CV NEWS FEED // The Congregation of the Marians of the Immaculate Conception issued a statement this week that the members of the community will continue to provide blessings to individuals, but will refrain from blessing couples in “irregular situations.”
The congregation’s December 21 statement is in response to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) document Fiducia Supplicans.
The Congregation is best known in the U.S. for their work promoting the message of Divine Mercy from the National Shrine of The Divine Mercy in Stockbridge, MA, as well as many popular devotional books, including the ones of their Vicar Provincial, Fr. Donald Colloway, MIC.
“It is our duty and moral obligation to uphold the teaching of the Catholic Church as has been handed down to us through Divine Revelation and the Deposit of Faith,” the MIC wrote in their statement, “[thus we will] provide some guidelines in regards to the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith’s recent Declaration Fiducia Supplicans dated December 18, 2023.”
The MIC statement pointed out that Fiducia Supplicans wants to make sure that blessings of same sex couples or couples in “irregular” situations are performed “without officially validating their status or changing in any way the Church’s perennial teaching on marriage.”
Therefore, they wrote,
to ensure this latter statement is properly adhered to, Marian clergy [ordained deacons and/or priests] are prohibited from blessing irregular relationships, unions, or same-sex couples in the United States and Argentina, or while traveling abroad.
This norm, the MIC continued,
applies to all Marian clergy regardless of diocesan policies. We see no situation in which such a blessing of a couple could be properly and adequately distinguished from some level of approval of the irregular relationship, leading to the scandal of the faithful. Such blessings [liturgical or spontaneous] would work against the legitimate care a priest or deacon owes to his flock.
However, the statement signed by Rev. Chris Alar, MIC, Provincial Superior, and Rev. Donald Calloway, MIC, Vicar Provincial, emphasized,
that blessing individual persons struggling with sin, but striving to do the will of God and conform their lives to Church teaching, are not only allowed, but strongly encouraged. Marian clergy will continue to bless the individual sinner, but we cannot in any way bestow blessings that may infer that we are condoning or blessing the sin of irregular unions.
Founded in Poland in 1670 by St. Stanislaus Papczynski, today the Marian Congregation has over 500 priests and brothers in 20 countries. They are the publishers of St. Faustina’s diary, Divine Mercy in My Soul, in many languages.
