Bishop Rob Mutsaerts, auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of ’s-Hertogenbosch, in the Netherlands. / Danny Gerrits - wikiportret.nl via Wikimedia (CC-BY-SA 4.0).
CNA Newsroom, Jun 7, 2024 / 16:45 pm (CNA).
A Dutch bishop has described the Vatican’s Fiducia Supplicans declaration, which permits nonliturgical blessings of homosexual couples, as an attempt to “make peace with a secular society.”
However, Auxiliary Bishop Rob Mutsaerts of the Diocese of ’s-Hertogenbosch in the Netherlands warned: “Peace at the expense of morality and truth” is a “most merciless peace imaginable.”
“God loves everyone. He loves all sinners, but he hates your sins. He fervently hopes that you will return to him, just as he hoped for the prodigal son’s return. He wants nothing more than for you to share in his love,” Mutsaerts wrote in a foreword to a new book that attacks the declaration.
Titled “The Breached Dam: The Fiducia Supplicans Surrender to the Homosexual Movement,” the book was written by José Antonio Ureta and Julio Loredo de Izcue.
Both authors are affiliated with the Tradition, Family, and Property Association. Ureta, in particular, has been a vocal critic of Pope Francis’ pontificate in recent years.
Mutsaerts has published outspoken posts on his blog, “Paarse Pepers” (Purple Peppers), since 2019. Previous posts have included sharp criticism of the Amazon synod, Pope Francis’ apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia, and “cancel culture.”
In his foreword, the Dutch prelate accused Fiducia Supplicans of not addressing “the moral dimension of the relationship,” instead being more “in tune with the current zeitgeist” that fails to acknowledge that “mercy exists because sin exists.”
“Is everyone welcome? Certainly. But not unconditionally. God makes demands. The entire Bible could be summed up as a call to repentance and a promise of forgiveness. One cannot be separated from the other. Everyone is welcome, but not everyone accepts the invitation,” the 66-year-old Mutsaerts wrote.
Published just before Christmas 2023, Fiducia Supplicans has received mixed reactions and produced deep division among Catholic bishops worldwide.
While supporters have welcomed the document, critics of the controversial decree have raised different concerns, including an alleged lack of synodality and even an attempt at “cultural colonization” in Africa.
Despite clarifications by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, the decree also caused a rift with the Coptic Orthodox Church.
Pope Francis has publicly responded to some questions raised about Fiducia Supplicans.
In an Italian TV talk show in January, the pope underlined that “the Lord blesses everyone” and that a blessing is an invitation to enter into a conversation “to see what the road is that the Lord proposes to them.”
“The Lord blesses everyone who is capable of being baptized, that is, every person,” Francis repeated.
Asked if he “felt alone” after Fiducia Supplicans was met with some resistance, the 87-year-old pontiff said: “Sometimes decisions are not accepted.”
“But in most cases, when you don’t accept a decision, it’s because you don’t understand.”
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Paris, France, Apr 6, 2019 / 03:01 pm (CNA).- The Institut Catholique de Paris hosted a conference Tuesday to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the leadership organization for Catholic bishops’ conferences in Africa, at which the Church in Africa was invited to reflection on inculturation and its relationship with the Church in Europe.
The Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar will hold its golden jubilee in Kampala July 26-30.
She told the publication that the interation between African and European theology means there is a need to discuss “the task of inculturation within a globalized context.”
“We need to be careful not to lean towards exoticism, while preserving all that has meaning in a given culture at a liturgical, ecclesial and Christological level,” Cholvy told La Croix.
The professor noted that those to be evangelized must be considered, while remembering also “that even in the most remote places in Africa, globalization has already arrived.”
According to Cholvy, the Institut Catholique de Paris “welcomes 50% of all doctoral students of Sub-Saharan origin,” and La Croix noted that many African priests and religious are educated in Europe.
The conference discussed Africa’s responsibility for mission; the family; and the relationships between faith and culture, and the Church and society.
Among the speakers at the conference was Fr. Leonard Santedi, rector of the Catholic University of the Congo, who said that SECAM “pursues common reflection above all,” and that “our voice needs to become stronger, less timid and be raised as it has been against Boko Haram in Nigeria.”
According to La Croix, self-reflection on the Church in Africa is hardly a new phenomenon; it noted the 1956 publication of “Des pretres noirs s’interrogent” (“Black priests challenge us”), which has been called “the birth of African theology”. The work, which La Croix said “led to the launch of reflection on African Christianity”, is a collection of more than 10 essays, with a preface by the then-Archbishop of Dakar, Marcel Lefebvre.
In May 2018 SECAM met with representatives of the German bishops’ conference to discuss integral human development, with both groups affirming their need to continue the work of evangelization. Such meetings have been occuring every four to five years since 1982.
The bishops pointed to poverty, misery, disease, and despair in Africa “caused by human greed and corruption, injustices of all kinds and violence and fratricidal wars,” and in Europe, a “dearth of spiritual values, excessive materialism and consumerism, individualism, little or no of respect for the life and rights of the unborn, of the aged and the infirm.”
“All of these evils .. point to the fact that as Church we still have a lot to do in our evangelization mission,” they affirmed.
Bishop Robert Barron. / Credit: Archdiocese of Los Angeles
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jan 11, 2024 / 14:00 pm (CNA).
Speaking on behalf of the U.S. bishops, Bishop Robert Barron condemned the practice of surrogacy, joining Pope Francis in calli… […]
Pope Francis greets a crowd of an estimated 25,000 people gathered in St. Peter’s Square in Rome for his Regina Caeli address on May 22, 2022. / Vatican Media
Vatican City, May 22, 2022 / 07:33 am (CNA).
In his Sunday Regina Caeli address, Pope Francis reflected on Jesus’ words to the disciples at the Last Supper in the Gospel reading from John: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.”
Speaking to an estimated 25,000 pilgrims gathered on a bright day in St. Peter’s Square in Rome, the pope noted that Jesus also makes a point to add, “Not as the world gives do I give it to you” (John 14:27).
“What is this peace that the world does not know and the Lord gives us?” Pope Francis asked.
“This peace is the Holy Spirit, the same Spirit of Jesus. It is the presence of God in us, it is God’s ‘power of peace,'” he explained. “It is He, the Holy Spirit, who disarms the heart and fills it with serenity. It is He, the Holy Spirit, who loosens rigidity and extinguishes the temptations to attack others. It is He, the Holy Spirit, who reminds us that there are brothers and sisters beside us, not obstacles or adversaries.
“It is He, the Holy Spirit, who gives us the strength to forgive, to begin again, to set out anew because we cannot do this with our own strength. And it is with Him, with the Holy Spirit, that we become men and women of peace,” Pope Francis said.
“This is the source of the peace Jesus gives us,” he added. “For no one can leave others peace if they do not have it within themselves. No one can give peace unless that person is at peace.”
Pilgrims at St. Peter’s Square in Rome on May 22, 2022. In his Regina Caeli address, Pope Francis spoke about the peace of Christ. Vatican Media
Pope Francis said, “Let us learn to say every day: ‘Lord, give me your peace, give me your Holy Spirit.’ This is a beautiful prayer. Shall we say it together? ‘Lord, give me your peace, give me your Holy Spirit.’”
Again encouraging the crowd to pray with him, he said, “I didn’t hear it well. One more time: ‘Lord, give me your peace, give me your Holy Spirit.’”
Focusing on the context of Gospel reading, Pope Francis observed that Jesus’ words to his apostles are “a sort of testament.”
The pope said, “Jesus bids farewell with words expressing affection and serenity. But he does so in a moment that is anything but serene,” referring to Judas’ unfolding betrayal and Peter’s imminent denial that he even knows Jesus.
“The Lord knows this, and yet, he does not rebuke, he does not use severe words, he does not give harsh speeches,” Pope Francis said. “Rather than demonstrate agitation, he remains kind till the end.”
He continued, “There is a proverb that says you die the way you have lived. In effect, the last hours of Jesus’ life are like the essence of his entire life. He feels fear and pain, but does not give way to resentment or protesting. He does not allow himself to become bitter, he does not vent, he is not impatient. He is at peace, a peace that comes from his meek heart accustomed to trust.”
In so doing, “Jesus demonstrates that meekness is possible,” the pope observed.
“He incarnated it specifically in the most difficult moment, and he wants us to behave that way too, since we too are heirs of his peace,” he said. “He wants us to be meek, open, available to listen, capable of defusing tensions and weaving harmony. This is witnessing to Jesus and is worth more than a thousand words and many sermons. The witness of peace.”
Pope Francis invited all disciples of Jesus to reflect on whether they behave in this way.
“Do we ease tensions, and defuse conflicts? Are we too at odds with someone, always ready to react, explode, or do we know how to respond nonviolently, do we know how to respond with peaceful actions? How do I react?” he asked.
“Certainly, this meekness is not easy,” while adding ,“How difficult it is, at every level, to defuse conflicts!”
Jesus understands this. He knows “that we need help, that we need a gift,” the pope explained.
“Peace, which is our obligation, is first of all a gift of God.”
Pope Francis said that “no sin, no failure, no grudge should discourage us from insistently asking for this gift from the Holy Spirit who gives us peace.”
“The more we feel our hearts are agitated, the more we sense we are nervous, impatient, angry inside, the more we need to ask the Lord for the Spirit of peace,” he said.
Pilgrims gather at St. Peter’s Square in Rome on May 22, 2022, for Pope Francis’ Regina Caeli address. Vatican Media
Pope Francis invited the crowd to pray with him, “Lord, give me your peace, give me your Holy Spirit.” He added, “And let us also ask this for those who live next to us, for those we meet each day, and for the leaders of nations.”
After praying the Regina Caeli at noon, Pope Francis commented on the beatification in Lyon, France, later on Sunday of Pauline Marie Jericot, who founded the Society of the Propagation of the Faith for the support of the missions in the early 19th century. The pope called her “a courageous woman, attentive to the changes taking place at the time, and had a universal vision regarding the Church’s mission.”
Pope Francis continued: “May her example enkindle in everyone the desire to participate through prayer and charity in the spread of the Gospel throughout the world.”
Pope Francis also noted that Sunday marked the beginning of “Laudato Si’ Week,” a weeklong reflection inspired by his 2015 encyclical on the environment. He called the observance an opportunity “to listen ever more attentively to the cry of the Earth which urges us to act together in taking care of our common home.”
Pope Francis also mentioned that May 24 marks the Feast day of Mary Help of Christians, who is “particularly dear to Catholics in China.”
He added that Mary Help of Christians is the patroness for Chinese Catholics and is located in the Shrine of Sheshan in Shanghai in addition to many churches and homes throughout the country.
“This happy occasion offers me the opportunity to assure them once again of my spiritual closeness” to believers in China, he said.
“I am attentively and actively following the often complex life and situations of the faithful and pastors, and I pray every day for them,” he said.
“I invite all of you to unite yourselves in this prayer so that the Church in China, in freedom and tranquility, might live in effective communion with the universal Church, and might exercise its mission of proclaiming the Gospel to everyone, and thus offer a positive contribution to the spiritual and material progress of society as well.”
Pope Francis also greeted participants in Italy’s annual pro-life demonstration, titled Scegliamo la vita, or in English, “Let’s Choose Life.”
“I thank you for your dedication in promoting life and defending conscientious objection, which there are often attempts to limit,” Pope Francis said.
“Sadly, in these last years, there has been a change in the common mentality, and today we are more and more led to think that life is a good at our complete disposal, that we can choose to manipulate, to give birth or take life as we please, as if it were the exclusive consequence of individual choice,” the pope said.
“Let us remember that life is a gift from God! It is always sacred and inviolable, and we cannot silence the voice of conscience,” he concluded.
Another Dutchman, Fr. Werenfried van Straaten, founder of Aid to the Church in Need, said it this way: “no peace without justice, and no justice without truth.”
Europe should declare a Jubilee Year. Why? Because a Catholic bishop has spoken out about the lies inherent in that document, “Fiducia supplicans.” Christ said that heaven would rejoice at the return of one sinner out of one hundred who’d returned. So should the Church in Europe rejoice over one bishop who teaches the Truth.
Bishop Mutsaerts understands perfectly, as does Cardinal Eijk and a number of other Dutch bishops who are a trend in what was previously considered a progressive nation. Zeitgeist is the spirit being invoked by the Vatican as well as typifying the mind of our Western world.
“But in most cases, when you don’t accept a decision, it’s because you don’t understand.”
-Wow! This pope definitely sets new standards in clericalism.
Coming soon to your very own neighborhood?: facsimile deacons (non-ordained deaconesses), within a facsimile (c)hurch-within-a-Church, assigned to spread facsimile blessings to a fluid range of facsimile unions (“irregular couples”)– logically to include polygamy and, even more inclusively, such James Martinesque self-validating “experiences” as binocular-goggled (a “couple” of lenses!) virtual-reality sex.
Muhammad received his revelation from the angel Gabriel, Joseph Smith his from the angel Moroni, and now the forwardist-tribe from the angel Tucho and a synodalized Holy Spirit!
“What’s in your wallet,” or in-basket, or whatever?
“In most cases, it’s because they don’t understand.” What are the other cases Francis? Is it because we are sane enough to understand there are evil consequences of pretending evil doesn’t exist in culturally sanctioned categories of evil?
What kind of “understanding” fails to understand that there is more evil to be considered in evil behavior than the troubling feelings of guilt? Is ameliorating the troubled souls of sinners all that matters while the cost of such requires ignoring victims? All the victims, including the damage the sinners do to themselves? Is your pretend care more important to you than the victims you fail to understand and refuse to think about?
An additional thought: Pope Francis, do you not understand that guilt, which you have at times described as a frivolous burden, carried forth from an unenlightened Church, to be discarded, is a gift from God?
We read: “‘Asked if he “felt alone’ after Fiducia Supplicans was met with some resistance, the 87-year-old pontiff said: ‘Sometimes decisions are not accepted’.”
“Decisions”?
Here’s another un-accepted piece–about “decisions” that pretend to replace morality:
“A separation, or even an opposition, is thus established in some cases between the teaching [!] of the precept, which is valid and general, and the norm of the individual conscience, which would in fact make the final decision [only a ‘decision’ and no longer a ‘moral judgment’!] about what is good and what is evil. On this basis, an attempt is made to legitimize so-called ‘pastoral’ solutions [!] contrary to the teaching of the Magisterium, and to justify a ‘creative’ hermeneutic according to which the moral conscience is in no way obliged, in every case, by a particular negative precept [‘Thou shalt not…”]” (St. John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, 1993, n. 56).
Did Christ “decide” pastorally to bless the prostitute only after she first decided to stand beside probably one of her accusers? And then suddenly give the irregular couple–as a “couple”–a pastoral, “informal, non-ecclesial, and spontaneous” facsimile-blessing?
Or, likewise, decide to bless not one but, indifferently, both the criminals on Calvary, again as a “couple”? Or, the woman at the well only when she returned with all of her interchangeable five “husbands”–to be pastorally blessed as an expanding sequence of irregular “couples”…
Or ultra-irregular “throples,” soon to be expanded to group marriages of four or more. Not multiple wives, but multiples of all varieties. Are there termination points of “blessings?” Can Satan, were he to take human form, receive a “blessing?” After all, we might give him credit for something. He probably does work hard.
Wait a minute. He is not from Africa, and we have been told by the Vatican that not being a team Feducia Supplicans player is purely an African thing. Is he allowed to say that or is this cultural appropriation?
In this insane world (stop the world, I want to get off), he likely will be accused of exactly that, and worse, and maybe even from high atop the thing.
Pope Francis has no problem telling us we don’t understand, or that we will go extinct as he also said about Catholics who disagree with his radical pastoral opinions. He also demotes those who point out his lack of orthodoxy and promotes open dissenters in our own Church. What were Catholics thinking when we had antipopes in our own history? Was any Catholic back then allowed to question what was going on or were they forced to live in denial by the peer Catholic groups around them?
Praying that Cardinal Eijk and other Dutch Bishops will continue to defend Auxiliary Bishop Mutsaerts from being “accompanied” by this pontificate. Same for Auxiliary Bishop Athanasius Schneider. The lonely Ordinaries in Puerto Rico and Texas were offered up to this pontificate for a lack of collegiality, as if the Church was a corporation and not the Body of Christ.
I’d say Bishop Mutsaerts understands perfectly.
The perfect comment on this story. Thank you, Cleo.
Bergoglio’s Dark Vatican must be opposed in all of its heresies and lies.
As everyone else has noted, this is the perfect comment on that article. Thank you.
Another Dutchman, Fr. Werenfried van Straaten, founder of Aid to the Church in Need, said it this way: “no peace without justice, and no justice without truth.”
Europe should declare a Jubilee Year. Why? Because a Catholic bishop has spoken out about the lies inherent in that document, “Fiducia supplicans.” Christ said that heaven would rejoice at the return of one sinner out of one hundred who’d returned. So should the Church in Europe rejoice over one bishop who teaches the Truth.
Bishop Mutsaerts understands perfectly, as does Cardinal Eijk and a number of other Dutch bishops who are a trend in what was previously considered a progressive nation. Zeitgeist is the spirit being invoked by the Vatican as well as typifying the mind of our Western world.
Dear Pontiff Francis:
Christ forbids the ideology of idolatry, pederasty, sodomo-filia, and I understand why Christ forbids them.
“But in most cases, when you don’t accept a decision, it’s because you don’t understand.”
-Wow! This pope definitely sets new standards in clericalism.
Hey, what’s to “understand”?
Coming soon to your very own neighborhood?: facsimile deacons (non-ordained deaconesses), within a facsimile (c)hurch-within-a-Church, assigned to spread facsimile blessings to a fluid range of facsimile unions (“irregular couples”)– logically to include polygamy and, even more inclusively, such James Martinesque self-validating “experiences” as binocular-goggled (a “couple” of lenses!) virtual-reality sex.
Muhammad received his revelation from the angel Gabriel, Joseph Smith his from the angel Moroni, and now the forwardist-tribe from the angel Tucho and a synodalized Holy Spirit!
“What’s in your wallet,” or in-basket, or whatever?
Touche!
“In most cases, it’s because they don’t understand.” What are the other cases Francis? Is it because we are sane enough to understand there are evil consequences of pretending evil doesn’t exist in culturally sanctioned categories of evil?
What kind of “understanding” fails to understand that there is more evil to be considered in evil behavior than the troubling feelings of guilt? Is ameliorating the troubled souls of sinners all that matters while the cost of such requires ignoring victims? All the victims, including the damage the sinners do to themselves? Is your pretend care more important to you than the victims you fail to understand and refuse to think about?
An additional thought: Pope Francis, do you not understand that guilt, which you have at times described as a frivolous burden, carried forth from an unenlightened Church, to be discarded, is a gift from God?
We read: “‘Asked if he “felt alone’ after Fiducia Supplicans was met with some resistance, the 87-year-old pontiff said: ‘Sometimes decisions are not accepted’.”
“Decisions”?
Here’s another un-accepted piece–about “decisions” that pretend to replace morality:
“A separation, or even an opposition, is thus established in some cases between the teaching [!] of the precept, which is valid and general, and the norm of the individual conscience, which would in fact make the final decision [only a ‘decision’ and no longer a ‘moral judgment’!] about what is good and what is evil. On this basis, an attempt is made to legitimize so-called ‘pastoral’ solutions [!] contrary to the teaching of the Magisterium, and to justify a ‘creative’ hermeneutic according to which the moral conscience is in no way obliged, in every case, by a particular negative precept [‘Thou shalt not…”]” (St. John Paul II, Veritatis Splendor, 1993, n. 56).
Did Christ “decide” pastorally to bless the prostitute only after she first decided to stand beside probably one of her accusers? And then suddenly give the irregular couple–as a “couple”–a pastoral, “informal, non-ecclesial, and spontaneous” facsimile-blessing?
Or, likewise, decide to bless not one but, indifferently, both the criminals on Calvary, again as a “couple”? Or, the woman at the well only when she returned with all of her interchangeable five “husbands”–to be pastorally blessed as an expanding sequence of irregular “couples”…
Or ultra-irregular “throples,” soon to be expanded to group marriages of four or more. Not multiple wives, but multiples of all varieties. Are there termination points of “blessings?” Can Satan, were he to take human form, receive a “blessing?” After all, we might give him credit for something. He probably does work hard.
Wait a minute. He is not from Africa, and we have been told by the Vatican that not being a team Feducia Supplicans player is purely an African thing. Is he allowed to say that or is this cultural appropriation?
In this insane world (stop the world, I want to get off), he likely will be accused of exactly that, and worse, and maybe even from high atop the thing.
Pope Francis has no problem telling us we don’t understand, or that we will go extinct as he also said about Catholics who disagree with his radical pastoral opinions. He also demotes those who point out his lack of orthodoxy and promotes open dissenters in our own Church. What were Catholics thinking when we had antipopes in our own history? Was any Catholic back then allowed to question what was going on or were they forced to live in denial by the peer Catholic groups around them?
Praying that Cardinal Eijk and other Dutch Bishops will continue to defend Auxiliary Bishop Mutsaerts from being “accompanied” by this pontificate. Same for Auxiliary Bishop Athanasius Schneider. The lonely Ordinaries in Puerto Rico and Texas were offered up to this pontificate for a lack of collegiality, as if the Church was a corporation and not the Body of Christ.
Glad the Faith still burns in that microcosm of the modern world, The Netherlands!!!