CNA Staff, Dec 22, 2023 / 16:56 pm (CNA).
The leader of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church said Friday that the Vatican’s recent declaration on non-liturgical same-sex blessings does not apply to the Eastern Catholic Churches.
Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk said that his statement was in response to numerous appeals from bishops, clergy, monastics, church movements, and individual laity of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church” regarding “Fiducia Supplicans,” a declaration from the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith published Dec. 18.
That declaration said that “Blessings are among the most widespread and evolving sacramentals” and that it is possible to give “blessings for couples in irregular situations and for couples of the same sex.”
The declaration clearly states that the Church’s teaching on marriage between one man and one woman has not changed and emphasizes that such blessings should “never” occur within the ceremony of a civil union “and not even in connection with them” to avoid confusion or scandal.
Shevchuk said, according to an online translation of his statement from Ukrainian to English, “After consulting with relevant experts and competent institutions, I wish to inform you of the following:
“The above-mentioned Declaration interprets the pastoral meaning of blessings in the Latin Church, not in the Eastern Catholic Churches,” the archbishop said, referring to Fiducia Supplicans.
“It does not address questions of Catholic faith or morality, does not refer to any prescriptions of the Code of Canons for the Eastern Churches, and does not mention Eastern Christians. Thus, on the basis of can. 1492 of the CCCC, this Declaration applies exclusively to the Latin Church and has no legal force for the faithful of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church,” he said.
The 23 Eastern Catholic Churches all share one Code of Canon Law, separate from that of the Latin Church.
“The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church is one of the Eastern Catholic Churches, therefore it has its own liturgical, theological, canonical and spiritual heritage, which all the faithful are obliged to observe and cherish (CCCC, can. 39-41),” Shevchuk said.
He said that the meaning of the word “blessing” has a different meaning in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church than the Latin Church.
Shevchuk said that according to liturgical practice in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, “the blessing of a priest or bishop is a liturgical gesture that cannot be separated from the rest of the content of the liturgical rites and reduced only to the circumstances and needs of private piety (Catechism of the UGCC “Christ is our Pascha,” paras. 505-509).”
“According to the traditions of the Byzantine rite, the concept of ‘blessing’ means approval, permission, or even an order for a certain type of action, prayer, and ascetic practices, including certain types of fasting and prayer,” he added.
Shevchuk said that a priest’s blessing “always has an evangelizing and catechetical dimension” and added that a blessing “can in no way contradict the teaching of the Catholic Church about the family as a faithful, indissoluble, and fruitful union of love between a man and a woman, which Our Lord Jesus Christ raised to the dignity of the Holy Sacrament of Matrimony.”
“Pastoral discernment urges us to avoid ambiguous gestures, expressions, and concepts that would distort or misrepresent God’s word and the teaching of the Church,” he said.
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Bishop Shevchuk is absolutely correct in his statement. The 23 Eastern Catholic Churches are self-governed, autonomous Churches in communion with Rome, and are therefore under a different code of canon law. Not only does it seem like there a different meaning of the word “blessing” in the Byzantine Rite, a blessing can refer to someone giving someone else permission to do certain things, which in this case, is gravely unacceptable. I’m also worried that this decree will ruin any progress Rome has made towards reuniting with the Orthodox Churches. I’m not a sedevacantist; Pope Francis IS our Pope, but he needs to stop playing people pleaser. Hopefully the next Pope will reverse this, and change the meaning of the word “blessing” to match the Eastern Rite definition.
So, had the Declaration been routinely vetted for collegial consultation (as was the Catechism), then this bit of late news would not be happening.
Instead, has ghost-writer Fernandez thrown up another roadblock to progress in reunion between the Catholic Church (Latin and Eastern Rites) and the Orthodox Churches? We’ve already heard that open-bar synodality in the West doesn’t measure up to the eastern understanding of synods of bishops.
On the matter of radical secularists co-opting the Church with the homosexual lifestyle, the Holy Father need only recall his 2021 Instruction prohibiting blessings (surely meaning the inventive non-blessing blessings!) and stick with it. We also might be reminded, here, of how Nicaea was a matter of faithful remembering and, therefore, rejection of polytheistic Arianism, more than it was the simple inclusiveness of contour-free synodality.
It’s almost as if closing out the so-called “backwardists,” those retrogrades who don’t know how to love, is a bit that has come back to bite. To parse Richard M. Weaver, “Deafness has Consequences.”
Faithful Catholic bishops and pastors should likewise opt out of this latest Bergoglio imbroglio.
The major archbishop’s reasoning is quite compelling:
“Pastoral discernment urges us to avoid ambiguous gestures, expressions, and concepts that would distort or misrepresent God’s word and the teaching of the Church.”
‘”Pastoral discernment urges us to avoid ambiguous gestures, expressions and concepts that would distort or misrepresent God’s word and the teaching of the Church”, [Ukrainian Archbishop Sviatislav Shevchuk] said’.
Too rigid for Rome, it would seem.
Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk has good reason to rescind, insofar as Eastern liturgical praxis, as well as his apparent disagreement with Fiducia Supplicans. Although Fiducia is a Declaration, we recall the liturgical plight of the Syriac Malabar Christians of India. I hope he’s right. We’ve reached the moment in Church history in which we may question the pontificate of Francis 1. Many are using words such as, against Christ, blasphemy, doing evil against the Father. How might we interpret this?
Pope Francis appears to be a type of Antichrist. Insofar as type anyone who consistently repudiates Christ by diminishing his doctrine is a form or type of Antichrist. What do the relevant texts say, perhaps the foremost is the Apostle in 2 Thess 2. Generally the Greek, 2 Thess 4 ὥστε αὐτὸν εἰς τὸν ναὸν τοῦ θεοῦ καθίσαι, ἀποδεικνύντα ἑαυτὸν ὅτι ἔστιν θεός is translated as ‘seating himself in God’s temple as God’, whereas the Gk text uses the active participle ἀποδεικνύντα, which may be translated, ‘as if he were God’. That is how Saint Jerome translates the sentence in the Vulgate, ita ut in templo Dei sedeat ostendens se tamquam sit Deus. Which translates as if he were God. We can add to this that the inveterate sinner, atheist, person who subverts Christ’s words is a form of Antichrist. We find the ancient Fathers applying the word Antichrist to Gnostics like Marcion and others.
Francis, we know, is the pope. That he’s a man with convictions he perceives are best for a failing Church. Convictions a growing number of Catholics including bishops and cardinals are in conflict with, realized in this latest teaching, Fiducia Supplicans. Credentialed commentators have acknowledged that Fiducia textual quoting of Card Carlo Martini’s circumstantial ethics of meeting the needs of the moment rather than being locked into inflexible doctrine undermines the entire corpus of Christ’s revelation.
As said elsewhere Catholics must remain loyal to the Deposit of the Faith and perennial doctrine. We should continue to remain loyal to the Chair of Peter insofar as it is instituted by Christ. Although if the person who holds the Chair is manifestly in conflict with the faith revealed by Christ and conveyed by the Apostles we’re certainly not required to submit to what is sinful. In this way we remain loyal to Christ and the Church as it was instituted by Our Lord. Similarly if what promotes sin and the loss of souls is propagated, we’re obliged to reveal that error or errors to the faithful and instruct them to follow tradition.
Francis does not fear God. He does not fear His Holy Word. The ramifications of this double failure has serious consequences for the Church.
Since Francis took over the Chair of Peter, he’s been speaking from both sides of his mouth, like a snake oil salesman attempting to sell the latest fad and hoping we will buy it. Nope we stay True to God’s word and avoid sin at all costs even when it comes out of one side of the mouth of Bergoglio