CV NEWS FEED // The Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops’ Conference issued on December 22 an official pastoral statement clarifying the content of DDF document Fiducia Supplicans, since they recognize it to be causing “anxiety and even confusion” among the faithful.
President of the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishop Conference (ZCBC) Bishop Paul Horan and the six other Zimbabwean bishops, including two currently retired, signed the ZCBC official statement.
The ZCBC wrote that they recognize that Fiducia Supplicans “seeks to give pastoral guidance on the meaning of blessings… [However] it would seem the varying interpretations of this declaration are disturbing many, causing anxiety and even confusion.”
“While we have great appreciation of the declaration and the guidance it gives on blessings, we are also sensitive to the anxiety and confusion that has arisen,” the bishops wrote:
In respect of the law of the land, our culture and for moral reasons we instruct pastors to desist from actions that may be deemed as the blessing of same sex unions bringing confusion and even scandal to our people.
“Locally, many Catholics and those who look up to the Catholic Church are asking questions and wondering if the declaration marks a paradigm shift in the doctrine of the Church on marriage,” the bishops wrote.
In an effort to “curb the many false interpretations given to the declaration,” the bishops asserted that Fiducia Supplicans
nowhere suggests a shift in the doctrine of marriage. In fact, it says, “the perennial doctrine of marriage, that is, an exclusive, stable and indissoluble union between a man and a woman, naturally open to the generation of children remains firm.”
“The declaration draws a line between sacraments and sacramentals. It is in exploring the simple blessings in the area of sacramentals that the declaration considers the possibility of blessing those living in same sex unions and not same sex unions,” the ZCBC continued:
It will, therefore, be pushing a wrong agenda to read the declaration as an endorsement of same-sex unions. Neither does the receiving of an ordinary, simple blessing by those in same sex unions equate their relationship to marriage.
This is something that the declaration is conscious of as it warns against the use of liturgical regalia and rites in giving such blessings: pastors are urged to be careful that the blessings they give may not be construed as a “liturgical or semi liturgical act, similar to a Sacrament.”
