at the moment? Or is it more likely that he was told in advance by his confrère in Rome what he should arrange to do?
I assume he is the kind of person who believes in intentional cultivation of business networks (there is a certain degree of quid pro quo in such cultivation), and therefore I assume that he knows one or two people who work at the NYT who would show up on a moment's notice for an event that would be certain to benefit both parties. So then he would only need a moment's notice. It's possible in addition that intentional cultivation of business networks could have provided him with something more than a moment's notice (in that case I would expect it to have leaked in several directions, like some other things have done, but I don't follow news enough to know whether this was the case.)
Yes. Father Martin is savvy and shrewd and has many NYC connections. I guarantee that once FS dropped to the public, he immediately made 2 phone calls: his gay pals, and his NYT correspondent/contributor. "Be at x location, at x time"
I think by indicating that the development does not concern the blessing of couples, all the DDF is doing is previewing the inevitable walk back as a further clarification indicates that the blessings are to individuals in irregular couples, but not as couples.
It obliterates the original intent to get as close as possible to blessing gay marriage without doing so. But it is the only defensible position.
Going to be awfully hard to "clarify" the problems away of this dumpster fire.
How to get around the 2021 statement from the DDF that the Church and her ministers cannot bless sin? How about Jesuitical word games that make no sense and don't fool anybody?
You can bless a couple, but not the thing that makes them a couple, which is gravely sinful romantic and erotic behavior that makes them spiritually dead. Right.
I can't wait for part 2 of this disaster, when we learn that if we change the meaning of the word "ordination", the Church can ordain people who happen to be women, but not the "woman" part of the person but the rest of her, because a woman can't be ordained but "people" can be and so the sacrament only falls on the part of the woman that is not a woman but rather common to all humanity. Don't worry, this is totally in keeping with Sacred Tradition, we just need a more expansive understanding of "ordinations" according to some stuff that was just invented by an erotic poet / putative "theologian" last week.
In the PR world, this is floating a lead balloon and then, seeing it sink, doubling down and saying it wasn’t really a balloon nor was it made of lead nor did it sink and if you think any of those things the problem is you. Only in this case instead of a float it was a hard launch. On the bright side, each new batch of words seems to be rife with its own eventual undoing. God protect the Church and God keep all of us sinners from mucking the path He wants.
What distinction is there between a "spontaneous, non-ritual blessing," especially one that uses phrases like the sample text provided, and a prayer? Other than the fact that the former involves making the sign of the cross "on each of the [...] persons"?
I see people saying that before Vatican II, non-liturgical blessings, viewed as sacramentals, were more common, but I'm not sure I really get the difference between those and prayers either.
Before FS, all blessings were considered to be liturgical. The new development of the document was the category of non-liturgical blessings that didn't exist before. Spontaneous means unplanned. Non-ritual means there isn't an approved wording, like in the Book of Blessings. Sacramental means a source of grace from the Church that works according to the disposition of the cleric who blesses it and that of the recipient. A Sacramental is made by a ritual blessing of an object (like water or a medal). A thing could be spontaneous and ritual, or planned and non-ritual.
I'm not sure I understand liturgical/non-liturgical. Historically, liturgical has meant either worship, or specifically public worship. And to keep things interesting, a priest offering Mass in his home chapel by himself is an act of public worship, and a hermit praying the Liturgy of the Hours by herself is an act of public worship, because both of those are always offered with the whole Church. I've heard claims that because the priesthood is by nature a public office since he is ordained for the people, he can't do anything pertaining to worship that isn't public worship. Obviously all blessings are an act of worship, so the idea of a non-liturgical blessing from a priest is a bit confusing to me. But I'm pretty sure that the blessings of Sacramentals are liturgical blessings.
As I understand it, the distinction between prayer and blessing is that a prayer is asking God for something, which is something a layperson, or a non-Catholic atheist for that matter, can do. A blessing is an authoritative invocation, which you must have authority over the other person to do. So a priest can bless deacons and laypeople. A father or mother can bless a child. But while a child can pray for their parents, he can't bless them. You can bless your food or your house, but you can't bless someone else's house. But you can pray for their house, and a priest can bless someone else's house.
Such blessings were more common everywhere before Vatican 2. But they are still common now, if you happen to be traditionalist, or live in parts of the world where such customs were not practically suppressed like the Philippines.
I don't know a lot about these things, but I see people saying that the notion that "all blessings are considered to be liturgical" is something that was emphasized by Vatican II, and that the notion of a non-liturgical blessing was more common beforehand.
Correct on the V2 emphasis. Another way in which the Francis Pontificate is undermining the authoritative interpretation of the Council cemented by his predecessors. We don't even know what Vatican 2 actually is supposed to teach anymore - back where we were in 1970: "Square 1"
Interesting that the clarification doesn't seem to address at all that the major point of contention (for a lot of people) is not the distinction between "spontaneous" and "ritual" blessings, but the concept that a "couple" can be blessed *as a couple* rather than individuals without blessing their union.
In all of his post-FS communications, Cardinal Fernandez has stated ad nauseum that the couple is blessed and the union is not blessed--which is precisely what FS says. To him, the distinction has been made and reiterated over and over, including in this press release. The idea that you couldn't bless the couple without necessarily also blessing their union is an absurdity to him.
I understand that is what he says, but him asserting that it is the case does not explain how it can be the case.
Either the couple has a spiritual reality beyond the individuals themselves or it does not. If not, then fair game and FS really says nothing new beyond the 2021 document beyond the liturgical and spontaneous distinction. That would be very easy to clear up and resolve a lot of the scandal people are having towards it. But if couple as an object of blessing actually does have a spiritual reality to it that is not reducible to the two individuals, such that a blessing for the couple is indeed not the same as blessing the two individuals, it seems impossible by definition that you can bless the couple without blessing the union.
If you are sufficiently assuaged by Cdl. Fernández' statements that his language about blessing the couple is indeed merely sloppy language and that there's nothings more here, then good for you, but that's the point at issue for a lot of people and I personally don't think it's an unreasonably high bar for the DDF to be... you know... clear about doctrine.
But the understanding of what something is, inherently tied up in the terminology itself, is where we run into the problems that +Fernandez cannot (or does not want to) seem to grasp. This is like saying that the explicit phrase "blessing a family" is fundamentally different in type from "blessing multiple individual persons, two of whom are married and are the parents of the other individuals, all together at the same time." The word "family" indicates a certain unity inseperable from the individuals.
Does he think that if he just keeps repeating his poor defense enough times, we'll stop asking these questions? I mean, probably. High-ranking prelates are absolutely exploiting the benefit of the doubt that faithful Catholics want to give to the institutional Church.
It seems noteworthy that in the sample “blessing” described in this press release the couple is not blessed at all but rather the individuals (unless I misunderstood something). Perhaps this is a tacit acknowledgment that it is difficult in practice to separate couplehood from union even for the cardinal.
I read the "clarification" and one line that stands out to me is "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» (quoting FS). The phrase that bothers me is "without officially validating their status" -- that word "officially." Why is that word there at all? Is unofficial validation okay? That is certainly how the world (and the Fr. James Martins in the Church) are reading FS.
Plausible deniability. It's tradecraft: "It's not a 'war'... it's a 'Police Action' which means the country is not 'officially' at war with anyone in southeast asia"
OK. I was just wondering: why give blessings to a couple at the same time if it’s possible to bless each individual in particular? The whole idea of spontaneous blessing, the novelty of the declaration, could have been presented without any reference to couples, unions, or anything of that sort.
The purpose of the declaration, with all due respect, doesn’t seem to introduce a liturgical novelty, but to give the first step towards blessing gay couples and second-union couples. The way the DDF chose to do it was presenting the possibility of blessing irregular couples alongside a theological-liturgical novelty.
Another point: Pope Francis wrote a letter saying that the new DDF should “give reasons for our hope, but not as an enemy who critiques and condemns’, and then the press release concerning the reception of FS states: “It remains vital that these Episcopal Conferences do not support a doctrine different from that of the Declaration signed by the Pope, given that it is perennial doctrine”.
Really?
Another passage from the letter Pope Francis wrote to new prefect: “It is good that your task expresses that the Church ‘encourages the charism of theologians and their scholarly efforts’ as long as they are not ‘content with a desk-bound theology’ [8], with a ‘a cold and harsh logic that seeks to dominate everything’ [9].
Conclusion: the charism of theologians needs to encouraged, as long as theologians do not challenge the lack of logic of some documents released by the DDF.
P.S.: I think the Holy Spirit is doing some work here.
"The purpose of the declaration, with all due respect, doesn’t seem to introduce a liturgical novelty, but to give the first step towards blessing gay couples and second-union couples."
Fiducia Supplicans itself tells you the purpose of the declaration: "The above-mentioned Responsum elicited numerous and varied reactions: some welcomed the clarity of the document and its consistency with the Church’s perennial teaching; others did not share the negative response it gave to the question or did not consider the formulation of its answer and the reasons provided in the attached Explanatory Note to be sufficiently clear. To meet the latter reaction with fraternal charity, it seems opportune to take up the theme again and offer a vision that draws together the doctrinal aspects with the pastoral ones in a coherent manner because “all religious teaching ultimately has to be reflected in the teacher’s way of life, which awakens the assent of the heart by its nearness, love, and witness.” (FS 3)
In other words, the purpose of Fiducia Supplicans is to elaborate on the teaching of the 2021 Responsa (which stated "God cannot bless sin") in charitable refutation of those who dissented from its conclusions (ie, the German Bishops). How is this born out by the rest of the document?
FS immediately begins by explicitly stating that teaching on marriage and sexual morality is unchanging (FS 4), and that the Church has no power to bless same sex unions (FS 5). The remainder of the declaration then elaborates on the different kinds of blessings in order to establish the absolute upper limit to the kind of blessing that could be bestowed upon such couples: a blessing for those who do not seek legitimation of their sins (FS 31) but who ask for God's help in living according to the Gospel (FS 31), which is the same blessing available to all who recognize themselves as sinners (FS 32) and who do not receive any legitimation of their sins thereby (FS 40). In order to ensure that such blessings for couples cannot be construed as to be a blessing for illicit unions (again, explicitly prohibited in FS 4-5), numerous explicit prohibitions are established concerning the circumstances (FS 39), appearances (FS 40), and content (FS 38) of such blessings.
Thus, the purpose of Fiducia Supplicans is accomplished: clearly delineating that same-sex and irregular couples can only receive a blessing proper to all sinners which imparts no approval upon their particular sins.
The discourse says one thing; the reality points to a very different thing. There’s a name for that kind of behavior: gaslighting.
What we have witnessed here is the DDF practicing gaslighting with his fellow bishops and the entire community of faithful people.
I’m not happy when I write that; I am profoundly disappointed and perplexed. It’s a shame using subterfuges to promote a new kind of behavior: the subterfuge here is creating a new species of blessing, so we cal all see irregular couples being blessed, but not their unions.
But what is a couple? Are those couples in a tennis match, playing doubles? No, they’re not. The definition of a couple involves a relationship.
So, here another gaslighting moment: depriving words from their original sense, trying to deceive people and outsmart them, saying something that it is,actually it’s not, according to that new “pastoral” approach.
A third gaslighting moment: the new kind of blessing is a pastoral approach. Normally, pastoral means welcoming people and conducting them to salvation. It’s not a safe-conduct, a pass, authorizing a condescending approach. In the Gospels, Jesus said: “Repent, and believe in the gospel”. But the “pastoral” approach says quite the opposite: Believe in the Gospel and we see what we can do with that repent part.
It’s a gaslighting moment because invert the meaning of pastoral. Invert the order we see in the Gospel.
Pastoral is also used as a symbol of charity. So, if we are against that new sense of pastoral, we are against charity. We are automatically bad people.
We can use a term like gaslighting to describe the behavior of the DDF in this case. However, it occurs to me a more ancient name for that: sophistry. The DDF acted like a sophist.
What should we all do? Well, we should act like Plato and Aristotle and expose the sophistry and attach ourselves to the truth. To the Truth.
My understanding is that obedience to the Pope has limits, for example a woman is not obligated to submit to a Pope's request to being a "papal mistress", as there have been in the past, because it would be participation in the sin of fornication.
Now, since public approval of blessings of same-sex couples by bishops in their diocese will inevitably produce scandal (as we have already seen), could bishops not refuse obedience in this matter so that they wouldn't be participating in the sin of scandal?
I can see a bishop stating that he approves of blessings of individuals within a couple, but not as a couple, so as to avoid the inevitability of scandal, but this would seem to go against FS, which states that the blessings can(must?) be bestowed upon couples as couples.
The clarification says that the main point of the declaration was to distinguish between two types of blessing, a liturgical/formal blessing and a more spontaneous/informal blessing. If such is the case, I would ask why the declaration did not simply address that issue alone rather than wade into the whole question of blessing same sex couples as supposedly distinguished from unions. Anyone with the least comprehension of the modern world knows that if a text addresses a technical theological issue and any issue dealing with same sex couples, the public's attention will be drawn almost exclusively to the latter issue. Any technical conclusion will be subsumed by arguments about the more controversial one. Furthermore, anyone with the least understanding of pastoral ministry will know that very few people will see any significant difference between blessing a couple and blessing the union that makes them a couple. If Cardinal Fernandez and others at the DDF do not comprehend these fairly obvious realities, then it is time for them to appreciate the wisdom and experience of clerics and other church workers who are closer to the people.
The answer of why is either that A) they are completely ignorant geriatrics who have no sense of the times and think that we still live in 1959, or B) they know exactly what kind of environment we exist in today and this is deliberate.
If the former, they have no business shepherding the Church at such enormous levels of authority, power, and jurisdiction. If the latter, they have no business shepherding the Church at such enormous levels of authority, power, and jurisdiction.
While there's no doubt the declaration has caused unfortunate confusion, I have to say I think what the cardinal has expounded--especially with today's clarification, but even before--if read charitably is pretty reasonable and commonsensical. The distinction between a ritualized and a spontaneous blessing seems, to me, to be less some kind of theological innovation and more just a recognition of practical pastoral behavior for priests. Two people approach a priest and ask for a blessing. Ought the priest to interrogate their relationship before any blessing? Even if he thinks he knows the nature of the relationship, ought he to presume their state before God, and on that presumption refuse? Their state is that they desire a blessing--something appropriate for saints and sinners to desire and to receive. Why could or would such a blessing be expected not to work some change, renewal, or conversion in those who receive it? The instruction outlines cases that would imply some imprimatur beyond the simple blessing, and says care must be taken to avoid them.
I think it's simply the hot-button politics of homosexuality in our culture--and the disjunction of that politics in other cultures, where other topics are hot-button ones instead--that is creating most of the agitation here. We can say that was predictable; we can say it should have been couched better in light of those cultural sensitivities; we can say more should have been done to head off the public misappropriation of the instruction for ideological purposes. But I would think a lot of priests who aren't driven by ideology but simply want to best serve the people around them are grateful for the declaration.
We could also say that blessings are to be given to individuals not couples. If two individuals want individual blessings they should both receive them separately. Anything else appears to be blessing sin.
"The distinction between a ritualized and a spontaneous blessing seems, to me, to be less some kind of theological innovation and more just a recognition of practical pastoral behavior for priests."
No, pastorally I think such a distinction makes no difference whatsoever. Because to the person receiving the blessing, that distinction doesn't really exist. They don't notice (almost, see below) that I've ever seen whether the blessing is done from a ritual book (from Book of Blessings [BoB], the Rite of Marriage, Rite of Baptism, etc.) or one made up spontaneously by the cleric. No one has ever asked me to give them a blessing out of the BoB instead of one I make up myself. I do use the BoB when it seems appropriate to me, but when I've given a similar blessing not using it (for convenience or other pastoral reasons), nobody has ever said anything like, "O, I guess that's not as good/effective a blessing as out of the book." (The opposite has been suggested a couple times.)
Oh Ho trust me people notice lol. I admit I move in somewhat “catholic nerdy” circles but me and mine DEFINITELY notice when father busts out the book of blessings - when I brought in a new statue of OLOG I received as a gift to be blessed, Father said hold on a second and came back with it and we commented “oooh boy it’s an official blessing!” :)
In addition, I have personally have asked for the blessing for pregnant mothers from the BOB as well as for after miscarriage.
Not to say I would complain should Father give an Extemporaneous blessing! Of course not! But just to clarify there are those of us (and our children ) who definitely notice when you use it and who also seek out a specific one.
It is staggering to see such a rapid transformation (or deterioration) in the way the Vatican doctrinal office works. Given the problems of the clunky old Vatican website, I'm sure many of us welcome the arrival of a faster pace of communications (even if rather slow by twenty-first-century standards), but it is disconcerting to say the least to see an official release of a dicastery using prose like "We are talking about something that lasts about 10 or 15 seconds. Does it make sense to deny these kinds of blessings to these two people who ask for them?" This reads like something someone might post in a reddit thread rather than like an official pronouncement of the Roman Catholic Church on its teaching. Does anyone else feel like you are being talked down to by the cardinal here?
Amid all the absurdities, perhaps the most galling item in this new release is the following: "It remains vital that these episcopal conferences do not support a doctrine different from that of the declaration signed by the pope, given that it is perennial doctrine, but rather that they recommend the need for study and discernment so as to act with pastoral prudence in such a context." First off, note that he emphasizes "signed by the pope," which has been something widely discussed and questioned in the early going after the release of FS. Indeed, we must say, sadly, that the doctrine of FS does seem to be what the pope would like to teach. But the implication that, say, the African bishops are in danger of rejecting "perennial doctrine" in their negative responses to FS is entirely laughable. It is entirely more likely that the blessings seemingly endorsed by FS, even with the sophistic and now practically infamous couple/union distinction are the only responses in danger of breaking with "perennial doctrine."
So much here also seems to depend on weakening the force or meaning of the term blessing. By making it non-liturgical, and now even removing it from proximity to the altar, it seems to be making it more and more like a lay thing rather than a priestly one. But even we as laypeople have some dignity and some judgement to exercise, do we not? Suppose a friend who in an invalid marriage or other such union asked for support and affection. I would offer it. But suppose this friend asked me to "give my blessing" to him and his "wife." This common lay usage of the word blessing seems pretty close to what the DDF is envisioning here. Of course in conscience I would have to refuse. Even if I care for my friend very much, I can't countenance a pretended marriage and the best advice I would be able to offer him would be to fix his situation as soon as possible. Is this painful? Yes. Does following Jesus sometimes create tensions and divisions in relationships and even in families? Yes. The cardinal's ridiculous document and all the attendant interviews and press releases suggest rather that one should just go along to get along in such a situation, since giving someone a blessing probably doesn't matter all that much anyway. Ridiculous.
I read the post on the Vatican website yesterday and did find it very odd how casual the language was, and yes it felt a bit like a “do I really have to spell this out for you?”
I watched a youtube video of a long sermon (which was reposted by a prominent Cathtuber) that posed the notion that "Fiducia Supplicans is God's way of testing our faith in the Magisterium, like trying gold by fire"
I was shocked. The Magisterium is given a Divine Protection against not just explicit error by the letter, but also against leading the faithful into grave error. How can I have faith in the reliability of the Magisterium if the mechanisms of the Ordinary Magisterium is the very thing that is testing my faith? I can understand a trial from an external threat (like nation-states or persecutions), or even an internal threat that isn't representative of the Church (like the clerical abuse crisis) but God would be a cruel cruel master to test my faith in the indefectibility of His Church by using the *ordinary and essential* functions of the Church itself to undermine my own trust in it.
Unfortunately Graham isn't wrong. This is a case where Francis and Fernandez got too clever and tripped over their own complex steps of a dance
I imagine they are just really really clueless, like pure ivory tower intellectuals trying to repair a dishwasher or a leak under the kitchen sink, but the fact remains (as evidenced by Gov. Chris Christie) that the event of issuing the document has caused some public non-hypothetical amount of scandal for which someone is going to need to repent.
They are NOT “just really, really clueless.” Every step is calculated. Confusion, chaos, making a mess. This has been the agenda for the past 10 years.
Yeah, I don't really understand how to relate to Pope Francis anymore aside from daily prayers for his conversion.
If a woman finds messages on her husband's phone back and forth with another woman saying "that was a fun sleepover" or whatever, and the husband refuses to give any meaningful explanations for the years of back-and-forth between them that sound an awful lot like marital infidelity, she's not doing the right thing by "taking a charitable view" in excusing him, she's just lying to herself. It doesn't mean she'd be justified in divorce or infidelity of her own, but she'd be actively in denial of truth if she didn't admit to herself that something is terribly wrong with her husband.
My choice of the word "imagine" was intentional.
Perhaps if enough conservative American Republicans weigh in and say they've changed their minds on same-sex marriage because of this document, Pope Francis will crack down and offer a stern, orthodox take on the issue.
The National Catholic Register also has an article about an interview the Cardinal gave to a German magazine yesterday. I honestly don't know what to make of all this anymore (also read the Ukrainian Catholic bishop's comments on FS), and so I'm just trying to be docile to the Holy Spirit. I do think it's good for me to continue to take in what the shepherds of the Church are saying about this topic, and I can trust God to lead me. Otherwise, I'm doomed. Lord have mercy!
*yawn* Wake me when the Vatican starts slapping down the Germans.
And correcting Father James Martin who seems to have violated the spirit of Fiducia Supplicans..
As I have said elsewhere in this forum: the only interpretation needed for the intent of FS is the photo of Fr JM SJ in the NYT the very day after the publication of the document, blessing a couple of his long-time friends in his apartment in NYC. Do you think a photographer from the NYT just happened to be passing by at the moment? Or is it more likely that he was told in advance by his confrère in Rome what he should arrange to do?
I assume he is the kind of person who believes in intentional cultivation of business networks (there is a certain degree of quid pro quo in such cultivation), and therefore I assume that he knows one or two people who work at the NYT who would show up on a moment's notice for an event that would be certain to benefit both parties. So then he would only need a moment's notice. It's possible in addition that intentional cultivation of business networks could have provided him with something more than a moment's notice (in that case I would expect it to have leaked in several directions, like some other things have done, but I don't follow news enough to know whether this was the case.)
Yes. Father Martin is savvy and shrewd and has many NYC connections. I guarantee that once FS dropped to the public, he immediately made 2 phone calls: his gay pals, and his NYT correspondent/contributor. "Be at x location, at x time"
I used to travel in these circles in NYC and...
Yes. You are correct.
I think by indicating that the development does not concern the blessing of couples, all the DDF is doing is previewing the inevitable walk back as a further clarification indicates that the blessings are to individuals in irregular couples, but not as couples.
It obliterates the original intent to get as close as possible to blessing gay marriage without doing so. But it is the only defensible position.
Doubtful he does it, but a successor will
Going to be awfully hard to "clarify" the problems away of this dumpster fire.
How to get around the 2021 statement from the DDF that the Church and her ministers cannot bless sin? How about Jesuitical word games that make no sense and don't fool anybody?
You can bless a couple, but not the thing that makes them a couple, which is gravely sinful romantic and erotic behavior that makes them spiritually dead. Right.
I can't wait for part 2 of this disaster, when we learn that if we change the meaning of the word "ordination", the Church can ordain people who happen to be women, but not the "woman" part of the person but the rest of her, because a woman can't be ordained but "people" can be and so the sacrament only falls on the part of the woman that is not a woman but rather common to all humanity. Don't worry, this is totally in keeping with Sacred Tradition, we just need a more expansive understanding of "ordinations" according to some stuff that was just invented by an erotic poet / putative "theologian" last week.
This is going to happen, but I predict the focus will be on expanding the meaning of "deacon" rather than "ordain".
Fiducia Supplicans explicitly reaffirms the 2021 Responsa; there is nothing to get around.
And meanwhile, what had Cardinal Beccu been up to lately.?
In the PR world, this is floating a lead balloon and then, seeing it sink, doubling down and saying it wasn’t really a balloon nor was it made of lead nor did it sink and if you think any of those things the problem is you. Only in this case instead of a float it was a hard launch. On the bright side, each new batch of words seems to be rife with its own eventual undoing. God protect the Church and God keep all of us sinners from mucking the path He wants.
What distinction is there between a "spontaneous, non-ritual blessing," especially one that uses phrases like the sample text provided, and a prayer? Other than the fact that the former involves making the sign of the cross "on each of the [...] persons"?
I see people saying that before Vatican II, non-liturgical blessings, viewed as sacramentals, were more common, but I'm not sure I really get the difference between those and prayers either.
Before FS, all blessings were considered to be liturgical. The new development of the document was the category of non-liturgical blessings that didn't exist before. Spontaneous means unplanned. Non-ritual means there isn't an approved wording, like in the Book of Blessings. Sacramental means a source of grace from the Church that works according to the disposition of the cleric who blesses it and that of the recipient. A Sacramental is made by a ritual blessing of an object (like water or a medal). A thing could be spontaneous and ritual, or planned and non-ritual.
I'm not sure I understand liturgical/non-liturgical. Historically, liturgical has meant either worship, or specifically public worship. And to keep things interesting, a priest offering Mass in his home chapel by himself is an act of public worship, and a hermit praying the Liturgy of the Hours by herself is an act of public worship, because both of those are always offered with the whole Church. I've heard claims that because the priesthood is by nature a public office since he is ordained for the people, he can't do anything pertaining to worship that isn't public worship. Obviously all blessings are an act of worship, so the idea of a non-liturgical blessing from a priest is a bit confusing to me. But I'm pretty sure that the blessings of Sacramentals are liturgical blessings.
As I understand it, the distinction between prayer and blessing is that a prayer is asking God for something, which is something a layperson, or a non-Catholic atheist for that matter, can do. A blessing is an authoritative invocation, which you must have authority over the other person to do. So a priest can bless deacons and laypeople. A father or mother can bless a child. But while a child can pray for their parents, he can't bless them. You can bless your food or your house, but you can't bless someone else's house. But you can pray for their house, and a priest can bless someone else's house.
Such blessings were more common everywhere before Vatican 2. But they are still common now, if you happen to be traditionalist, or live in parts of the world where such customs were not practically suppressed like the Philippines.
I don't know a lot about these things, but I see people saying that the notion that "all blessings are considered to be liturgical" is something that was emphasized by Vatican II, and that the notion of a non-liturgical blessing was more common beforehand.
Correct on the V2 emphasis. Another way in which the Francis Pontificate is undermining the authoritative interpretation of the Council cemented by his predecessors. We don't even know what Vatican 2 actually is supposed to teach anymore - back where we were in 1970: "Square 1"
Where in Vatican 2?
Interesting that the clarification doesn't seem to address at all that the major point of contention (for a lot of people) is not the distinction between "spontaneous" and "ritual" blessings, but the concept that a "couple" can be blessed *as a couple* rather than individuals without blessing their union.
In all of his post-FS communications, Cardinal Fernandez has stated ad nauseum that the couple is blessed and the union is not blessed--which is precisely what FS says. To him, the distinction has been made and reiterated over and over, including in this press release. The idea that you couldn't bless the couple without necessarily also blessing their union is an absurdity to him.
I understand that is what he says, but him asserting that it is the case does not explain how it can be the case.
Either the couple has a spiritual reality beyond the individuals themselves or it does not. If not, then fair game and FS really says nothing new beyond the 2021 document beyond the liturgical and spontaneous distinction. That would be very easy to clear up and resolve a lot of the scandal people are having towards it. But if couple as an object of blessing actually does have a spiritual reality to it that is not reducible to the two individuals, such that a blessing for the couple is indeed not the same as blessing the two individuals, it seems impossible by definition that you can bless the couple without blessing the union.
If you are sufficiently assuaged by Cdl. Fernández' statements that his language about blessing the couple is indeed merely sloppy language and that there's nothings more here, then good for you, but that's the point at issue for a lot of people and I personally don't think it's an unreasonably high bar for the DDF to be... you know... clear about doctrine.
But the understanding of what something is, inherently tied up in the terminology itself, is where we run into the problems that +Fernandez cannot (or does not want to) seem to grasp. This is like saying that the explicit phrase "blessing a family" is fundamentally different in type from "blessing multiple individual persons, two of whom are married and are the parents of the other individuals, all together at the same time." The word "family" indicates a certain unity inseperable from the individuals.
Does he think that if he just keeps repeating his poor defense enough times, we'll stop asking these questions? I mean, probably. High-ranking prelates are absolutely exploiting the benefit of the doubt that faithful Catholics want to give to the institutional Church.
Great point, Joe A. I would have appreciated seeing clarification on this point re: “couple”.
It seems noteworthy that in the sample “blessing” described in this press release the couple is not blessed at all but rather the individuals (unless I misunderstood something). Perhaps this is a tacit acknowledgment that it is difficult in practice to separate couplehood from union even for the cardinal.
I read the "clarification" and one line that stands out to me is "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» (quoting FS). The phrase that bothers me is "without officially validating their status" -- that word "officially." Why is that word there at all? Is unofficial validation okay? That is certainly how the world (and the Fr. James Martins in the Church) are reading FS.
Plausible deniability. It's tradecraft: "It's not a 'war'... it's a 'Police Action' which means the country is not 'officially' at war with anyone in southeast asia"
The hauteur of the original "expect no clarifications" was a clear indication of the spiritual condition of the author.
OK. I was just wondering: why give blessings to a couple at the same time if it’s possible to bless each individual in particular? The whole idea of spontaneous blessing, the novelty of the declaration, could have been presented without any reference to couples, unions, or anything of that sort.
The purpose of the declaration, with all due respect, doesn’t seem to introduce a liturgical novelty, but to give the first step towards blessing gay couples and second-union couples. The way the DDF chose to do it was presenting the possibility of blessing irregular couples alongside a theological-liturgical novelty.
Another point: Pope Francis wrote a letter saying that the new DDF should “give reasons for our hope, but not as an enemy who critiques and condemns’, and then the press release concerning the reception of FS states: “It remains vital that these Episcopal Conferences do not support a doctrine different from that of the Declaration signed by the Pope, given that it is perennial doctrine”.
Really?
Another passage from the letter Pope Francis wrote to new prefect: “It is good that your task expresses that the Church ‘encourages the charism of theologians and their scholarly efforts’ as long as they are not ‘content with a desk-bound theology’ [8], with a ‘a cold and harsh logic that seeks to dominate everything’ [9].
Conclusion: the charism of theologians needs to encouraged, as long as theologians do not challenge the lack of logic of some documents released by the DDF.
P.S.: I think the Holy Spirit is doing some work here.
"The purpose of the declaration, with all due respect, doesn’t seem to introduce a liturgical novelty, but to give the first step towards blessing gay couples and second-union couples."
Fiducia Supplicans itself tells you the purpose of the declaration: "The above-mentioned Responsum elicited numerous and varied reactions: some welcomed the clarity of the document and its consistency with the Church’s perennial teaching; others did not share the negative response it gave to the question or did not consider the formulation of its answer and the reasons provided in the attached Explanatory Note to be sufficiently clear. To meet the latter reaction with fraternal charity, it seems opportune to take up the theme again and offer a vision that draws together the doctrinal aspects with the pastoral ones in a coherent manner because “all religious teaching ultimately has to be reflected in the teacher’s way of life, which awakens the assent of the heart by its nearness, love, and witness.” (FS 3)
In other words, the purpose of Fiducia Supplicans is to elaborate on the teaching of the 2021 Responsa (which stated "God cannot bless sin") in charitable refutation of those who dissented from its conclusions (ie, the German Bishops). How is this born out by the rest of the document?
FS immediately begins by explicitly stating that teaching on marriage and sexual morality is unchanging (FS 4), and that the Church has no power to bless same sex unions (FS 5). The remainder of the declaration then elaborates on the different kinds of blessings in order to establish the absolute upper limit to the kind of blessing that could be bestowed upon such couples: a blessing for those who do not seek legitimation of their sins (FS 31) but who ask for God's help in living according to the Gospel (FS 31), which is the same blessing available to all who recognize themselves as sinners (FS 32) and who do not receive any legitimation of their sins thereby (FS 40). In order to ensure that such blessings for couples cannot be construed as to be a blessing for illicit unions (again, explicitly prohibited in FS 4-5), numerous explicit prohibitions are established concerning the circumstances (FS 39), appearances (FS 40), and content (FS 38) of such blessings.
Thus, the purpose of Fiducia Supplicans is accomplished: clearly delineating that same-sex and irregular couples can only receive a blessing proper to all sinners which imparts no approval upon their particular sins.
The discourse says one thing; the reality points to a very different thing. There’s a name for that kind of behavior: gaslighting.
What we have witnessed here is the DDF practicing gaslighting with his fellow bishops and the entire community of faithful people.
I’m not happy when I write that; I am profoundly disappointed and perplexed. It’s a shame using subterfuges to promote a new kind of behavior: the subterfuge here is creating a new species of blessing, so we cal all see irregular couples being blessed, but not their unions.
But what is a couple? Are those couples in a tennis match, playing doubles? No, they’re not. The definition of a couple involves a relationship.
So, here another gaslighting moment: depriving words from their original sense, trying to deceive people and outsmart them, saying something that it is,actually it’s not, according to that new “pastoral” approach.
A third gaslighting moment: the new kind of blessing is a pastoral approach. Normally, pastoral means welcoming people and conducting them to salvation. It’s not a safe-conduct, a pass, authorizing a condescending approach. In the Gospels, Jesus said: “Repent, and believe in the gospel”. But the “pastoral” approach says quite the opposite: Believe in the Gospel and we see what we can do with that repent part.
It’s a gaslighting moment because invert the meaning of pastoral. Invert the order we see in the Gospel.
Pastoral is also used as a symbol of charity. So, if we are against that new sense of pastoral, we are against charity. We are automatically bad people.
We can use a term like gaslighting to describe the behavior of the DDF in this case. However, it occurs to me a more ancient name for that: sophistry. The DDF acted like a sophist.
What should we all do? Well, we should act like Plato and Aristotle and expose the sophistry and attach ourselves to the truth. To the Truth.
My understanding is that obedience to the Pope has limits, for example a woman is not obligated to submit to a Pope's request to being a "papal mistress", as there have been in the past, because it would be participation in the sin of fornication.
Now, since public approval of blessings of same-sex couples by bishops in their diocese will inevitably produce scandal (as we have already seen), could bishops not refuse obedience in this matter so that they wouldn't be participating in the sin of scandal?
I can see a bishop stating that he approves of blessings of individuals within a couple, but not as a couple, so as to avoid the inevitability of scandal, but this would seem to go against FS, which states that the blessings can(must?) be bestowed upon couples as couples.
Sure bishops *could respond a you suggest, but they get would be Stricklanded. Unless, of course, they agreed to be papal mistresses themselves.
The clarification says that the main point of the declaration was to distinguish between two types of blessing, a liturgical/formal blessing and a more spontaneous/informal blessing. If such is the case, I would ask why the declaration did not simply address that issue alone rather than wade into the whole question of blessing same sex couples as supposedly distinguished from unions. Anyone with the least comprehension of the modern world knows that if a text addresses a technical theological issue and any issue dealing with same sex couples, the public's attention will be drawn almost exclusively to the latter issue. Any technical conclusion will be subsumed by arguments about the more controversial one. Furthermore, anyone with the least understanding of pastoral ministry will know that very few people will see any significant difference between blessing a couple and blessing the union that makes them a couple. If Cardinal Fernandez and others at the DDF do not comprehend these fairly obvious realities, then it is time for them to appreciate the wisdom and experience of clerics and other church workers who are closer to the people.
The answer of why is either that A) they are completely ignorant geriatrics who have no sense of the times and think that we still live in 1959, or B) they know exactly what kind of environment we exist in today and this is deliberate.
If the former, they have no business shepherding the Church at such enormous levels of authority, power, and jurisdiction. If the latter, they have no business shepherding the Church at such enormous levels of authority, power, and jurisdiction.
While there's no doubt the declaration has caused unfortunate confusion, I have to say I think what the cardinal has expounded--especially with today's clarification, but even before--if read charitably is pretty reasonable and commonsensical. The distinction between a ritualized and a spontaneous blessing seems, to me, to be less some kind of theological innovation and more just a recognition of practical pastoral behavior for priests. Two people approach a priest and ask for a blessing. Ought the priest to interrogate their relationship before any blessing? Even if he thinks he knows the nature of the relationship, ought he to presume their state before God, and on that presumption refuse? Their state is that they desire a blessing--something appropriate for saints and sinners to desire and to receive. Why could or would such a blessing be expected not to work some change, renewal, or conversion in those who receive it? The instruction outlines cases that would imply some imprimatur beyond the simple blessing, and says care must be taken to avoid them.
I think it's simply the hot-button politics of homosexuality in our culture--and the disjunction of that politics in other cultures, where other topics are hot-button ones instead--that is creating most of the agitation here. We can say that was predictable; we can say it should have been couched better in light of those cultural sensitivities; we can say more should have been done to head off the public misappropriation of the instruction for ideological purposes. But I would think a lot of priests who aren't driven by ideology but simply want to best serve the people around them are grateful for the declaration.
We could also say that blessings are to be given to individuals not couples. If two individuals want individual blessings they should both receive them separately. Anything else appears to be blessing sin.
"The distinction between a ritualized and a spontaneous blessing seems, to me, to be less some kind of theological innovation and more just a recognition of practical pastoral behavior for priests."
No, pastorally I think such a distinction makes no difference whatsoever. Because to the person receiving the blessing, that distinction doesn't really exist. They don't notice (almost, see below) that I've ever seen whether the blessing is done from a ritual book (from Book of Blessings [BoB], the Rite of Marriage, Rite of Baptism, etc.) or one made up spontaneously by the cleric. No one has ever asked me to give them a blessing out of the BoB instead of one I make up myself. I do use the BoB when it seems appropriate to me, but when I've given a similar blessing not using it (for convenience or other pastoral reasons), nobody has ever said anything like, "O, I guess that's not as good/effective a blessing as out of the book." (The opposite has been suggested a couple times.)
Oh Ho trust me people notice lol. I admit I move in somewhat “catholic nerdy” circles but me and mine DEFINITELY notice when father busts out the book of blessings - when I brought in a new statue of OLOG I received as a gift to be blessed, Father said hold on a second and came back with it and we commented “oooh boy it’s an official blessing!” :)
In addition, I have personally have asked for the blessing for pregnant mothers from the BOB as well as for after miscarriage.
Not to say I would complain should Father give an Extemporaneous blessing! Of course not! But just to clarify there are those of us (and our children ) who definitely notice when you use it and who also seek out a specific one.
It is staggering to see such a rapid transformation (or deterioration) in the way the Vatican doctrinal office works. Given the problems of the clunky old Vatican website, I'm sure many of us welcome the arrival of a faster pace of communications (even if rather slow by twenty-first-century standards), but it is disconcerting to say the least to see an official release of a dicastery using prose like "We are talking about something that lasts about 10 or 15 seconds. Does it make sense to deny these kinds of blessings to these two people who ask for them?" This reads like something someone might post in a reddit thread rather than like an official pronouncement of the Roman Catholic Church on its teaching. Does anyone else feel like you are being talked down to by the cardinal here?
Amid all the absurdities, perhaps the most galling item in this new release is the following: "It remains vital that these episcopal conferences do not support a doctrine different from that of the declaration signed by the pope, given that it is perennial doctrine, but rather that they recommend the need for study and discernment so as to act with pastoral prudence in such a context." First off, note that he emphasizes "signed by the pope," which has been something widely discussed and questioned in the early going after the release of FS. Indeed, we must say, sadly, that the doctrine of FS does seem to be what the pope would like to teach. But the implication that, say, the African bishops are in danger of rejecting "perennial doctrine" in their negative responses to FS is entirely laughable. It is entirely more likely that the blessings seemingly endorsed by FS, even with the sophistic and now practically infamous couple/union distinction are the only responses in danger of breaking with "perennial doctrine."
So much here also seems to depend on weakening the force or meaning of the term blessing. By making it non-liturgical, and now even removing it from proximity to the altar, it seems to be making it more and more like a lay thing rather than a priestly one. But even we as laypeople have some dignity and some judgement to exercise, do we not? Suppose a friend who in an invalid marriage or other such union asked for support and affection. I would offer it. But suppose this friend asked me to "give my blessing" to him and his "wife." This common lay usage of the word blessing seems pretty close to what the DDF is envisioning here. Of course in conscience I would have to refuse. Even if I care for my friend very much, I can't countenance a pretended marriage and the best advice I would be able to offer him would be to fix his situation as soon as possible. Is this painful? Yes. Does following Jesus sometimes create tensions and divisions in relationships and even in families? Yes. The cardinal's ridiculous document and all the attendant interviews and press releases suggest rather that one should just go along to get along in such a situation, since giving someone a blessing probably doesn't matter all that much anyway. Ridiculous.
Which again makes you wonder why FS was written and released to begin with?
To distract from Becciu and Rupnik?
I read the post on the Vatican website yesterday and did find it very odd how casual the language was, and yes it felt a bit like a “do I really have to spell this out for you?”
Hard to imagine a press release like this from the pen of Cdl. Ratzinger when he was prefect.
I watched a youtube video of a long sermon (which was reposted by a prominent Cathtuber) that posed the notion that "Fiducia Supplicans is God's way of testing our faith in the Magisterium, like trying gold by fire"
I was shocked. The Magisterium is given a Divine Protection against not just explicit error by the letter, but also against leading the faithful into grave error. How can I have faith in the reliability of the Magisterium if the mechanisms of the Ordinary Magisterium is the very thing that is testing my faith? I can understand a trial from an external threat (like nation-states or persecutions), or even an internal threat that isn't representative of the Church (like the clerical abuse crisis) but God would be a cruel cruel master to test my faith in the indefectibility of His Church by using the *ordinary and essential* functions of the Church itself to undermine my own trust in it.