Vatican ‘clarifies’ Fiducia Supplicans [News Analysis]
January 04, 2024
Responding to a groundswell of resistance of Fiducia Supplicans by Catholic bishops around the world, the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) has released a lengthy press release to clarify the document.
The new document insists that negative reactions to Fiducia “cannot be interpreted as doctrinal opposition, because the document is clear and definitive about marriage and sexuality.” Therefore the DDF suggests that the widespread opposition to the directive is rooted in misunderstanding of its fundamental purpose.
While the DDF argues that Fiducia cannot be understood as granting pastoral approval for same-sex unions, and that there are “several indisputable phrases in the declaration that leave this in no doubt,” concerned bishops have criticized the document for causing deep confusion (or worse) on that point.
Merely by issuing this clarification—barely more than two weeks after the initial directive—the DDF has tacitly conceded the confusion. In Fiducia Supplicans itself the Vatican dicastery had said that the directive gave clear guidance on the sort of blessings that it recommended, and therefore “no further responses should be expected about possible ways to regulate details or practicalities regarding blessings of this type.”
The bishops’ prerogatives
Today’s clarification concedes that diocesan bishops may make their own judgments on how to implement the Vatican directive: “Each local Bishop, by virtue of his own ministry, always has the power of discernment in loco, that is, in that concrete place that he knows better than others precisely because it is his own flock.” However the DDF places a limit on the individual bishop’s discernment, saying that he may “allow for different methods of application, but not a total or definitive denial” of the message of Fiducia Supplicans.
The clarification goes on to say that some bishops may opt against authorizing blessings for same-sex couples because local laws make homosexual activity a crime. In such cases, “it goes without saying that a blessing would be imprudent.” More generally the DDF says that opposition to Fiducia may be rooted in “strong cultural and even legal issues that require time and pastoral strategies that go beyond the short term.” Again, the Vatican dicastery does not admit the possibility—raised repeatedly in statements by bishops from different countries—that Fiducia conveys an implication that the Church supports couples engaged in same-sex unions.
Responding to such concerns, the DDF clarification says, regarding the blessing of a same-sex couple: “Obviously it is not a marriage, but equally it is not an ‘approval’ or ratification of anything either.” The priest, in giving a blessing, does not indicate support for homosexual activity, the DDF maintains. Yet the clarification goes on to state explicitly that the priest who gives such a blessing “does not impose conditions and does not inquire about the intimate lives of these people.”
Here the DDF fails to respond to the point made by Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, who has pointed out that in the Byzanytine tradition a priest’s blessing always conveys an approval, and therefore the message of Fiducia Supplicans cannot apply to the Eastern Catholic churches.
The real novelty
According to today’s clarifying statement, the “real novelty” of Fiducia Supplicans “is not the possibility of blessing couples in irregular situations. It is the invitation to distinguish between two forms of blessings: ‘liturgical or ritualized’ and ‘spontaneous or pastoral.’” In his December 18 letter introducing the directive, Cardinal Manuel Fernandez had said that Fiducia allowed for “a broadening and enrichment of the classical understanding of blessings.”
This “real development” in Church teaching, which the DDF credits to Pope Francis, allows for blessings that “do not require the same conditions as blessings in a liturgical or ritual context.” Leaving aside the likelihood that some same-sex couples would seek blessings in situations that did resemble liturgies (and many priests would grant them), the DDF does not explain how the blessings recommended in Fiducia Supplicans would differ from the blessings that any Catholic could request, of any priest, at any time.
—Phil Lawler
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Posted by: chady -
Jan. 05, 2024 8:02 AM ET USA
Prelates and priests have always been allowed to give blessings. The general blessing by a pope from the balcony of St Peter's or the blessings given to serving military personnel before a battle. However, the media, the liberals within the church, and outsiders are likely to misunderstand this announcement for their own ends. I am a little surprised that those in the Dicastery for The Doctrine of Faith seemed to have failed to understand this. That is why former leaders of our church such as John Paul 11 and Benedict X11 always based what they said from the word of Scripture and the orthodox teachings of the Church. To my way of thinking it would have been far more important to reaffirm Christian patrimony, remind and encourage all folk of the need for repentance for all sins and renewal leading to genuine conversion.
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Posted by: Lucius49 -
Jan. 04, 2024 7:49 PM ET USA
Fiducia is neither clear nor definitive. It is a word-salad attempt to have your cake and eat it: accommodate an anti-Catholic agenda (LGBTQ etc) while claiming Catholic teaching remains unaltered. The irony is Pope Francis claimed to want to beatify Blaise Pascal the sworn enemy of Jesuits of his day bending Catholicism by casuistry: for example figuring out a way to allow a gentleman to duel without committing the mortal sin of dueling. This has not served the Church well.
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Posted by: tjbenjamin -
Jan. 04, 2024 7:19 PM ET USA
Can the Vatican possibly believe this will satisfy the dissidents? Or is it a case of “wink, wink, nudge, nudge—go ahead?” Or is it a case of a strategy of incrementalism? I can’t think of any good reason for this, only harmful ones. Unfortunately, the release of this document and “clarifications” are not in the least surprising, but predictable, adding to the mess Pope Francis apparently enjoys making.
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Posted by: Retired01 -
Jan. 04, 2024 6:43 PM ET USA
Pastoral actions speak louder than doctrine (words). Thus, I believe that for all practical purposes FS makes doctrine irrelevant for those bishops and priests that do not like the doctrine. Of course, they can always claim that they are faithful to doctrine, is not this what the DDF claims? But the message for many, whether because they disagree with doctrine, or have no idea about what is going on, will be clear: doctrine has changed. Because again, actions speak louder than words
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Posted by: feedback -
Jan. 04, 2024 2:30 PM ET USA
"It goes without saying that a blessing would be imprudent... [where] homosexual activity is a crime." This part of the 'clarification' sounds like Fiducia actually is about a blessing of homosexual activity. And maybe that's where the "real novelty" is concealed?