CV NEWS FEED // In what the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) described as a “press release,” the Vatican’s top teaching office issued a long “clarifying” statement in response to the worldwide pushback against its document Fiducia supplicans.
The original document stated “no further responses should be expected about possible ways to regulate details or practicalities regarding” blessings for “irregular” and “same-sex couples.” The massive rejection of the document, however, has forced Prefect of the DDF Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández to give several “clarifying” interviews, including to the Spanish secular daily ABC.
The DDF presented this week’s five-page “press release” as an official document to “help clarify the reception of Fiducia supplicans, while recommending at the same time a full and calm reading of the Declaration so as to better understand its meaning and purpose.”
The “understandable statements of some Episcopal Conferences regarding the document Fiducia supplicans have the value of highlighting the need for a more extended period of pastoral reflection,” the press release stated, but “what is expressed by these Episcopal Conferences cannot be interpreted as doctrinal opposition, because the document is clear and definitive about marriage and sexuality.”
The new document proceeded to reproduce all the “indisputable phrases in the Declaration that leave (the Catholic doctrine on marriage) in no doubt.”
The press release clarified that
Documents of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith such as Fiducia supplicans, in their practical aspects, may require more or less time for their application depending on local contexts and the discernment of each diocesan Bishop with his Diocese. In some places no difficulties arise for their immediate application, while in others it will be necessary not to introduce them, while taking the time necessary for reading and interpretation.
The release seemed to confront the growing number of bishops and bishops’ conferences rejecting and refusing to implement Fiducia supplicans. The “ecclesial context and the local culture could allow for different methods of application,” the document warned, “but not a total or definitive denial of this path that is proposed to priests.”
As Cardinal Fernandez has repeated in a number of interviews, “the real novelty of the document” is
to have a broader understanding of blessings and of the proposal that these pastoral blessings, which do not require the same conditions as blessings in a liturgical or ritual context, flourish. Consequently, leaving polemics aside, the text requires an effort to reflect serenely, with the heart of shepherds, free from all ideology.
As an additional effort to tamp down the widespread opposition to the document, the DDF offered further clarifications about how the controversial blessings should be imparted, stating that:
– “’Pastoral blessings’ must above all be very short. These are blessings lasting a few seconds,”
– “If two people approach together to seek the blessing, one simply asks the Lord for peace, health and other good things for these two people who request it.”
– “At the same time, one asks that they may live the Gospel of Christ in full fidelity and so that the Holy Spirit can free these two people from everything that does not correspond to his divine will and from everything that requires purification.”
This last clarification was not included in Fiducia supplicans and clearly runs against what gay rights activists like Fr. James Martin, SJ have done in response to the declaration. (Martin publicly blessed a “gay couple” in a photo-op that appeared on the front page of the New York Times.) The clarification also goes against the current blessings practices established by Bishop John Stowe of Lexington, Kentucky.
The press release went as far as to provide an example of a blessing to be given “a couple of divorced people, now in a new union, (who) say to the priest: ‘Please give us a blessing, we cannot find work, he is very ill, we do not have a home and life is becoming very difficult: may God help us!'”
The DDF offers this specific prayer for that situation (bold in the original): “Lord, look at these children of yours, grant them health, work, peace and mutual help. Free them from everything that contradicts your Gospel and allow them to live according to your will. Amen.” The blessing should conclude with the sign of the cross on each of the two persons, the release stated.
The release explained that “in some places, perhaps, some catechesis will be necessary that can help everyone to understand that these types of blessings are not an endorsement of the life led by those who request them. Even less are they an absolution.”
“If this is clarified as a result of good catechesis, we can free ourselves from the fear that these blessings of ours may express something inadequate,” the press release concluded. “We can be freer and perhaps closer and more fruitful ministers, with a ministry that is full of gestures of fatherhood and hospitality, without fear of being misunderstood.”
As reported by CatholicVote, “weeks after the release of Fiducia Supplicans (FS), the December 18 document best known for allowing priests to bless ‘same-sex couples,’ the Vatican continues to field global pushback from bishops, conferences, and religious congregations.”
According to a report published by the Italian newspaper Il Messaggero, the Vatican’s office for liturgical blessings, where people ask for an official “papal blessing” on parchment, has been flooded with requests for papal blessings for people in same-sex relationships.
A Wikipedia page following opposition to Fiducia supplicans currently counts rejections from 24 bishops’ conferences, 29 individual cardinals and bishops, and seven congregations and priestly, religious, and lay associations.
