Within 24 hours last month, three mainstream Catholic websites ran stories describing Pope Francis’s meeting with the members and consultors of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, with the following headlines:
Pope Francis defends blessings of couples in ‘irregular situations,’ including same-sex unions (America Media, January 26);
Pope defends document offering blessings for “irregular” couples (La Croix International, January 27);
Amid furor over Vatican doc, Pope says aim is to bless people, not same-sex unions (Crux, January 27).
There is legitimate theological diversity in the Catholic Church. (Thomists and ressourcement theologians both contributed to the teaching of the Second Vatican Council.) There are legitimate differences of theological method in advancing a dynamic orthodoxy. (See the works of Fr. Thomas Joseph White, OP, and Fr. Robert Imbelli.) There are even legitimately different ways of expressing enduring truths of Catholic faith. (Compare the style of the first and third chapters of John Paul II’s 1993 encyclical, Veritatis Splendor, with that of the second chapter).
Then there are Tohu wa-bohu (Jeremiah 4:23, citing Genesis 1:2): a Hebrew phrase that can be rendered as “chaos and confusion.”
What we have emanating from Rome today is Tohu wa-bohu.
Chaos and confusion, of the sort suggested by those three headlines, disturb the peace and unity of the Church, especially among its most devout people. Chaos and confusion are impediments to vocation recruitment: Many are willing to take up the burdens and challenges of priestly or consecrated life for the sake of a mystery of divine love; few are going to give their lives for a question mark (and those who do are almost certainly heading for trouble). Chaos and confusion are grave impediments to evangelization: Who wants to join the Church of Maybe, which is just the Church of the Zeitgeist, the Spirit of the Age tarted up with smells and bells?
And Tohu wa-bohu — chaos and confusion — are precisely what the Office of Peter in the Church was created to mitigate.
Christ promised that, through the work of the Holy Spirit, the Church would be preserved in the truth (John 14:16-17). Having promised that, Christ established the Petrine Office — what we know as the papacy — to give specific, historical form to that promise. Thus the job description of the pope, the Bishop of Rome, is encapsulated in Luke 22:32, when the Lord Jesus, at the Last Supper, commanded Peter to “strengthen your brethren.”
Strengthening the brethren does not mean confusing them. Nor does it mean permitting to go uncorrected the confusions propounded by others with authority in the Church. The diversity-within-unity that the Petrine Office is also called to protect is not a diversity of opinion in settled matters of Catholic faith, be those matters doctrinal or moral. Diversity-within-unity is not Tohu wa-bohu.
The 21st century world is full of chaos and confusion, much of it lethal. The world does not need more chaos and confusion from the Catholic Church; if the world wants Tohu wa-bohu with a religious veneer, there is a rich menu of options from which to choose. Whether it wants it or not, what the world needs from the Catholic Church is a compelling, creative, accessible and compassionate proclamation of the truths of the Gospel — and the truths of the moral life that embracing Christ and his cause help us grasp, even as we also grasp them by reason (another commodity on short supply in 2024).
The third chapter of my small book, The Next Pope: The Office of Peter and a Church in Mission, begins with what might seem a statement of the obvious: “The next pope must have a firm grasp on the nature of the Petrine Office and its roles in the Church of the New Evangelization.” But restatements of the obvious seem necessary in The Year of Our Lord 2024.
Truth to tell, I was heartened when, at World Youth Day-2013, Pope Francis used some Argentinian slang in urging young people to “make a mess” — which I interpreted as a call to courage and creativity in advancing the New Evangelization: Be bold. Don’t be afraid to try something new in offering others friendship with Jesus Christ. Whether that was too benign an interpretation, I leave others to judge.
What is certain is that making a mess is not the remit of the man who holds the Petrine Office in the Church. There will be a measure of Tohu wa-bohu in the Church until the Lord returns in glory. One task of the Petrine Office is to keep the inevitable chaos and confusion to a minimum. It is not to exacerbate it. And it certainly isn’t to encourage it.
(George Weigel’s column ‘The Catholic Difference’ is syndicated by the Denver Catholic, the official publication of the Archdiocese of Denver.)
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Is it really unclear to anyone at this point that the whole purpose of this pontificate has been to promote pastoral heresies? Look back over the decade. This agenda has been clearly unfolded from the first day this pontificate.
A future pontificate will need to annul this pontificate. Accepting the Petrine office to undermine Sacred Scripture, Tradition and all of one’s predecessors is “inadmissible.” The Pope is free to promulgate pastoral heresies. But so too is a future Pope free to defend the Faith. We do not need the Vicar of Christ to tell us that it is wrong to tolerate concubinage or attempt to “bless” sin. Christ Himself has already taught us that such actions are sinful and can eternally separate us from Him. Christ will send a saintly shepherd to fix this “mess”.
Except almost all the electors at the next Conclave will be Bergolian. Outside the South Americans, McElroy is the biggest toady of them all so my money is on him.
“Purpose of the pontificate “is a bold statement to make about the Pope. There is no way that you can presume motives by accessing actions with any accuracy. This man is very intelligent and his background complicated and you can only guess motives and doing so publicly only lends to detraction and possible calumny. Best to keep our criticisms on a higher ground.
James Connor: that’s funny.
Looks like I hit a nerve. Perhaps you consider extramarital sex loving? Regardless, who are you to judge? I asked a question. What about my complex motives?
Perhaps you are right that we should not take this pontificate seriously. Why take this Pope at his word when he promulgates practices that are against the Word of God?
Consider me shriven, assuming it matters, since all is apparently automatically forgiven. Dare we hope..? If so, what is the point of anything? So much for the Theo-Drama. Is Von Balthasar hoity-toity enough for high ground?
Regardless, I’ll keep writing. If I am making a mess, then how am I being disobedient? Or is that too logical and therefore inadmissible? Anyway, Cardinal Cupich told me that the point was to obey my conscience…
St. Jerome, pray for us to receive the gift of holy invective.
No, let’s ground it in reality. He combines ignorance and juvenile stupidity towards the religion for where he is supposed to preserve the honor of God with personal arrogance and cynical manipulation. There is no presumption of motives when a man provides them. A man who praises atheism and Marxism, many times, while mocking the Deposit of Faith as museum pieces for the mentally ill, is very clear about his motivations.
I place my faith in Jesus Christ alone. I place NO faith in Pope Bergoglio – in anything he says, anything he writes, anything he does. I await the next conclave if that is God’s will for my life. Christ is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow; Popes come and Popes go (I’ve seen seven in my lifetime).
chaos?- no it is deliberate; intended to destroy
confusion? – not so much – the agenda is very clear
perhaps the Beloved One of God is showing all his priests and bishops how utterly shallow is their Faith. Only a few stand for the Way, the Truth and the Life and they are reviled as enemies by pf.
Keep your eyes on Jesus, always. The eternal and unchanging. The antithesis of and the antidote to the chaotic mess.
Now that expresses exactly what I wanted to hear. Thank you so much.
Brother George,
You say, ““The next pope must have a firm grasp on the nature of the Petrine Office and its roles in the Church of the New Evangelization.” But restatements of the obvious seem necessary in The Year of Our Lord 2024”. Really? is that what you sense about what is happening in Rome at this very time? My dear younger brother in Jesus, take off your intellectual glasses, and see the obvious that is before your very eyes: The smoke of Satan has filled our Beloved Saviour’s Holy of Holies here on earth. Again, my esteemed brother of great literary skills, look with your spiritual eyes and see the obvious. And when you look with your spiritual eyes, you’ll see what many of us see as clear as the blue skies on a sunshine day: The work of Satan is now wreaking havoc inside the Vatican! Yes, your use of “Tohu wa-bohu-Chaos and Confusion” is really evil from Hell, which you fail to see. So, please, dismiss this collegiate debate society stuff about shallow observations of what is taking place in Rome. Better for you and many other gifted men of literay skill to write why there is such Tohu wa-bohu in Rome; it’s because Satan has entered the inner sanctuary of the Petrine Office! So, be bold my younger brother in Jesus! Yes, be bold and don’t be afraid to tell the truth, as our Lord has blessed you with the ability to do so in a talented way far greater than us who can only write with basic skills.
Yes, George, admit publicly that this chaos and confusion emanating from Rome’s Hierarchy is from Satan and all his evil spirits! When you do this, then you will begin to understand what Jesus said, “let your yes mean yes, and your no mean no, anything else than this is from the Devil”. To begin with, you can please tell old Catholic guys like myself just exactly what is the difference between a couple of men or women “living in sin” and a couple of men or women living in an “irregular union”. Is there any difference in this?
And our Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior will make all things new and holy! Come Lord Jesus! come JCALAS!
How do you feel about the bishops he has appointed in the last couple of years?
Do you really find it so necessary to talk down to Weigel about noticing the very things he clearly just got done lamenting? Did you read the article? I’ve been critical for years of his blind trust in Francis, but it appears he has finally lost his patience.
Yes, and who is the father of ‘Tohu-wa-bohu‘?
Not the Holy Spirit.
Thank you, Mr. Weigel, for your honest and clear-sighted appraisal.
“The next pope must have a firm grasp on the nature of the Petrine Office and its roles in the Church of the New Evangelization.”
What is “the Church of the New Evangelization”? Is it something different from the Church founded by Jesus? Does the Church of the New Evangelization continue to regard those Catholics who adhere to the timeless, unchanging, eternal truths of the Catholic Faith (i.e., Traditionalist Catholics) as “backward” in their unwelcome beliefs, as Pope Francis has phrased it? Or does the Church of the New Evangelization embrace their rejection of the wisdom of the world as foolishness in the sight of God?
Yours truly has an identical twin brother. When we were still very young, prior to kindergarten, we sometimes sat together on our small front porch playing a word game. We wondered whether it was possible for one person to say two different words at the very same time…
We concluded that it was a “mess” and not possible.
But, now I see how Synod 2024 might solve this impossibility. Why not replace “culturally” backwardist, continental Africa—which speaks the Word—with unheard continent of Antarctica? Penguins are BOTH black and white at the same time! Synodality and such are all about PENGUIN THEOLOGY!
And, it’s reported on NOVA, that the numbers and paths of penguins “walking together” can be detected by space satellites from the mess they leave “behind,” so to speaketh.
Your reflections often stimulate a lot of thought. But I enjoy these that are whimsical the most. Do you still play word games with your brother?
Thank you, George. Excellent and very timely piece.
What I wonder is if the mess and confusion is not just a negligently unforeseen consequence of FS, but rather something intentional, an opening in the line to allow the James Martins to run for daylight claiming a papal endorsement of their personal views.
Likewise, looking at one other example, when Christ’s first command in the Gospels is to repent (Mark 1:15), the Pope’s recent directive to confessors to offer absolution even if there is clearly no repentance from the penitent seems to me to be something worse than just sowing confusion.
have courage!, make and witness a conclusion, a judgement, dont do this: Whether that was too benign an interpretation, I leave others to judge.
What causes chaos?
There are always three levels of the Universe. There are the principles, the power and the project. At the beginning of the Catholic Church, there was Jesus of Nazareth and Peter. One taught the principles and the other was the application of the principles. The project was the Catholic Church. (Can this be called the principles of the Holy Trinity?)
The principles peg us at a particular level. The power level is the application of the principles, based on up, down or straight ahead. The project level must combine both principles and power. When you leave out the principles, and the choice is either straight ahead or power games that are oppressive to the people, there is chaos. The power games compensate for lack of power. That is a sin, which in some languages means lack.
God’s Law, also called Universal Law, is based on seven principles. They are Equality, Liberty, Freedom, Compassion, Abundance, Capacity and Tolerance. These principles counter the Seven Deadly Sins.
Pope Francis says Christianity is for all. The first requirement for conflict resolution is that both sides must be considered equal. People who get dragged into wars, based on the Sin of Pride, lack equality. Disputes can be resolved in courts, and for a fair trial there must be equality under the law.
Religion has been considered divisive, but if Christianity is for all, it unifies the religions. God becomes the Creator of us all, and religion becomes a cultural interpretation of Universal Law. It pegs mankind on a very high level.
God’s Law is unchanging. It applies to every atom in the Universe. It pegs mankind on a very high level. What you do to another will be done to you, so leaving anyone out leads to you being left out.
How about blessing same sex unions? Is homosexuality a sin or did God create that person the way he or she is? Is homosexuality taught? Can it be deprogrammed? If homosexuals are created that way by God, the Creator of us all, how can they be judged? What you believe is what is, and people are creative in our thinking. Being judged, facing incarceration or even execution for being a homosexual, including being denied the right to have a recognized union, is so oppressive that the fear triggered the manifestation of the HIV virus, a retro virus. That is chaos. Now that same-sex marriages are legal a sense of equality is coming about, and in some places, people with AIDs are spontaneously starting to produce antibodies to the virus. That is applying God’s Law to end the chaos.
As several of the commenters more explicitly express, and others allude to, this is no mere confusion, but evil, sowing evil, and politely being called confusion.
Among those faithful paying the attention required to discern what is afoot in Rome and its “new-paradigm-shift” with its “underlings” in its corporate satellite subdivisions (previously deemed as apostolic sees under faithful shepherds), there is no real confusion at all.
The Pontiff Francis and his host of fawning supporters (aided and abetted by the intimidated “tames”) in the episcopal and collegial precincts consist of a sexually (and politically) Marxist colony of parasites feeding themselves inside the suffering host we call The Body of Christ, the Church owned by Jesus, whose commands, and kingship, they live to subvert, to steal for themselves what belongs to Him alone.
They are what Jesus called “false shepherds” and “robbers.”
They are what Jesus says they are.
“…making a mess is not the remit of the man who holds the Petrine Office in the Church.”
A poignant thing that stands out is the lack of mutual listening between modernists and backwardists. The criticisms from the other side blend true and false things. It would be necessary for both parties to have the humility and discernment to accept rightful criticism; however, unfortunately, by rejecting the correction that would come from the other side, they persist stubbornly and proudly in their unilateralism, claiming to represent the true Church against the other side, which still remains part of the Church.
Pope Francis, whose charisma is that of unity, is rich in human warmth and stands out for his attention to the poor and suffering humanity. He has made historic gestures in favor of peace but struggles to maintain a position of impartiality in the Church, exercising excessive leniency towards modernists, secularists, and laxists, and excessive severity towards traditionalists, rigid individuals, and rigorists. The former smooth him over and instrumentalize him, wanting to pass him off as their leader, distorting the meaning of the council; the latter engage in systematic, ruthless, and unjust criticism, in stubborn opposition to the Council.
Normal Catholics, who are in true communion with the Pope, faithful to the Council, attentive to both tradition and progress, seem to still be the majority. They are pulled by the two opposing sides to strengthen themselves, suffering from the Pope’s struggle to promote harmony, justice, and peace. Justice is disregarded due to false mercy, diversity is confused with conflict, ecumenism borders on indifference, and evangelization resembles philanthropy.
“Pope Francis, whose charisma is that of unity…”
A fraudulent statement. Why are you repeatedly defending the blessing of gay couples on this site? What is your agenda here? And there is no such thing as a backwardist Catholic.
Dear friends, today we all perceive that we Catholics are deeply divided among ourselves in a new way, never before seen in the Church. One doesn’t need to possess the love for the Church of a Saint Catherine of Siena to notice with pain and dismay that we are experiencing a dramatic moment, in which scandals, peculiarities, bad examples, and controversies follow one another daily in a swirling succession that seems to have no end.
This unfortunate opposition between retrogressive-modernists arose immediately after the Council. Just think of the 1960s, the sexual revolution, and Humanae Vitae. Everything indeed started with the conclusion of the Council. Pope John expected from the Council the advent of a new Pentecost. But then what happened, if only 10 years later Pope Paul VI anxiously denounced that instead of a new spring, a storm had arrived?
Keen and impartial observers like J. Maritain and Congar immediately noticed the emergence of two opposing parties: the Lefebvrists and the modernists, whom much press already influenced by modernists called respectively with euphemisms of “conservatives” or “traditionalists” (in a derogatory sense) and “progressives” (they were the real Church).
The novelty of the current ecclesiastical situation is not given by the emergence or persistence of heretical or schismatic positions. They have always arisen in the Church. But it has always happened that heretics and schismatics, aware of no longer being Catholics, openly declared it and either left the Church or were expelled by ecclesiastical authority.
A Catholic is someone who follows the Catholic doctrine defined by the Catholic Church. Likewise, it is up to her, not others, to define what the Catholic Church is.
The crux of the matter is not too difficult to identify: it concerns the relationship between the conservative factor and the progressive factor of the Church. The concept of being Catholic centers on the question of the concept of the Church. Here lies the fundamental disagreement among us Catholics today.
There exists in the Church an unhealthy dialectic. It is a dialectic that does not lead to reconciliation but provokes a permanent war. The synthesis is conceived wrongly, illusorily, in the manner of Hegel and not of Aristotle. And this is because the dialectic is not structured as in Aristotle’s way to prepare agreement based on truth and common good recognized by both parties; it is incapable of reconciling conflicting parties, freeing them from extremism, which renders them irreconcilable, but simply covers them, juxtaposing them as they are, without indicating how to remove the contrast and therefore the true path to reconciliation.
In the modernist mentality, dialectic is not conceived in the Aristotelian manner, as preparatory to knowledge, which alone is a factor of unity and peace, but in the Hegelian manner as the essence of knowledge itself and therefore as a sufficient factor of synthesis that creates tranquility and concord. Dialectic only touches upon freedom of opinion but cannot claim to unify knowledge. Dialectic leaves divisions intact, legitimate divisions, but incapable on their own of founding the objectivity necessary for community peace.
Aristotle demonstrates that the synthesis between opposites or the solution of antinomies is not created by dialectic but by science because only science, through the method of analogy, knows how to dissolve those antinomies that dialectic alone is incapable of removing.
Paolo this isn’t a discussion on Aristotle logical arguments. What you perceive is exactually every thing that has been going on in the world from the beginning of time after Adam and Eve were removed out of the garden. Methods may be different but the sin is still the same.
Dearest brother, I wish to emphasize only the lack of philosophical soul in what I call religious nominalists (ultraconservatives) and modernists (liberals).
Both fail to see reality in its human complexity, which is not simply good or bad, but a complex mixture of positive and negative aspects. They are “Cartesians,” as I have already mentioned, who always need “clear and distinct ideas” to not disturb the false tranquility of their conscience, which wants to see everything simply divided into pure wheat and pure weeds, goats and sheep, righteous and unjust.
The philosophical defect (rational, but also a lack of faith, I would add, a lack of the Marian perspective, as an Italian Benedictine said) that I notice in the challengers of Church Documents is to mistake the substantial for the accidental.
In these unions, in fact, attention is not paid to the substantial, which is ignored, while the accidental is substantialized, which is sinful activity, to the point of speaking of a state of sin, as if sin were not a contingent act, suppressible at the will of sin, which can always convert, moved by God.
This ignorance of what is truly substantial in these unions means that only sin is seen in it, and the positive qualities created by God, which constitute the characteristics of the people in that relationship, are ignored.
This ignorance explains the fact that many do not understand the reason for this blessing. If, instead, they reflected on this positive side of the union, they would understand the reason for the blessing, which has the dual purpose of potentializing the good qualities and helping the couple to free themselves from sin.
Those who speak of a “state of sin” exactly claim to judge consciences, in addition to the distrust that these people can stop sinning at any time they want, in a path of conversion, supported by the grace of God.
The Document does not confuse at the level of moral principles. It reaffirms the traditional doctrine of the Church and does not legitimize in any way the sin of sodomy.
What can be noticed, negatively, as I have said many times before, is a certain language based on the implicit and the generic.
Faced with this widespread negative reaction to these teachings of the Church, our duty is to enlighten the faithful, because these documents represent a step forward in the practice of mercy, in which the Church is Mother and Teacher.
The Church wants to offer our contemporaries the light of the Gospel and the Church to address and overcome the serious problem of gender and the different cultures and legislations of States, which on the one hand favor this corruption (just think of the still ongoing tragedy of the sexual revolution and the future one of the digital revolution) and on the other hand are too severe towards these people.
What nonsense! Sounds like a lot of kumbaya.
Dear Paolo:
The real question is why the Pontiff Francis is not now, and apparently never was, in the communion of faith with preceding faithful Pontiffs (i.e., other pontiffs who were faithful to Christ and his apostles).
This breach of communion includes his breach with his 2 most recent predecessors (who, unlike him, actually worked in and produced the Second Vatican Council, the Council which the Pontiff Francis abuses by his willfull neglect).
Apart from Jesus, no one, including a Pontiff, can do anything…other than nothing.
The solution to the question of who is currently governing the Church, on the throne of Peter, cannot be derived from Sacred Scripture or personal opinions but simply from the observation of facts. That is, Pope Benedict had resigned and in his place, Pope Francis was legitimately elected, to whom Benedict had pledged obedience, considering himself Pope Emeritus, a title also acknowledged by Pope Francis.
Francis was legitimately elected Pope in place of Benedict, so according to the law of the Lord, he is the sole Head and Shepherd who tends the Flock of Christ. Pope Benedict had not renounced the title of Pope because he had distinguished the Pope Emeritus from the reigning Pope, and he reserved for himself the title of Pope Emeritus. Therefore, he remains Pope, Pope forever, as he himself had said.
Even though Benedict remained Pope at his time, one should not question whether Francis is a true Pope. It is enough to bear in mind the distinction between Pope Emeritus and reigning Pope.
I must also point out that all accusations made against Pope Francis are unfounded. Especially the accusation of heresy, apostasy, and being worthy of excommunication is unacceptable.
Beautiful article; well thought, well said, and needed in these times of confusion.
Shout out to Carl Olson for letting K. Holmes of the Babylon Bee write a spoof comment to add some asinine woke humor to this serious topic.
A good belly laugh is frequently good for the soul even when the subject matter requires sober analysis.
Where are U.S. bishops and cardinals while all this confusion flourishes? Have
they no responsibility for the orderly governance of the Church? What will future
generations think of their passivity and downright lack of leadership?
Imagine someone who has such a fragile self that he entirely depends on mirrors to feel that he exists. This is a narcissist who goes out of himself to be favorably = gloriously reflected by others. There is a black void inside him and he must fill it up.
A covert narcissist is one who masks his nature with a mask of a very kind, caring person. He sees himself as a philanthrope, the most carrying, the kindest and so on; he does anything to get feedback from others which confirm that image of his. That mask is called “a fake self”; a narcissist developed it in his early childhood (often due to a severe trauma). His true self is arrested so in a realm of human relationships he is three years old.
Now imagine such a person being in a position of an almost absolute power like the Pope. He has endless possibilities of receiving feedback which confirm the majesty of his fake self – providing that he would satisfy those whom he meets. So, he gives everyone what they want. For example, he decrees a blessing of homosexual couples to get a phrase from the homosexual lobby. Or he does something with Pachamama to earn “love” from those who practice that cult. He invites non-Christians to participate in the Passion Thursday’s feet washing because he is desperate to look “humble” – no, “the humblest”. In this desire of his he does not see that via washing the feet of non-Christians he destroyed the symbolism of that ritual (Christ washed the feet of his disciples only). In his insatiable desire to be perceived as “the humblest” he forgot that he was nothing but someone who represented Christ. Instead, he pushed Christ aside and represented the ideal version of himself.
From here follows that there is no system in this madness – the Pope will do anything to embellish his fake self; what exactly he will do is dictated by the one with whom he deals, by a mere human being, most often than not non-Christian, a man of the world who couldn’t care less about Christ. Because he is the Pope, he is naturally turning the Church into the tool for getting the bigger and bigger reflections of himself, from the world. He attempts to use God for this purpose as well. This is why we have chaos, ugliness and a covert violation of Church’s teaching. There is no authority of God over there.
However, Pope Francis could never do that if the Church was not full of people like him, the covert narcissistic people whose religion is “I want to look nice” and not “I want to be good”. Pope Francis is a perfect lens or “Christ” for all those people. Pope Francis has no significance in himself; he just happened to be there.
NB: The strangling of contemplative Orders, the Latin Mass etc. while appearing to be incomprehensible can be easily understood as the destruction of things which give no favourable reflection. They are objective and they reflect God, not the Pope. So as the removal of the critics. It is a simple human psychology, nothing more.
Take heart Anna. This too shall pass. Hearing of the death of the narcissist Pope Clement VI after a decade at Avignon in 1352, Saint Bridget said: “Blessed be this day, but not this pope.”
That there is chaos and confusion is certain, but on this issue it does not emanate from Pope Francis who is very clear that there must be no formal blessing of irregular unions, and nothing that would obscure the plain teaching of the church that marriage is a monogamous relationship between two (not more) people of the opposite sex. That is repeated in all these documents. The confusion is caused in part by journalists false reporting of the contrary. But it is also caused by certain cardinals pretending that they do not understand the pope’s distinction between formal liturgical actions and what a pastor may say to encourage people to cope with messy situations in which they find themselves or break free from irregular attachments.
This doesn’t ring true Mr. Hawkins.
Your claims are off the mark, Anthony. Authorizing any kind of a blessing for an immoral couple as such a couple is the problem; not repeating Church teaching on marriage. Some people who pretend that Fiducia Supplicans is just fine employ the document’s statements on marriage in a disingenuous straw man fallacy fashion instead of more honestly addressing what the primary problem is, which has been rightly criticized by sound theological analysis supported by 2,000 years of Church teaching.
And make no mistake. Fiducia Supplicans specifically singles out immoral and illicit couples as just such couples, and it advises what kind of blessings they can receive…not as individuals but as couples. Otherwise, the document would have simply set forth in clear language (not make a bogus claim afterward that such is inferred when it is not the case) a statement like …’for those individuals currently in a state of serious sin by immorally coupling with another person on a continuing basis, and who hold themselves out as just such a couple, the Church invites each individual of these ‘partnerships’ to approach a priest or Bishop for a blessing to help each one better unite with Christ that includes giving up his or her seriously sinful coupling. In doing so, these individuals must never approach the priest or Bishop together as a couple and seek a blessing applicable to them as a couple.’
But of course Fiducia Supplicans does not bother with making an appropriate overture in accordance with perennial Church teaching, and that is why it also states that the personal lives of the immoral couples are not to be considered, which is a serious failure of truly Catholic pastoral care, courtesy of Fiducia Supplicans.
Mr. Hawkins: this is superb Popesplaing. Fortunately, no orthodox Catholic believes what Bergoglio says, his own explanations of what he says, nor his stated intentions. He’s a deceiver; not any better than the current crop of deceivers and dissimulators in Washington DC.
We need a down-to-earth expose on the Optics of Self-deception…
McCarrick annexed seminarians into his beach house, and now the entire Church is being annexed (!) into the homosexual lifestyle. Validation of redefined “marriage” and every “irregular” cohabitation under the self-deceiving disguise of a redefined and irregular “blessing.”
How does the “field hospital” Church transition into the doormat Church, and when does it unwittingly (or wittily?) become a beach house? But, surely this kerfuffle will calm down and go away, the same way that the comparatively narrow Scandal of 2002 calmed down and just went away…
Wait, what?!
Is it simply that all disdained “clericalism” is equal, but that some clericalism (Fernandez) is more equal than others?
Peter:
I concur with your insight about the self-deception, and grooming, at the heart of this evil. The analogy to McCarrick’s beach house is apt.
In Christus Veritas.
How about “if you are living in sin, and you want a blessing, go to Confession, repent and you will be blessed”
I’m nothing but a retired professional salesman. But I made a great living and retired from Wall Street at age 44. I just know Francis is a terrible communicator. He has the biggest communication job in the world and has failed miserably. He has no understanding of what his job entails.
The AntiChrist works in mysterious ways and is an expert at disguise. Beware!