Crux has a good primer on Cardinal Fernandez wordy Clarification of FS! The official document is about 5,000 words couched in orthodox teaching about Marriage and sexuality but novel ideas, shall we say, heterodox, about a new category of blessings, never taught by the Church in the past in a formal way, but always an option for priests even in pre-Vatican II times.
Keep in mind, priests have always given formal blessings and spontaneous informal blessings to saints and sinners. Everyone is blessed at the end of Mass and everyone is offered the non-sacramental absolution for venial sins at the Penitential Act of the Mass.
Now, the DDF under the misguidance of Cardinal Fernandez is “doctrinizing” casual, pastoral blessings and specifically for couples of a variety sexual orientations and living in sin. That’s novel, that’s the problem.
In the past, if I knew a heterosexual couple was not in a valid sacrament marriage, but civilly married, I would offer a casual blessing but in no way bless them as a couple due to the fact they are officially living in sin with a “state contract” to do so. It is public.
I have never had a homosexual couple ask me as a couple to bless them together. I have blessed active homosexuals and prayed over them when I was asked to do so. Usually it is a kind of prayer of deliverance.
What the Vatican doesn’t understand, but maybe understands too well, is that there is a significant number of faithful Catholics who no longer trust any bishops let alone the Bishop of Rome and his poorly selected Prefect for the DCF. Faithful Catholics don’t trust the synodal process. Even the heads of the process, cardinals, have recognized this.
Why is it? Because faithful Catholics feel manipulated into accepting novel teachings by way of “footnotes” and now a formal document that teaches something new about blessings, which has never been taught before. It doctrinizes pastoral theology which is an art not a dogma!
Withdraw the document and apologize to the world’s bishops and all Catholics.
1 comment:
Father McDonald said..."Withdraw the document and apologize to the world’s bishops and all Catholics."
Why withdraw the document? Apologize for what?
Via today's clarification, Rome has made it clear beyond question that the Declaration is Church teaching. Rome noted today that "there is no room to distance ourselves doctrinally from this declaration or to consider it heretical, contrary to the Tradition of the Church or blasphemous."
Holy Mother Church also expressed today Her determination to work in merciful fashion with bishops in the following manner:
"Prudence and attention to the ecclesial context and to the local culture could allow for different methods of application, but not a total or definitive denial of this path that is proposed to priests."
As The Pillar noted today, "The third section, on the delicate situation of some countries, observes that in some nations, homosexuality is criminalized and may even result in the death penalty. In such cases, “it goes without saying that a blessing would be imprudent,” the clarification says.
But at the same time, “it remains vital that these episcopal conferences do not support a doctrine different from that of the declaration signed by the pope, given that it is perennial doctrine, but rather that they recommend the need for study and discernment so as to act with pastoral prudence in such a context.”
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The True Church will not surrender in regard to Fiducia Supplicans. This is simply the latest "controversy" within the Church that will pass.
Pax.
Mark Thomas
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