by Michael Haynes, LifeSite News:
In the aftermath of Pope Francis’ new document attesting that priests are permitted to bless “couples in irregular situations and same-sex couples,” the majority of prelates so far have sought to defend and downplay the document’s significance, with others welcoming it as a sign of change.
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Across the U.S. episcopate reactions have as yet been largely muted, with bishops seeking to avoid or downplay Pope Francis and Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández’s December 18 document Fiducia Supplicans, in which the Vatican approved of “blessings” for same-sex couples. Providing the national response was a statement from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), although only from a spokesman, not from a representative bishop.
It read:
The Declaration issued today by the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) articulated a distinction between liturgical (sacramental) blessings, and pastoral blessings, which may be given to persons who desire God’s loving grace in their lives. The Church’s teaching on marriage has not changed, and this declaration affirms that, while also making an effort to accompany people through the imparting of pastoral blessings because each of us needs God’s healing love and mercy in our lives.
Fiducia Supplicans reiterated the Church’s teaching on marriage as only between man and woman, but added that under certain conditions there exists “the possibility of blessings of couples in irregular situations and of same-sex couples.”
In his preamble to the document, Fernández – the new prefect of the Congregation (now Dicastery) for the Doctrine of the Faith – stated that the Church’s teaching on marriage was not changing, but that the document’s “innovative contribution” to, and “broadening” of, the “understanding of blessings” was a “real development from what has been said about blessings in the Magisterium and the official texts of the Church.”
Point of clarification: priests could always bless individuals as individuals, and I cannot envision a priest worth his salt withholding such a blessing. In point of fact, a blessing upon all the faithful occurs at the end of every offering of the Mass—so no need for an…
— Father V (@father_rmv) December 19, 2023
Point of clarification: priests could always bless individuals as individuals, and I cannot envision a priest worth his salt withholding such a blessing. In point of fact, a blessing upon all the faithful occurs at the end of every offering of the Mass—so no need for an…
— Father V (@father_rmv) December 19, 2023
Causing instant consternation in the Catholic world, the text was swiftly welcomed by pro-LGBT advocates, notably including Father James Martin S.J, who said he would now “be delighted to bless my friends in same-sex unions.”
Numerous traditional Catholics have also been swift to highlight the import of the text from the opposite position, however there has also been widespread efforts by both clerical and lay figures to present Fiducia Supplicans as not being in juxtaposition with Church teaching.
Some bishops argued that the text did not offer any possibility of blessing for same-sex couples. Bishop Robert McManus of the Diocese of Worcester wrote the document “reaffirmed that the Church does not have the power to impart a liturgical blessing on irregular or same-sex couples or to bless their union.”
Instead, McManus argued it offered “a type of blessing that can be conferred on anyone to invoke God’s help and mercy in their lives if the individuals seek to be guided by a greater understanding of God’s plan for love and truth. These blessings are offered for the people themselves, not their union.”
But in contrast, Bishop Mark Brennan of the Diocese of Wheeling–Charleston was well aware of the document’s openness to the blessing of homosexual couples. “I guess the change is widening the scope of our consciousness of who can receive blessings,” he said, adding:
