(LifeSiteNews) — The heterodox “blessing” of homosexual “couples” and those in “irregular situations,” which Pope Francis and Cardinal Fernández have proposed in Ficucia supplicans, continues to be a cause of grave scandal and confusion among priests and faithful alike.
Many bishops and prominent voices within the Church have condemned and rejected the proposal in accord with the judgment of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) in 2021. On the other hand, the strong pro-homosexual contingent of bishops, cardinals, priests, and laity in the Church have celebrated the “progress” of their agenda. I argue here that were a priest to grant such “blessings,” he would at once commit four mortal sins.
READ: Fiducia Supplicans is ‘crowning achievement’ of ‘LGBT lobby’ in the Church
Theological principles to keep in mind
Several theological principles must be kept in mind in order to properly judge what has been proposed in Fiducia supplicans. First, all members of the Church are commonly bound by the virtue of faith, and what has been previously and commonly taught by the Church on a matter of faith and morals equally binds all. Any direct contradictions of such a teaching is to be avoided and rejected by all.
Second, the religious submission of intellect and will to the non-ex cathedra statements of the Roman Pontiff is an act properly of the virtue of piety. This is not an act immediately of the virtue of supernatural theological faith, but of a derivative virtue that is governed by faith, just as the act of obedience to a religious superior must be governed by the higher virtue of theological faith. As such, the virtue of piety with its acts are governed and limited by the higher virtue of faith.
Even hope and charity are governed by faith as to their content. For example, we cannot hope that the damned be saved nor love sinners with the love of charity while delighting with them in their sin. Faith tells us that the damned cannot be saved and that sin is contrary to the love of God.
Third, it is possible for a Pope to contradict the faith in non-ex cathedra statements and to propose, suggest, or even command a gravely sinful action. To hold otherwise is to fall into some version of the heresy of ultramontanism, i.e. that the Pope can in no way err with regard to faith and morals in his teachings, actions, or commands. The Pope is not impeccable, nor are his non-ex cathedra statements necessarily infallible. The latter are only infallible when they are proposing, applying, or confirming the universal and constant teaching of the Church, i.e. her ordinary magisterium.
If the Pope pronounces a definitive statement on faith and morals for the whole Church on his own authority, i.e., as teacher and visible head of the universal Church, it is ex cathedra – even if about an ancillary doctrine, such as the teaching on “women priests,” rather than a central dogma, such as the Incarnation or Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
In non-ex cathedra statements, if the Pope proposes a novel teaching or practice that contradicts the universal and constant teaching and practice of the Church on a matter of faith or morals, which all Catholics are bound to uphold, and which can easily be known, then that teaching or practice must be avoided, shunned, and rejected by all the faithful.
In this instance, the virtue of faith, which supersedes and governs the virtues of piety and obedience, forbids the ordinary acts of those virtues, because those acts would extend to an improper object and therefore be sins. As St. Peter, the first Pope, inspired by the Holy Spirit, teaches, “It is better to obey God rather than men.” Obedience to men within the visible Church, even to the Roman Pontiff, is limited and governed by what God Himself has revealed.
READ: Cardinal Müller: Fiducia Supplicans ‘leads to heresy,’ Catholics cannot accept it
The nature of what Fiducia supplicans proposes: the priestly ‘blessing’ of a ‘couple’ in a sinful sexual relationship
Fiducia supplicans itself states the Church’s universal and constant teaching on the matter of “blessings” for “couples” in irregular situations and homosexual “couples.” That teaching is the previous response of the CDF, published in March 2021: the Church does not have the power to confer any blessing on such “couples,” because “God cannot bless sin.” The prohibition is universal and based on both the nature of what a blessing is and on the nature of what is being blessed. It is also founded on what is directly revealed in Sacred Scripture.
Every priestly blessing signifies divine approval of what is blessed. At times, a blessing even signifies an ecclesial commission, as when monks are sent with the blessing of their Abbot to found a new monastery. The Abbot’s blessing gives them the first ecclesial approval for the future foundation. In any case, it is always necessary that what is blessed be conformed to God’s will because of the very nature of what a blessing is.
This can also be seen in the fact that every priestly blessing is given in virtue of the priestly office. It is always given in the name of the Church, in the name of Jesus Christ as Head and Bridegroom of the Church, and in the name of the Most Blessed Trinity. Giving a “spontaneous” blessing does not change the nature of what a priestly blessing is. It is not the fact that a formalized rite is followed in the giving of a blessing that principally makes the blessing to be what it is, or that makes the blessing to be liturgical, but the fact that the blessing is an invocation of God’s grace and favor given in virtue of the office of the priest as such. This makes every priestly blessing liturgical in nature and a sign of divine and ecclesial approval, in the order of grace, of whatever is blessed.
A blessing is not a mere prayer for the conversion of sinners. Nor is a mere prayer for such a conversion, of itself, a blessing, but rather a prayer of petition that does not require the priestly office. The fact that the former requires and comes from the priestly office should make clear the difference between a priestly blessing and a prayer of petition for a sinner’s conversion.
READ: Cardinal Burke makes veiled condemnation of blessing homosexual ‘couples’
It is also necessary to clearly understand what it means to bless a “couple.” What makes two individuals to be a “couple,” (romantically or sexually taken, which is the clear meaning of the term by common usage and the text of Fiducia supplicans), is the sexual relationship according to which the individuals are united. That relationship is good or evil depending on the actions which are the foundation in reality giving rise to the relationship. If those actions are sins, the relationship is sinful. And since the individuals are a “couple” insofar they are in a romantic or sexual relationship, to “bless the couple” is precisely to bless the romantic or sexual relationship by which they are a couple. There is no getting around this. No blessing of a couple is a blessing of mere individuals as such, and no blessing of a couple is anything other than a blessing of the relationship of that “couple” and the actions giving rise to the relationship.
Fiducia supplicans proposes a heterodox and gravely sinfulness practice
Fiducia supplicans directly contradicts several teachings of the Church that are part of Her ordinary, constant, and universal magisterium. It states that some blessings are not liturgical and therefore do not require that their object be in conformity to God’s revealed will. This alone is quite revealing of the problematic nature of what is being proposed. There is nowhere in Scripture where such blessings can be found. And this makes clear it is the sinful relationship of a “couple” that is being “blessed”: it is this sinful relationship and these sinful actions that are not in conformity with God’s will. It is because an object not in conformity with God’s will is now being proposed as the object of the Church’s blessing that a new category of “blessing” is necessary to posit.
Fiducia supplicans further states that now, with the novel category of “spontaneous,” “informal,” “non-liturgical” blessings – categories previously completely unknown to Catholic theology, which has dealt with the question of blessings and unmarried “couples” since the beginning of the Church – now, with such categories, the Church can “bless couples” living in adultery, fornication, incest, polygamy, and sodomy.
Never has the Church taught that such “couples” can be blessed by a priest! Never! That fact alone shows that the practice is not only novel but contrary to the constant practice of the Church and the doctrinal moral teaching underlying that universal practice, which was definitively articulated by the CDF in March 2021. This makes the proposed practice heterodox and the teaching that it can be done heretical.
READ: Cardinal Sarah strongly rejects Fiducia Supplicans, ‘heresy’ of same-sex ‘blessings’
Were a priest to implement what Fiducia Supplicans proposes and thereby “bless” a “couple” living in sexual sin such as adultery or sodomy, he would commit at once four mortal sins.
- He would objectively and externally signify priestly, ecclesial, and divine approval of the sinful relationship and actions that make the individuals to be a “couple.”
- He would scandalize those receiving the “blessing” and any who came to know of it, by objectively signifying approval of grave sexual sins, thereby encouraging those sins.
- He would commit sacrilege by abusing his office as priest and representative of Christ and the Church.
- And he would blaspheme the name of Jesus Christ and the Most Blessed Trinity, invoked upon a relationship abhorrent to the divine goodness.
Priests of Jesus Christ, never, ever give any “blessing” whatsoever to any “couple” living in sexual sin! Every priestly blessing signifies divine and ecclesial approval of what is blessed, and therefore requires always that what is blessed be in conformity with God’s will. And what makes a sexual couple to be such is their sexual relationship, so to “bless” a “couple” is to “bless,” i.e. to signify divine and ecclesial approval of, the relationship. It is to invoke God’s grace and protection upon what is fundamentally and objectively morally evil and abhorrent to the divine goodness.
READ: Moral theologian: Fiducia Supplicans was ‘significant endorsement’ of the LGBT agenda
This is the day of testing for every priest
With Fiducia Supplicans, the day of testing has come to every bishop and priest throughout the world. Faith must govern the response of those who would remain true to Christ. On the day of Judgment, Christ the Good Shepherd and Sun of Righteousness will expose the insidious nature of what is proposed in the granting of “blessings” to sinful relationships. And to any priest who dares to invoke Christ’s Holy Name upon “couples” joined in sexual sin, He the Just Judge will say, “Depart from me, I do not know you.”
Priests of Jesus Christ, beware of those who refuse to recognize wolves in sheep’s clothing. You know the faith. You know the Church’s constant and universal teaching and practice. You will be judged by this. It must guide every bishop, priest, and layman. And that universal teaching and practice commands that this novel practice, and the teaching underlying it, be unequivocally and firmly rejected. The Church has no power to grant any blessing whatsoever to couples that are not married, who are living together in sexual sin, because God cannot bless sin. This teaching is firm, and it is universal. There are no exceptions.
The day is not far off when the novel and heterodox practice proposed in Fiducia supplicans will be expressly condemned, reprobated, and anathematized by a future Roman Pontiff in an ex cathedra judgment. The sensus fidelium is already bringing that day closer.
On this matter alone, we must be willing to shed our blood.
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