CV NEWS FEED // A group of Bishops in northwest France have joined the ranks of clergy around the world in providing clarification on the implementation of Fiducia Supplicans, the latest declaration from the Vatican “On the Pastoral Meaning of Blessings.”
Bishops in the Ecclesiastical Province of Rennes sent a statement on Thursday to priests in the nine dioceses (Rennes, Laval, Angers, Quimper, Vannes, Le Mans, Luçon, Nantes, and Saint-Brieuc), instructing them to only bless individuals, not couples in a same-sex relationship or irregular situation.
‘In our society, where marriage has been trivialized by becoming a notion of civil law that ignores the foundational specificity of sexual difference, we have the mission to prophetically affirm, ‘with gentleness and respect’ (1 Pet 3:16), the great beauty of God’s design that created the human being, male and female,” the bishops stated.
Echoing the declaration’s emphasis on avoiding confusion between spontaneous blessings and liturgical ceremonies, the bishops continued:
For this reason, it is appropriate to spontaneously bless, individually, each of the two persons forming a couple, whatever their sexual orientation, who humbly ask God’s blessing, with the desire to conform more and more to his holy will.
The bishops’ instructions come in the wake of the Vatican’s recent attempt to contain global rejection of the declaration.
