On December 18, 2023, less than two months after the conclusion of the 16^th General Assembly of the Synod on Synodality, the Vatican issued a declaration called Fiducia Supplicans which allows Catholic priests to bless people in same-sex relationships.  The declaration is a significant shift from the previous stance of the Catholic Church which led to much suffering among LGBTQ+ Catholics who have felt excluded and even rejected by the leadership.

In a previous post, I discussed the position of the Catholic Church on matters of human sexuality.  In this post, I will examine the new declaration and the issues it addresses, along with reactions to the announcement.

The 16^th General Assembly of the Synod on Synodality was gathered from October 4 to October 29.  Among the numerous topics that were discussed was the issue associated with LGBTQ+ Catholics, and it was recognized that the institutional church had not lived up to its pastoral goals for LGBTQ+ people.  The report published after the event contains the following relevant paragraph:

“In different ways, people who feel marginalized or excluded from the Church because of their marriage status, identity or sexuality also ask to be heard and accompanied. There was a deep sense of love, mercy and compassion felt in the Assembly for those who are or feel hurt or neglected by the Church, who want a place to call ‘home’ where they can feel safe, be heard and respected, without fear of feeling judged. Listening is a prerequisite for walking together in search of God’s will. The Assembly reiterates that Christians must always show respect for the dignity of every person.”

The wording of this paragraph seems to suggest that the concern for the plight of LGBTQ+ Catholics was unanimous.  But the fact that there is no mention of the term LGBTQ is an indication that there was no such unanimity, as revealed by Father James Martin after the declaration on blessings was made public:

“Some Catholics oppose any steps toward greater inclusion for L.G.B.T.Q. people in the life of the church. We saw some of this during the Synod on Synodality, where I was a voting member, with significant pushback from certain quarters on even using the term L.G.B.T.Q. So, for some, this declaration (even though it specifies that the blessings must not in any way seem like a marriage rite) will be threatening, and the temptation will therefore be to say, ‘Nothing has changed.’”

The pushback comes from those who want to cling to the traditional teaching of the Church, according to which marriage is defined as a union between a man and a woman with procreation as its main goal.  Same-gender sexual relations are not permitted, and homosexuality is seen as a “disorder.”  Conservatives cling to these ideas and see no need to engage in dialogue about the issue because they believe “God cannot and does not bless sin.”

Father James Martin, on the other hand, has been ministering to LGBTQ+ people for many years and wrote a book in 2017, Building a Bridge, in which he advocates for an improvement in the relationship between LGBTQ+ people and the institutional church.  Even though he proposes a two-way bridge with efforts towards reconciliation from both sides, he puts a higher burden on church leadership:

“Third, though the book invites both groups—the institutional church and LGBT Catholics—to approach each other with respect, compassion, and sensitivity, the onus for this process lies on the institutional church. The main burden for this bridge building falls on bishops, priests, and other church officials, who are invited to take the first steps and work harder at reconciliation. Why? Because, as I’ve mentioned, even though a few LGBT groups have publicly targeted the church, it is the institutional church that has made LGBT Catholics feel marginalized, not the other way around.”

This marginalization of LGBTQ+ Catholics happens to violate the pastoral guidelines of the church as found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.  In his book, Father Martin quotes from the Catechism on the matter of homosexuality:

“Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.’ They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved.

The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

Homosexual persons are called to chastity. By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection.”

These paragraphs obviously advocate for two irreconcilable ideas: the need to accept LGBTQ+ people with “respect, compassion and sensitivity” and the declaration that “homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered.”  Father Martin is aware of that contradiction and explains:

“Our sexuality, in a sense, touches everything we do, including the way we love, even when the sexual expression of that love is neither involved nor even contemplated. So to call a person’s sexuality ‘objectively disordered’ is to tell a person that all of his or her love, even the most chaste, is disordered. That seems unnecessarily cruel.”

He also quotes an Australian bishop, Vincent Long Van Nguyen, who said in a lecture in 2016:

“We cannot talk about the integrity of creation, the universal and inclusive love of God, while at the same time colluding with the forces of oppression in the ill-treatment of racial minorities, women, and homosexual persons . . . . It won’t wash with young people, especially when we purport to treat gay people with love and compassion and yet define their sexuality as ‘intrinsically disordered.’”

I expressed my own view in my previous post on the matter, suggesting that the Scripture interpretation adopted by Catholic leadership did not adequately reflect New Testament teaching.  I also showed in other posts that the conclusions reached, using the biblical material, by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the Episcopal Church, were significantly different from those reached by the Catholic Church.

Father Martin, in his book, emphasizes the fact that Jesus himself never marginalized those who, for religious reasons, were treated as outcasts in his day:

“Jesus’s message was always one of inclusion, communicated through speaking to people, healing them, or offering them what biblical scholars call ‘table fellowship’—that is, dining with them, a sign of welcome and acceptance in first-century Palestine. He did this again and again, with not only the Roman centurion and Zacchaeus but other tax collectors, as well as prostitutes, a Samaritan woman, and many of the sick, who also would have been viewed as outcasts.”

But the conservative stance has led to unfair treatment and actual persecution of LGBTQ+ people.  Even assuming that their conduct is sinful, there is no reason to assume that their sin is more deserving of punishment than other types of sins.  Father Martin points out, for example, the matter of selective firing of employees from church organizations because of failure of the employees to follow church teaching:

“Almost all the firings in recent years have focused on LGBT matters. Specifically, the firings have usually related to those employees who have entered into same-sex marriages, which is against church teaching, when one or the other partner has a public role in the church. But if adherence to church teachings is going to be a litmus test for employment in Catholic institutions, then dioceses and parishes need to be consistent. Do we fire a straight man or woman who gets divorced and then remarries without an annulment? Divorce and remarriage of that sort are against church teaching. In fact, divorce is something Jesus himself forbade (Matt. 19:8–9). Do we fire women who bear children, or men who father children, out of wedlock? How about couples living together before being married? Do we give pink slips to people who practice birth control? All those actions are against church teaching too.”

He goes even further, asking why church organizations do not fire employees who do not follow essential teachings of the Gospel such as helping the poor, forgiving, being loving and not being cruel.  All these examples highlight the fact that LGBTQ+ people are singled out and required to be holy before being accepted, which is not the case for others.  The Catechism, on the other hand, requires that people be accompanied by the church as their progress in their Christian walk.  Such accompaniment should be guided by the requirements of respect, compassion and sensitivity.

Since the beginning of his papacy, Pope Francis has been criticized for his overtures to the LGBTQ+ community.  To a question about such overtures, he once famously responded: “Who am I to judge?”.  It should be noted that Jesus himself, in his Sermon on the Mount, urged his audience: “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.”  It seems that many in church leadership do not think Jesus meant what he said.  Accordingly, they see themselves as church law enforcement officials rather than servants and teachers.  But again, their enthusiasm for judging and punishing seems more pronounced against LGBTQ+ people.

On February 22, 2021, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a response (responsum) to questions addressed to the Vatican by some conservative cardinals who were concerned about new developments under Pope Francis.  The responsum affirmed the traditional teaching of the church, stating that unions of same-sex couples could not be blessed by priests and deacons because they are sinful.  The document issued on December 18 is a declaration.  As such, it not only further clarifies some issues addressed by the responsum, but also carries more authority.

In the article he published after the declaration was issued, Father Martin wrote the following:

“There was widespread reaction to that ‘responsum,’ as the new declaration notes in its opening. Especially, L.G.B.T.Q. people and their friends and families felt that the focus on such relationships as sinful ignored or rejected their experience of loving, committed and self-sacrificing same-sex relationships. News reports at the time also suggested Pope Francis was himself unhappy with that statement, and eventually theperson responsible for its publication was removed from the office of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. So the Vatican’s pastoral approach to same-sex couples (as well as other couples not sacramentally married) has clearly shifted in the last two years.”

But even though the declaration is proof that the pope continues to pursue his goal of a more pastoral approach, it makes very clear that it does not intend, in any way, to change church teaching on marriage.  This is stated in the introduction:

“As with the Holy Father’s above-mentioned response to the Dubia of two Cardinals, this Declaration remains firm on the traditional doctrine of the Church about marriage, not allowing any type of liturgical rite or blessing similar to a liturgical rite that can create confusion. The value of this document, however, is that it offers a specific and innovative contribution to the pastoral meaning of blessings, permitting a broadening and enrichment of the classical understanding of blessings, which is closely linked to a liturgical perspective.”

In other words, much confusion may be caused by the assumption that blessings such as the one proposed for same-sex couples are associated with a liturgical rite similar to the one performed in marriage ceremonies.  In reality, the ritual associated with marriage corresponds to a special type of blessing.  Blessings are commonly given by the church for a variety of occasions relevant to the lives of its members.  Such blessings can be more informal and spontaneous than those associated with a liturgical rite.  The effort to include LGBTQ+ people was therefore focused on clarifying and expanding the definition of a blessing.

For an understanding of the possibilities, the declaration provides a review of the wide range of blessings found in both the Old Testament and the New Testament:  A priest may ask God to bless a congregation (descending);  a congregation may bless God by praising him (ascending);  a Father may bless his child (Jacob blessing his sons); etc.  Importantly, a recipient of a blessing does not have to meet a holiness requirement prior to receiving it.  As stated in the document,

“Indeed, the grace of God works in the lives of those who do not claim to be righteous but who acknowledge themselves humbly as sinners, like everyone else. This grace can orient everything according to the mysterious and unpredictable designs of God. Therefore, with its untiring wisdom and motherly care, the Church welcomes all who approach God with humble hearts, accompanying them with those spiritual aids that enable everyone to understand and realize God’s will fully in their existence.

This is a blessing that, although not included in any liturgical rite, unites intercessory prayer with the invocation of God’s help by those who humbly turn to him. God never turns away anyone who approaches him! Ultimately, a blessing offers people a means to increase their trust in God. The request for a blessing, thus, expresses and nurtures openness to the transcendence, mercy, and closeness to God in a thousand concrete circumstances of life, which is no small thing in the world in which we live. It is a seed of the Holy Spirit that must be nurtured, not hindered.”

As understood here, a blessing is therefore an encouragement to the recipients in their Christian journey.  It is a request for God’s favor on them in the hope that they may grow as Christians as they experience God’s grace.  Withholding such blessings amounts to judging and condemning.  As Jesus says, those who do that should expect the same treatment from God.

The new declaration should be seen as a major step forward for LGBTQ+ Catholics even though some among them may feel that it does not go far enough.  Father Martin who, unlike many Catholic leaders, has developed strong relationships with them, puts it this way:

“But a great deal has in fact changed. Before this document was issued, there was no permission for bishops, priests and deacons to bless couples in same-sex unions in any setting. This document establishes, with some limitations, that they can.”

Francis Debernardo, executive director of New Ways Ministry, an organization that has been deeply involved in ministering to LGBTQ+ people, wrote:

“Pope Francis is bringing to an end the exclusionary practices of the previous two pontiffs by affirming that God’s mercy is not something humans can limit, and which we may not always understand. That is good news not only for LGBTQ+ people, but for anyone who was marginalized or excluded by policies which were designed to justify the institution’s rules. When the church humbly serves people, then, in the closing words of Fiducia Supplicans, ‘every brother and every sister will be able to feel that, in the Church, they are always pilgrims, always beggars, always loved, and, despite everything, always blessed.’”

There are reports indicating that bishops in various regions of the country have been focusing on explaining the declaration to facilitate its implementation.  There are also reports that some Catholic leaders in Africa and elsewhere are openly defying the pope, accusing him of bringing evil into the church.

The declaration is not mandatory and local bishops can exercise their judgment and decide whether or not to implement it.  This is particularly important for countries where same-sex unions are against the law, and especially in cases where the death penalty is the prescribed punishment.

The pope’s adversaries have also made their opinions known.  Archbishop Vigano, who served as Apostolic Nuncio to the US for five years, wrote:

“The delirious Declaration Fiducia Supplicans, recently published by the parody of the former Holy Office renamed the Dicastery, definitively pierces the veil of hypocrisy and deception of the Bergoglian hierarchy, showing these false shepherds for what they really are: servants of Satan and his most zealous allies, beginning with the usurper who sits – an abomination of desolation – on the Throne of Peter.”

The term “Bergoglian hierarchy” refers to the pope’s real name, Jorge Mario Bergoglio.  As one might expect, there are many such accusations against the pope on social media.  In my opinion, if Satan is involved at all, there is a high probability that his servants are not on the pope’s side of this issue.