Archbishop José María Gil Tamayo presides over the Archdiocese of Granada, Spain. (Credit: Archdiocese of Granada)
ACI Prensa Staff, Jan 26, 2024 / 05:30 am (CNA).
“I am not going to bless even one homosexual union,” said the archbishop of Granada, Spain, José María Gil Tamayo, when asked about the application of the declaration Fiducia Supplicans on the pastoral meaning of blessings, published in December by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF).
In a meeting with journalists held on the feast day of St. Francis de Sales, the patron saint of journalists, Jan. 24, Gil stated that his intention is to “bless the person” without having to do “a ceremony,” according to Europe Press.
The prelate read a statement expressing the position of the archdiocese regarding Fiducia Supplicans and said that, “in communion with Pope Francis, he will proceed with respect to nonliturgical pastoral blessings with a pastoral meaning, faithfully observing what the Holy See indicated in the Fiducia Supplicans declaration and in the subsequent explanatory note.”
This manner of proceeding will be carried out “with painstaking respect for the unalterable doctrine of the Church on true marriage and irregular unions, avoiding all confusion and seeking the good of the faithful,” the statement concludes.
According to the Europa Press report, during the conversation with the media Gil added that he is not going to participate in campaigns framed in terms of being “for or against” the pontiff.
The Spanish bishops on Fiducia Supplicans
Several Spanish bishops have spoken out since the publication of the Vatican document on the pastoral meaning of blessings. The first to do so was the bishop of Orihuela-Alicante, José Ignacio Munilla, who summed up the document as not containing heresies but whose application, he predicted, will be “chaotic.”
Munilla subsequently determined that in his diocese any request for a blessing by homosexual or other couples in an irregular situation should be in consultation with the vicar general, “until a correct praxis is consolidated, or, where appropriate, until a possible publication of diocesan guidelines.”
The bishop of Almería, Antonio Gómez Cantero, defended the declaration as “very precise” and encouraged “reading the entire document” before issuing opinions on the matter. Furthermore, he explained that he has already blessed homosexual couples in the past.
The archbishop of Oviedo, Jesús Sanz, has spoken on several occasions about the document. Most recently on social media he called Fiducia Supplicans “demagogy that twists the Christian tradition and the magisterium of the Church.”
What is the Fiducia Supplicans declaration?
The Fiducia Supplicans declaration on the pastoral meaning of blessings is a document published by the DDF on Dec. 18, 2023, and signed by Pope Francis; the DDF prefect, Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández; and the secretary of the doctrinal section, Father Armando Matteo.
Its contents drew various reactions from numerous bishops and episcopal conferences, sometimes eliciting a cautious reception and other times pointed criticism, such that the DDF published a note on Jan. 4 in order to “help clarify the reception of Fiducia Supplicans.”
The note emphasizes that the declaration is neither “heretical” nor “blasphemous” and that bishops cannot prohibit pastoral blessings. It also recognizes the particular situation of some countries, particularly in Africa, and offers guidelines for distinguishing between liturgical and pastoral blessings.
On Jan. 11, the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar (SECAM) published a document, with the endorsement of Pope Francis and Fernández, which concludes that it would be imprudent to apply Fiducia Supplicans in these countries.
Two days later, Pope Francis responded during a meeting with the priests of the Diocese of Rome “to questions about the blessing of same-sex couples, stating that it does not change the doctrine on the sacrament of marriage between a man and a woman. Persons are blessed, not sin.”
On Jan. 15, during a television interview, Pope Francis urged critics to raise their doubts: “When decisions are not accepted, it’s because they are not understood. When you don’t like it, go talk, ask your questions and have a fraternal discussion,” he said.
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
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Pope Benedict XVI announced his intention to resign the papacy during a meeting of cardinals Feb. 11, 2013. The surprise announcement, which he made in Latin, took place in the Hall of the Consistory in the Vatican’s apostolic palace. / Vatican Media
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jan 2, 2023 / 06:00 am (CNA).
On Feb. 11, 2013, before a gathering of cardinals who had come to the Vatican expecting to hear the announcement of upcoming canonizations, Pope Benedict XVI dropped a bombshell.
After a few announcements about Church business at the conclusion of the meeting, the pope took out two sheets of paper and read a prepared statement in Latin.
“I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry,” the then 85-year-old pontiff told the gathering of the Catholic Church’s highest-ranking clergymen.
Because he spoke in Latin, the language used for official Vatican proclamations, reporters present did not at first realize that the pope had just stepped down.
‘Total surprise, total shock’
The assembled cardinals, on the other hand, who knew their Latin, reacted with stunned silence.
American Cardinal James Stafford later told CNA that the pope’s statement was received with “total surprise, total shock.”
“A cardinal who was sitting next to me said, ‘Did he resign?’ I said, ‘Yes, that’s what he did. He resigned.’ And we just all stood at our places.”
Cardinals react to Pope Benedict XVI’s announcement of his intention to resign the papacy Feb. 11, 2013. The surprise announcement, which Benedict made in Latin, took place in the Hall of the Consistory in the Vatican’s apostolic palace. Vatican Media
Nigeria’s Cardinal Francis Arinze, who was present that morning, said the announcement was a “surprise, like thunder that gives no notice that it’s coming,” reported The Catholic Telegraph.
In renouncing the papacy, Benedict became only the second pope in almost 600 years to voluntarily step down. In 1294, Pietro da Morrone, an elderly hermit, was crowned Pope Celestine V, but finding the demands of the job too much for him, he resigned after only five months.
In 1415, Pope Gregory XII also resigned, but under very different circumstances — he stepped down in order to end a crisis within the Church known as the Great Western Schism.
Title, white clothes, and papal coat of arms
What happened next with Benedict XVI was no less surprising to those who expected him to live as a retired cardinal.
In his last official statement as pope, before a general audience on Feb. 27, 2013, Pope Benedict assured the tens of thousands of people gathered to hear him speak as pope for the last time that even though he was stepping back from official duties, he would remain, in essence, pope.
“The ‘always’ is also a ‘forever’ — there can no longer be a return to the private sphere. My decision to resign the active exercise of the ministry does not revoke this,” Benedict said.
“I do not return to private life, to a life of travel, meetings, receptions, conferences, and so on. I am not abandoning the cross, but remaining in a new way at the side of the crucified Lord,” he told the crowd.
A day earlier, on Feb. 26, 2013, the director of the Vatican Press Office, Father Federico Lombardi, had silenced speculation over what Benedict would be called and what he would wear. He would, Lombardi said, retain the trappings of the papacy — most significantly, his title and dress.
“He will still be called His Holiness Benedict XVI,” Lombardi said. “But he will also be called Pope Emeritus or Roman Pontiff Emeritus.”
Lombardi said Benedict would continue to wear a white cassock but without the mozzetta, the short cape that covers the shoulders. The pope’s fisherman’s ring would be replaced by a ring from his time as cardinal. The red shoes would go as well, Lombardi said, and be replaced by a pair of brown ones.
“The city of León is known for beautiful shoes, and very comfortable shoes. And when the pope was asked what he wanted to wear he said, ‘I want the shoes from León in Mexico,’” Lombardi said at the press conference.
On May 2, the cardinal who designed Benedict’s coat of arms in 2005 told CNA that he had written the pope emeritus suggesting that his coat of arms would need to be redesigned to reflect his new status. Cardinal Andrea Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo proposed making the keys of St. Peter smaller and less prominent.
“That shows that he had a historic possession but not a current jurisdiction,” said the cardinal at the time.
Benedict, however, it seems, politely declined a new coat of arms. La Stampa reported the following year that the Vatican Publishing House’s manual of ecclesiastical heraldry in the Catholic Church contained the following note:
“Expressing deep appreciation and heartfelt gratitude to the author for the interesting study sent to him, [Benedict] made it known that he prefers not to adopt an expressive heraldic emblem of the new situation created with his renouncing of the Petrine Ministry.”
By his decision to continue to dress in white like the pope, retain the title of pope, and keep the coat of arms of his papacy, Benedict revealed that in giving up the “active exercise of the ministry,” he was not forsaking the role of pope altogether.
Pope Francis and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI pray together at the papal residence in Castel Gandolfo March 23, 2013, their first meeting after Francis’ election. Vatican Media
An expanded Petrine ministry
In his 2013 announcement, Benedict clearly expressed his intention to step aside, even determining the date and time of his official departure. Nonetheless, his decision to keep the title of pope and maintain the ceremonial protocol that goes along with the papacy led some to speculate whether there were not actually “two popes.”
Benedict’s personal secretary and closest confidante, Archbishop Georg Gänswein, sought to clear up any confusion in 2016.
In a speech at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome on May 20, 2016, Gänswein said that Pope Francis and Benedict are not two popes “in competition” with one another but represent one “expanded” Petrine office with “an active member” and a “contemplative.”
Parsing Benedict’s speech, Gänswein explained that in stepping down, Benedict was not giving up his ministry.
“The key word in that statement is ‘munus petrinum,’ translated — as happens most of the time — with ‘Petrine ministry.’ And yet, ‘munus,’ in Latin, has a multiplicity of meanings: It can mean service, duty, guide, or gift, even prodigy. Before and after his resignation, Benedict understood and understands his task as participation in such a ‘Petrine ministry [munus],’” Gänswein said.
“He left the papal throne and yet, with the step he took on Feb. 11, 2013, he has not abandoned this ministry,” Gänswein explained, saying the latter scenario was something “quite impossible after his irrevocable acceptance of the office in April 2005.”
Benedict himself later made clear in an interview with his biographer Peter Seewald that he saw himself as continuing in his ministry. He said that a pope who steps down is like a father whose role changes, but always remains a father.
“Of course a father does not stop being father, but he is relieved of concrete responsibility. He remains a father in a deep, inward sense, in a particular relationship which has responsibility, but not with day-to-day tasks as such. It was also this way for bishops,” Benedict said.
“I think it is also clear that the pope is no superman and his mere existence is not sufficient to conduct his role, rather he likewise exercises a function.
“If he steps down, he remains in an inner sense within the responsibility he took on, but not in the function. In this respect one comes to understand that the office of the pope has lost none of its greatness, even if the humanity of the office is perhaps becoming more clearly evident,” Benedict said.
Benedict’s decision “not to abandon his ministry” inspired a cottage industry of conspiracy theories, with some questioning whether the pope emeritus truly stepped down because of his age and frailty.
George Weigel, author of the definitive biography of St. John Paul II, “Witness to Hope,” dismissed such speculation in an interview with CNA.
“I have no reason to think that there was anything more to Pope Benedict’s resignation than what he said was its cause: his conviction that he no longer had the strength, physical and intellectual, to give the Church what it needed from a pope,” he said.
“Everything else written about this is sheer speculation. Let’s take Benedict at his word,” Weigel said.
A life of prayer
In retiring to live in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican Gardens, Benedict did not completely withdraw from the world. He attended public events in his new capacity as pope emeritus, received visitors, and pursued a life of fruitful study, writing, and prayer.
Pope Francis visits Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI at the Mater Ecclesiae monastery in Vatican City to exchange Christmas greetings Dec. 23, 2013. Vatican Media
Matthew Bunson, Catholic historian, author, and executive editor of EWTN News, told CNA that Benedict was determined not to exercise authority in his new role.
“He really embraced what it means to be pope emeritus, and refrained from making public comments, to instead live a life of prayer and reflection,” Bunson said.
“Benedict really was on retreat, and in prayer,” he said, “and that means we have his prayer for us as a Church.”
While becoming increasingly frail, Benedict continued to celebrate Mass daily with the other residents of the monastery and was known to enjoy spending time in the Vatican Gardens praying his daily rosary.
In the fall of 2021, more than eight years after Benedict stepped down, his private secretary, Gänswein, told Domradio in Cologne, Germany, that Benedict was “stable in his frailty.”
He described the pope emeritus as very weak physically but still clear in mind. Gänswein said he had not lost his “typical Bavarian humor.”
The meaning of Benedict’s renunciation for future popes
In 2013, after Benedict announced that he would step down as pope, Father Gianfranco Ghirlanda, a Jesuit theologian and canonist chosen by Pope Francis to be a cardinal, wrote an essay on what should happen when a pope steps down.
In the article, published in Civiltà Cattolica, Ghirlanda suggested the retiring Benedict take the title bishop emeritus of Rome.
“It is evident that the pope who has resigned is no longer pope; therefore he no longer has any power in the Church and cannot interfere in any government affair. One may wonder what title Benedict XVI will retain. We think that he should be given the title of bishop emeritus of Rome, like any other diocesan bishop who ceases,” he said.
In December 2021, at a congress on papal resignations, Ghirlanda took up the theme again.
“Having two people with the title of ‘pope,’ even if one added ’emeritus,’ it cannot be said that this might not generate confusion in public opinion,” he said.
To make clear that the pope who resigns is no longer pope, he said, he should perhaps be called “former Roman pontiff” or “former supreme pontiff.”
Pope Francis in July 2022 told reporters that if he were to retire from the papacy he would do things differently from his predecessor.
“The first experience went very well,” Pope Francis said, because Benedict XVI “is a holy and discreet man.”
In the future, however, “it would be better to define things or explain them better,” the pontiff added.
“I am the bishop of Rome. In that case I would be the bishop emeritus of Rome,” he said, and then suggested he would live in St. John Lateran Palace rather than at the Vatican.
Father James Jackson, FSSP, delivers the homily at the funeral Mass for slain Boulder police officer Eric Talley on March 29, 2021, at the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Denver, Colorado / Screenshot of FSSP YouTube video
So, let’s get on with a harmonized “fraternal investigation”! Participants can include all of Africa, plus Poland, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Peru, and part of France and now parts of Spain.
Asia, Africa, Europe and South America, four of the continents assembled in the continental Synod 2023! (also less vocal: the “cautious” North America, the Middle East, and Oceania).
The global continents versus Germanic incontinence?
But with the seven continental synods, why pray tell do we still omit the continent of Antarctica???
Perhaps because in moral theology nothing can be BOTH black and white, and down under, so to speak, we happen to see some 20 million penguins synodally “walking together.”
“The global continents versus Germanic incontinence?”
“Sorry, dear Peter D. Beaulieu, the ‘pope’ says: “FS same-sex blessings are only opposed by a few small ideologue groups; with Africa as a special case.”!!!
R. R. Reno, the editor of ‘First Things’ gives a correctively truthful account:
♦ During the week before Christmas, Rome issued Fiducia Supplicans, a woolly-headed document about blessing same-sex couples. Anything remotely resembling a marriage blessing is streng verboten. But it’s OK to use exquisitely refined pastoral judgment sometimes, in some circumstances, to bless same-sex couples. The document strikes a clear note: Nothing can be blessed that is counter to God’s will. But one wonders: couples? We’re not talking about tennis partners. Confusion mounts. Two homosexuals united in a relationship can be blessed as couples, but not as sexual partners? One predicts that Fr. James Martin, Catholicism’s leading Rainbow collaborationist, will jump into the confusion to provide clarification. Indeed, within hours of the release of the document, he offered a blessing to a same-sex couple, helpfully (for his purposes) photographed by the New York Times. They are holding hands, heads bowed, as Fr. Martin makes the sign of the cross. No, no, he was not blessing their sexual relationship! That can’t be done, the Vatican assures us. Except, of course, when it is done, which seems to be the obvious consequence of the document, and possibly its intent.
Dear Deacon Edward: “confusion & division” for sure, but from the viewpoint of the PF coterie it’s all for a necessary cause, as an essential first step towards the normalization of their demonic desire to legitimize ‘informal’ blessing of homosexual relationships among the clergy: deacons, brothers, priests, bishops, archbishops, cardinals & pope.
These ecclesial peers want it hot & appear to be on a slippery slope to eternity in a really hot place. Enjoy, enjoy . . !
Ever in the love of Christ Jesus; blessings from marty
“When decisions are not accepted, it’s because they are not understood”.
How can you have a dialogue when the decision has already been made, presumably without your input because you are just too dense to get it?
Is anyone actually disciplining James Martin for blessing a homosexual couple?
Please don’t tell us Francis wouldn’t allow it. He already has. And he’s doing absolutely nothing to discipline those who bless couples in “irregular” unions, nor to prevent them from doing so.
Do not be fooled. This, and the confusion it fosters, is by design.
The ink didn’t even dry and Martin was blessing gay couples. The rag New York Times covered it. I won’t hold my breath waiting for disciplinary action to come anytime soon.
As the African Bishops pointed out, when the “allowable” blessing is so marginally different than outright approval, it is a GIVEN that many will not understand the subtle difference.It is splitting hairs. It does not matter WHAT the pope “intended”. Or wrote. He didnt have any reason to make this statement to begin with, which is causing massive division within the church. To placate and seeming to give approval to a handful of folks living in sin is actually NOT a good reason. Further, in places like Africa where laws on homosexuality are heavily influenced by Muslim belief, the penalty for such activity is often DEATH. This puts the church in a place of seeming to defend what is culturally unacceptable there on every level. That can only make the church an even bigger target than it is now.
What Tucho and Bergoglio say in the document is window dressing.
Think about it. When Catholics see gay “couples” being blessed by a priest, they are going to conclude that the Church is now blessing gay couples. Because, quite frankly, it is.
They’re not going to know about — or care about — what the document says.
Bergoglio knows this, of course. So he doesn’t mind paying lip service to Catholic beliefs, all the while continuing his efforts to undermine them.
How the adorable Heart of the Beloved is wounded! This is not about persons but about unions or couples, like the palm and the fingers are the coupling that is the hand, distinct yes, separated or otherly, no and never.
Ones intent or intending cannot make the hand or couple-union only a person/s nor the hand only the palm or fingers, no the created reality is a unity, distinct but indivisible, not two or separated…much like the Beloved Himself three but always One and Indivisible, one and never separated. Blessings 🌹 Console Jesus and Mary, may they make us true
Homosexualists want you to confirm for them that they are created that way from within the Blessed Trinity all beyond separation; and have you bless them and praise the Trinity.
But everyone, except for Jesus and the BVM, comes into the world with defect of original sin, in whatever manner it will be discovered. This means that not everything we have by inheritance is ordained from God and not everything likewise is part of Redemption.
I may have a different created complex in original sin nothing to with homosexualism; where nonetheless it has no merit and has to be rejected, NOT part of any journey. I find your idea of “things necessarily conjoined” that “must be in unity”, applied here, is utterly distracted and running to compulsions. Sounds sweet but … What?
We are not created perfect. It is the grace of God that is perfect and leads us in its way steadying and building up reason, nature, what is right and good, faithfulness and attraction to truth. Also teaching us the necessary excisions. We are not brought to it as couples.
Such, are some of the true issues to do with homosexualism that are being left abandoned and left to random forces while the wrong things are given prominence only then infuse deeper confusion and stir up distrust. Having Welby talk about love and Gaza where his other positions are inimical is not our witness.
I want to call attention to the fact that Bergoglio has already succeeded in the first stage of his effort to normalize homoerotic behavior in the Church.
Note that even this Spanish Bishop Gil, who is less than enthused about Sfiducia Supplicans, refers to homosexual individuals as “couples” and as being in “irregular unions.”
I feel compelled to object. Gays with other gays are not “couples.” What they do is neither “union” nor “sex.”
It is nothing more than mutual masturbation, no more resembling the conjugal act than gin rummy or washing your car.
So “gay marriage” is in no way an alternative to marriage, “irregular” or otherwise.
Now, I’m old. And I enjoy being old, because I remember lots of things.
One thing I remember is that, for most of my adult life, from the late sixties through the push for gay “marriage” in the early aughts, the left was dead-set against marriage as an institution.
They would try to undermine marriage whenever and however they could.
“No piece of paper can tell me who to love,” was their mantra.
One of the left’s most reliable and most popular music groups from the sixties and seventies, Crosby, Stills & Nash, even did a song, “Love the One You’re With,” extolling the manifold joys of barnyard promiscuity.
So you can imagine my surprise when the lefties turned on a dime one day about twenty years ago and began wailing about the sad plight of gays who would never find happiness or fulfillment unless they were accorded full acceptance of their “marriages” by our cruel and bigoted society at large.
Why would gays care about having a piece of paper that dictated whom they were allowed to love, I wondered.
Simple. The reality is, the left cares nothing about marriage or its purpose — establishing families and providing a safe, stable, secure home for every child.
The left’s purpose in all this — as is always the case, with every issue they promote — is to undermine families, to promote abortions, to prevent births and to minimize life.
“Polyamory” — the barnyard promiscuity mentioned above — will quite obviously be the next moral outrage embraced by the evil one’s leftist minions.
If Bergoglio lives to see it, I anticipate the apostolic exhortation will be titled, “Fiducia Plures.”
In English, “Imploring Multitudes.”
And humanity’s suffering will once again be exacerbated by the death-dealing left.
Forgive me Lord, Archbishop Gil is not being very courageous nor very correct. “Gil stated that his intention is to ‘bless the person’ without having to do ‘a ceremony,’ according to Europe Press”.
Archbishop Gil is doing exactly what Cardinal Fernández and Pope Francis’ recommend in FS. “I am not going to bless even one homosexual union” [Gil] is an unfortunate fallacy. Example. If we bless ‘the person’ knowing that he she is homosexual we cannot separate person or persons and homosexual behavior. As said it’s a double bind in which the act contains two propositions, blessing of a person or persons and blessing a homosexual person or persons. It’s the act of blessing sinful behavior that’s egregious, not the intent.
In a human act there are two objects of the will, the internal and the external. The internal object willed is the intent, the external is the act. The external act, the materia sine quam, is what the act does. Without which it cannot be an act. It is the object [or moral object alluded to by John Paul II in Veritatis Splendor] of the act. As such morality is determined by what we do, not simply by what we intend. With that said in order for such a blessing to possess moral validity there must be the precondition of some form of repentance.
It is necessary to separate here a case of those homosexuals who come not as a couple i.e. single individuals who can be present in any congregation and those two homosexuals who make a homosexual couple. In the first case, they can and do receive a blessing just as anyone else. In the second they cannot receive a blessing unless they meet certain conditions determined by the Church’s teaching.
A few days ago I published an essay on this topic which discussed the initial maddening argument “we are blessing a homosexual couple as persons and not as a couple” – but apparently this argument meanwhile became a bit more down to earth and slightly less maddening, like an argument of Archbishop Gil. Still, my discourse covers his “way out” as well so I will quote it:
“I am not going to address here the most common argument of the proponents of the blessings of homosexual couples in the Roman Catholic Church who manage to split their conscience to the point of truly believing that blessing a couple does not mean an approval of the very actions which make them a couple because “we are blessing them as persons”. It has been addressed already, by the fact that the Church has been imparting blessings on the all kinds of persons (including homosexual) for all its history hence there was no need of a document that states so – unless one had in a mind something else than blessing a person, in this case the blessing of a couple as a couple. “No, they are blessed as persons”. Here we go again.”
I.e., Archbishop Gil could bless piles of homosexuals before just like anyone else, no problem. ‘FS’ was not about that. ‘FS’ wants him to bless a couple, in however oblique way – to separate them into two corners, reading a prayer over one and then another and so on will not cancel the fact that they came to him as a couple.
Anna. Thanks for your response. I was aware Archbishop Gil was essentially referring to single persons. Couples are taken for granted when it’s apparent that they present themselves as homosexuals. A single person nevertheless is not exempt. If he or she presents as a homosexual with apparent intent to be blessed as a homosexual, thereby seeking approbation, I will not offer a blessing nor should any priest.
Whereas those who approach a priest presenting as homosexuals instead offer the priest an opportunity to speak to them about the faith and the consideration of repentance/conversion of manners. May I ask if your published essay is available online?
I think when a priest blesses a single person (one) he usually cannot see who the person is – a heterosexual or homosexual (unless the latter is beaming with “pride” symbols all over him and then it is another matter of course).
Yes, my essay is available online:
orthodox-christian-icons.com/abomination-of-desolation.html
Anna I read your excellent essay. Your icons are beautiful.
Dear Anna, thank you for the deeply illuminating essay on ‘The Abomination of Desolation’ that is the denial of serious sin by our ecclesial leaders.
Thank you, too, for the lovely ikons on your website.
Anna, a comment here on the transformative implication posed by the parsed theology of FS. This is a singular moment in Church history that the blessing of a person or persons living in sin, by implication any sin and all sin, may be presumed blessed rather than the sin. Whereas the two cannot be separated. It’s the perfect guise to diminish faithful practice.
This manner of proceeding will be carried out “with painstaking respect for the unalterable doctrine of the Church on true marriage and irregular unions, avoiding all confusion and seeking the good of the faithful,” the statement concludes.
Amen. For all of Bergoglio’s hatred for conservative, i.e., orthodox, American bishops, it’s noteworthy that the loudest opposition to his heresy is coming from other shores.
There’s no such reality as a “homosexual union.” The archbishop might consider taking a course in human anatomy and, when finished with that, take a course in the Theology of the Body.
Es claro que esto no lo va leer ni mi abuela (falleció hace mucho), pero,,,,,,,,,1) Si un señor o señora homosexual pide en persona una bendición el sacerdote no puede negarla bajo ningún punto de vista salvo que pida se bendiga “su modo de vida”, no su “persona”. 2) Si una pareja de homosexuales se presenta como tal y como tal pide bendición, no se puede bendecir lo que Dios reprobó.3) El caso de una pareja heterosexual que pide bendición, salvo que hagan alarde de irregularidad el sacerdote no puede negar bendición, porque de internis nemo judicat,y lo que hacen no es “intrínsicamente” malo (como la homosexualidad) y no puede juzgarse si viven como dice S.Pablo II, o si tienen conciencia de la nulidad de su matrimonio anterior, o smplemente si no conviven. Simplemente piden ser bendecidos para hacer de sus vidas lo que Dios quiere, ¿Y quién es el sacerdote para juzgarlos, salvo que ellos lo pidieren?
Pope Francis invites a “fraternal discussion” while Cardinal Parolin suggests the need for an “investigation:” https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2024/01/13/cardinal-parolin-fiducia-supplinas-has-touched-a-very-sensitive-point/
So, let’s get on with a harmonized “fraternal investigation”! Participants can include all of Africa, plus Poland, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Peru, and part of France and now parts of Spain.
Asia, Africa, Europe and South America, four of the continents assembled in the continental Synod 2023! (also less vocal: the “cautious” North America, the Middle East, and Oceania).
The global continents versus Germanic incontinence?
But with the seven continental synods, why pray tell do we still omit the continent of Antarctica???
Perhaps because in moral theology nothing can be BOTH black and white, and down under, so to speak, we happen to see some 20 million penguins synodally “walking together.”
And in response to their God given penguin sense of natural law no less.
“The global continents versus Germanic incontinence?”
“Sorry, dear Peter D. Beaulieu, the ‘pope’ says: “FS same-sex blessings are only opposed by a few small ideologue groups; with Africa as a special case.”!!!
R. R. Reno, the editor of ‘First Things’ gives a correctively truthful account:
♦ During the week before Christmas, Rome issued Fiducia Supplicans, a woolly-headed document about blessing same-sex couples. Anything remotely resembling a marriage blessing is streng verboten. But it’s OK to use exquisitely refined pastoral judgment sometimes, in some circumstances, to bless same-sex couples. The document strikes a clear note: Nothing can be blessed that is counter to God’s will. But one wonders: couples? We’re not talking about tennis partners. Confusion mounts. Two homosexuals united in a relationship can be blessed as couples, but not as sexual partners? One predicts that Fr. James Martin, Catholicism’s leading Rainbow collaborationist, will jump into the confusion to provide clarification. Indeed, within hours of the release of the document, he offered a blessing to a same-sex couple, helpfully (for his purposes) photographed by the New York Times. They are holding hands, heads bowed, as Fr. Martin makes the sign of the cross. No, no, he was not blessing their sexual relationship! That can’t be done, the Vatican assures us. Except, of course, when it is done, which seems to be the obvious consequence of the document, and possibly its intent.
Lies & intrigue, with a diabolical intent. . .
The fact is that Pontiff Francis has created confusion and division in the Body of Christ. About that there can be no doubt.
Dear Deacon Edward: “confusion & division” for sure, but from the viewpoint of the PF coterie it’s all for a necessary cause, as an essential first step towards the normalization of their demonic desire to legitimize ‘informal’ blessing of homosexual relationships among the clergy: deacons, brothers, priests, bishops, archbishops, cardinals & pope.
These ecclesial peers want it hot & appear to be on a slippery slope to eternity in a really hot place. Enjoy, enjoy . . !
Ever in the love of Christ Jesus; blessings from marty
“When decisions are not accepted, it’s because they are not understood”.
How can you have a dialogue when the decision has already been made, presumably without your input because you are just too dense to get it?
And he shouldn’t because Fiducia Supplicans forbids it!!! Pope Francis wouldn’t allow it.
Is anyone actually reading this document before they accuse??
Is anyone actually disciplining James Martin for blessing a homosexual couple?
Please don’t tell us Francis wouldn’t allow it. He already has. And he’s doing absolutely nothing to discipline those who bless couples in “irregular” unions, nor to prevent them from doing so.
Do not be fooled. This, and the confusion it fosters, is by design.
The ink didn’t even dry and Martin was blessing gay couples. The rag New York Times covered it. I won’t hold my breath waiting for disciplinary action to come anytime soon.
As the African Bishops pointed out, when the “allowable” blessing is so marginally different than outright approval, it is a GIVEN that many will not understand the subtle difference.It is splitting hairs. It does not matter WHAT the pope “intended”. Or wrote. He didnt have any reason to make this statement to begin with, which is causing massive division within the church. To placate and seeming to give approval to a handful of folks living in sin is actually NOT a good reason. Further, in places like Africa where laws on homosexuality are heavily influenced by Muslim belief, the penalty for such activity is often DEATH. This puts the church in a place of seeming to defend what is culturally unacceptable there on every level. That can only make the church an even bigger target than it is now.
It does no such thing.
Patrice, don’t be misled.
What Tucho and Bergoglio say in the document is window dressing.
Think about it. When Catholics see gay “couples” being blessed by a priest, they are going to conclude that the Church is now blessing gay couples. Because, quite frankly, it is.
They’re not going to know about — or care about — what the document says.
Bergoglio knows this, of course. So he doesn’t mind paying lip service to Catholic beliefs, all the while continuing his efforts to undermine them.
Yes, did you? The only thing FS excplicitly forbids is respect for and fidelity to Catholic doctrine. Read paragraph 25 carefully.
How the adorable Heart of the Beloved is wounded! This is not about persons but about unions or couples, like the palm and the fingers are the coupling that is the hand, distinct yes, separated or otherly, no and never.
Ones intent or intending cannot make the hand or couple-union only a person/s nor the hand only the palm or fingers, no the created reality is a unity, distinct but indivisible, not two or separated…much like the Beloved Himself three but always One and Indivisible, one and never separated. Blessings 🌹 Console Jesus and Mary, may they make us true
Homosexualists want you to confirm for them that they are created that way from within the Blessed Trinity all beyond separation; and have you bless them and praise the Trinity.
But everyone, except for Jesus and the BVM, comes into the world with defect of original sin, in whatever manner it will be discovered. This means that not everything we have by inheritance is ordained from God and not everything likewise is part of Redemption.
I may have a different created complex in original sin nothing to with homosexualism; where nonetheless it has no merit and has to be rejected, NOT part of any journey. I find your idea of “things necessarily conjoined” that “must be in unity”, applied here, is utterly distracted and running to compulsions. Sounds sweet but … What?
We are not created perfect. It is the grace of God that is perfect and leads us in its way steadying and building up reason, nature, what is right and good, faithfulness and attraction to truth. Also teaching us the necessary excisions. We are not brought to it as couples.
Such, are some of the true issues to do with homosexualism that are being left abandoned and left to random forces while the wrong things are given prominence only then infuse deeper confusion and stir up distrust. Having Welby talk about love and Gaza where his other positions are inimical is not our witness.
I want to call attention to the fact that Bergoglio has already succeeded in the first stage of his effort to normalize homoerotic behavior in the Church.
Note that even this Spanish Bishop Gil, who is less than enthused about Sfiducia Supplicans, refers to homosexual individuals as “couples” and as being in “irregular unions.”
I feel compelled to object. Gays with other gays are not “couples.” What they do is neither “union” nor “sex.”
It is nothing more than mutual masturbation, no more resembling the conjugal act than gin rummy or washing your car.
So “gay marriage” is in no way an alternative to marriage, “irregular” or otherwise.
Now, I’m old. And I enjoy being old, because I remember lots of things.
One thing I remember is that, for most of my adult life, from the late sixties through the push for gay “marriage” in the early aughts, the left was dead-set against marriage as an institution.
They would try to undermine marriage whenever and however they could.
“No piece of paper can tell me who to love,” was their mantra.
One of the left’s most reliable and most popular music groups from the sixties and seventies, Crosby, Stills & Nash, even did a song, “Love the One You’re With,” extolling the manifold joys of barnyard promiscuity.
So you can imagine my surprise when the lefties turned on a dime one day about twenty years ago and began wailing about the sad plight of gays who would never find happiness or fulfillment unless they were accorded full acceptance of their “marriages” by our cruel and bigoted society at large.
Why would gays care about having a piece of paper that dictated whom they were allowed to love, I wondered.
Simple. The reality is, the left cares nothing about marriage or its purpose — establishing families and providing a safe, stable, secure home for every child.
The left’s purpose in all this — as is always the case, with every issue they promote — is to undermine families, to promote abortions, to prevent births and to minimize life.
“Polyamory” — the barnyard promiscuity mentioned above — will quite obviously be the next moral outrage embraced by the evil one’s leftist minions.
If Bergoglio lives to see it, I anticipate the apostolic exhortation will be titled, “Fiducia Plures.”
In English, “Imploring Multitudes.”
And humanity’s suffering will once again be exacerbated by the death-dealing left.
Forgive me Lord, Archbishop Gil is not being very courageous nor very correct. “Gil stated that his intention is to ‘bless the person’ without having to do ‘a ceremony,’ according to Europe Press”.
Archbishop Gil is doing exactly what Cardinal Fernández and Pope Francis’ recommend in FS. “I am not going to bless even one homosexual union” [Gil] is an unfortunate fallacy. Example. If we bless ‘the person’ knowing that he she is homosexual we cannot separate person or persons and homosexual behavior. As said it’s a double bind in which the act contains two propositions, blessing of a person or persons and blessing a homosexual person or persons. It’s the act of blessing sinful behavior that’s egregious, not the intent.
In a human act there are two objects of the will, the internal and the external. The internal object willed is the intent, the external is the act. The external act, the materia sine quam, is what the act does. Without which it cannot be an act. It is the object [or moral object alluded to by John Paul II in Veritatis Splendor] of the act. As such morality is determined by what we do, not simply by what we intend. With that said in order for such a blessing to possess moral validity there must be the precondition of some form of repentance.
Correction: It’s materia circa quam not materia [sine] quam
It is necessary to separate here a case of those homosexuals who come not as a couple i.e. single individuals who can be present in any congregation and those two homosexuals who make a homosexual couple. In the first case, they can and do receive a blessing just as anyone else. In the second they cannot receive a blessing unless they meet certain conditions determined by the Church’s teaching.
A few days ago I published an essay on this topic which discussed the initial maddening argument “we are blessing a homosexual couple as persons and not as a couple” – but apparently this argument meanwhile became a bit more down to earth and slightly less maddening, like an argument of Archbishop Gil. Still, my discourse covers his “way out” as well so I will quote it:
“I am not going to address here the most common argument of the proponents of the blessings of homosexual couples in the Roman Catholic Church who manage to split their conscience to the point of truly believing that blessing a couple does not mean an approval of the very actions which make them a couple because “we are blessing them as persons”. It has been addressed already, by the fact that the Church has been imparting blessings on the all kinds of persons (including homosexual) for all its history hence there was no need of a document that states so – unless one had in a mind something else than blessing a person, in this case the blessing of a couple as a couple. “No, they are blessed as persons”. Here we go again.”
I.e., Archbishop Gil could bless piles of homosexuals before just like anyone else, no problem. ‘FS’ was not about that. ‘FS’ wants him to bless a couple, in however oblique way – to separate them into two corners, reading a prayer over one and then another and so on will not cancel the fact that they came to him as a couple.
Anna. Thanks for your response. I was aware Archbishop Gil was essentially referring to single persons. Couples are taken for granted when it’s apparent that they present themselves as homosexuals. A single person nevertheless is not exempt. If he or she presents as a homosexual with apparent intent to be blessed as a homosexual, thereby seeking approbation, I will not offer a blessing nor should any priest.
Whereas those who approach a priest presenting as homosexuals instead offer the priest an opportunity to speak to them about the faith and the consideration of repentance/conversion of manners. May I ask if your published essay is available online?
I think when a priest blesses a single person (one) he usually cannot see who the person is – a heterosexual or homosexual (unless the latter is beaming with “pride” symbols all over him and then it is another matter of course).
Yes, my essay is available online:
orthodox-christian-icons.com/abomination-of-desolation.html
Anna I read your excellent essay. Your icons are beautiful.
Dear Anna, thank you for the deeply illuminating essay on ‘The Abomination of Desolation’ that is the denial of serious sin by our ecclesial leaders.
Thank you, too, for the lovely ikons on your website.
orthodox-christian-icons.com/abomination-of-desolation.html
Anna, a comment here on the transformative implication posed by the parsed theology of FS. This is a singular moment in Church history that the blessing of a person or persons living in sin, by implication any sin and all sin, may be presumed blessed rather than the sin. Whereas the two cannot be separated. It’s the perfect guise to diminish faithful practice.
“It’s the perfect guise to diminish faithful practice.”
Or even camouflaging their construction of a new anti-Apostolic religion . . ?
Cathocommunism anyone . . ?
This manner of proceeding will be carried out “with painstaking respect for the unalterable doctrine of the Church on true marriage and irregular unions, avoiding all confusion and seeking the good of the faithful,” the statement concludes.
Amen. For all of Bergoglio’s hatred for conservative, i.e., orthodox, American bishops, it’s noteworthy that the loudest opposition to his heresy is coming from other shores.
There’s no such reality as a “homosexual union.” The archbishop might consider taking a course in human anatomy and, when finished with that, take a course in the Theology of the Body.
Es claro que esto no lo va leer ni mi abuela (falleció hace mucho), pero,,,,,,,,,1) Si un señor o señora homosexual pide en persona una bendición el sacerdote no puede negarla bajo ningún punto de vista salvo que pida se bendiga “su modo de vida”, no su “persona”. 2) Si una pareja de homosexuales se presenta como tal y como tal pide bendición, no se puede bendecir lo que Dios reprobó.3) El caso de una pareja heterosexual que pide bendición, salvo que hagan alarde de irregularidad el sacerdote no puede negar bendición, porque de internis nemo judicat,y lo que hacen no es “intrínsicamente” malo (como la homosexualidad) y no puede juzgarse si viven como dice S.Pablo II, o si tienen conciencia de la nulidad de su matrimonio anterior, o smplemente si no conviven. Simplemente piden ser bendecidos para hacer de sus vidas lo que Dios quiere, ¿Y quién es el sacerdote para juzgarlos, salvo que ellos lo pidieren?