The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith responded to a dubium concerning whether or not the church could do what individuals like Father James Martin, SJ, and the leaders of the German bishops, would appear set to have the Church do, that being bless and indeed regularize in some fashion homosexual unions. The response probably came as a surprise to those who seem to think that they know what Pope Francis thinks, but its solidly in line with Church teaching.
First, here's the text, in its English translation.
Responsum of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to a dubium regarding the blessing of the unions of persons of the same sexTO THE QUESTION PROPOSED:Does the Church have the power to give the blessing to unions of persons of the same sex?RESPONSE:Negative.Explanatory Note
In some ecclesial contexts, plans and proposals for blessings of unions of persons of the same sex are being advanced. Such projects are not infrequently motivated by a sincere desire to welcome and accompany homosexual persons, to whom are proposed paths of growth in faith, “so that those who manifest a homosexual orientation can receive the assistance they need to understand and fully carry out God’s will in their lives”[1].
On such paths, listening to the word of God, prayer, participation in ecclesial liturgical actions and the exercise of charity can play an important role in sustaining the commitment to read one's own history and to adhere with freedom and responsibility to one's baptismal call, because “God loves every person and the Church does the same”[2], rejecting all unjust discrimination.
Among the liturgical actions of the Church, the sacramentals have a singular importance: “These are sacred signs that resemble the sacraments: they signify effects, particularly of a spiritual kind, which are obtained through the Church’s intercession. By them men are disposed to receive the chief effect of the sacraments, and various occasions of life are sanctified”[3]. The Catechism of the Catholic Church specifies, then, that “sacramentals do not confer the grace of the Holy Spirit in the way that the sacraments do, but by the Church’s prayer, they prepare us to receive grace and dispose us to cooperate with it” (#1670).
Blessings belong to the category of the sacramentals, whereby the Church “calls us to praise God, encourages us to implore his protection, and exhorts us to seek his mercy by our holiness of life”[4]. In addition, they “have been established as a kind of imitation of the sacraments, blessings are signs above all of spiritual effects that are achieved through the Church’s intercession”[5].
Consequently, in order to conform with the nature of sacramentals, when a blessing is invoked on particular human relationships, in addition to the right intention of those who participate, it is necessary that what is blessed be objectively and positively ordered to receive and express grace, according to the designs of God inscribed in creation, and fully revealed by Christ the Lord. Therefore, only those realities which are in themselves ordered to serve those ends are congruent with the essence of the blessing imparted by the Church.
For this reason, it is not licit to impart a blessing on relationships, or partnerships, even stable, that involve sexual activity outside of marriage (i.e., outside the indissoluble union of a man and a woman open in itself to the transmission of life), as is the case of the unions between persons of the same sex[6]. The presence in such relationships of positive elements, which are in themselves to be valued and appreciated, cannot justify these relationships and render them legitimate objects of an ecclesial blessing, since the positive elements exist within the context of a union not ordered to the Creator’s plan.
Furthermore, since blessings on persons are in relationship with the sacraments, the blessing of homosexual unions cannot be considered licit. This is because they would constitute a certain imitation or analogue of the nuptial blessing[7] invoked on the man and woman united in the sacrament of Matrimony, while in fact “there are absolutely no grounds for considering homosexual unions to be in any way similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family”[8].
The declaration of the unlawfulness of blessings of unions between persons of the same sex is not therefore, and is not intended to be, a form of unjust discrimination, but rather a reminder of the truth of the liturgical rite and of the very nature of the sacramentals, as the Church understands them.
The Christian community and its Pastors are called to welcome with respect and sensitivity persons with homosexual inclinations, and will know how to find the most appropriate ways, consistent with Church teaching, to proclaim to them the Gospel in its fullness. At the same time, they should recognize the genuine nearness of the Church – which prays for them, accompanies them and shares their journey of Christian faith[9] – and receive the teachings with sincere openness.
The answer to the proposed dubium does not preclude the blessings given to individual persons with homosexual inclinations[10], who manifest the will to live in fidelity to the revealed plans of God as proposed by Church teaching. Rather, it declares illicit any form of blessing that tends to acknowledge their unions as such. In this case, in fact, the blessing would manifest not the intention to entrust such individual persons to the protection and help of God, in the sense mentioned above, but to approve and encourage a choice and a way of life that cannot be recognized as objectively ordered to the revealed plans of God[11].
At the same time, the Church recalls that God Himself never ceases to bless each of His pilgrim children in this world, because for Him “we are more important to God than all of the sins that we can commit”[12]. But he does not and cannot bless sin: he blesses sinful man, so that he may recognize that he is part of his plan of love and allow himself to be changed by him. He in fact “takes us as we are, but never leaves us as we are”[13].
For the above mentioned reasons, the Church does not have, and cannot have, the power to bless unions of persons of the same sex in the sense intended above.
The Sovereign Pontiff Francis, at the Audience granted to the undersigned Secretary of this Congregation, was informed and gave his assent to the publication of the above-mentioned Responsum ad dubium, with the annexed Explanatory Note.
Rome, from the Offices of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the 22nd of February 2021, Feast of the Chair of Saint Peter, Apostle.
Luis F. Card. Ladaria, S.I.PrefectGiacomo MorandiArchbishop tit. of CerveteriSecretary_______________________
[1] FRANCIS, Apostolic Exhortation Amoris laetitia, 250.
[2] SYNOD OF BISHOPS, Final Document of the XV Ordinary General Assembly, 150.
[3] SECOND VATICAN ECUMENICAL COUNCIL, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium, 60.
[4] RITUALE ROMANUM ex Decreto Sacrosancti Oecumenici Concilii Vaticani II instauratum auctoritate Ioannis Pauli PP. Il promulgatum, De bendictionibus, Praenotanda Generalia, n.9.
[5] Ibidem, n. 10.
[6] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2357.
[7] In fact, the nuptial blessing refers back to the creation account, in which God's blessing on man and woman is related to their fruitful union (cf. Gen 1:28) and their complementarity (cf. Gen 2:18-24).
[8] FRANCIS, Apostolic Exhortation Amoris laetitia, 251.
[9] Cf. CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH, Letter Homosexualitatis problema On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons, 15.
[10] De benedictionibus in fact presents an extended list of situations for which to invoke the blessing of the Lord.
[11] CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH, Letter Homosexualitatis problema On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons, 7.
[12] FRANCIS, General Audience of December 2, 2020, Catechesis on Prayer, the blessing.
[13] Ibidem.
Now let the woke Internet reaction begin.
And it certainly will.
The adherent and faithful in the Church should be buoyed by the restatement of the long held Catholic understanding of sexual relations outside of marriage, of all types, being illicit, which is the basic holding of this document, based on the Catholic understanding of marriage which is that it can only occur between complimentary genders and be oriented, by that nature, to the possibility of life. Indeed, this is a step toward the reaffirmation of orthodoxy that many have been hoping for. Therefore, Rad Trads and the like should be very much buoyed by it, but we'll see if they are.
Catholic liberals, and western secularists, will have a fit. They've been hoping for the Pope to follow the path that the German Bishops seem intent in blazing which would basically shelve St. Paul forever and follow the paths of Protestant churches that have simply abandoned almost all long held Christian tenants regarding sex. Of note, German Bishops have dropping out of the "Synodal Path" over time and therefore its claim to be able to proclaim on such issues within Germany is weakening. The Vatican has already indicated that it cannot take actions that are contrary to doctrine as it is, although its leadership has seemed intent on doing just that. This action effectively informs the German Bishops, in advance of their taking any action, that they cannot in this area. The German Bishops in the Synodal Path have in the past simply ignored the Vatican and now there's a clear line in the sand.
One thing the very wealthy but increasingly ignored German Catholic Church doesn't quite seem to want to acknowledge is that Christianity has never been a religion that simply ratified people's needs and wants[1]. Indeed, whether there is such a religion that's survived long term is questionable. Certainly in the English speaking world large sections of the Protestant denominations have done just that, turning a blind eye to pretty much all of the sins that St. Paul said barred the gates of Heaven to their participants[2]. The Catholic Church, moreover, has always been clear on sin and its effect, while not holding that the individual person is an anathema, something that ironically some hard line Protestant churches that now ignore this conduct once did[3].
This has caused particular confusion in the United States which is a Protestant nation in numbers and cultures. Because of the long influence of certain Protestant denominations in the US, there's a general retained cultural belief that all Christians are opposed to science, for example, which is far from true in the case of knowledgeable Catholics[4]. There's also a retained belief and a mocking belief in the secular left that Christian morality is defined by Mike Meyers' "Church Lady" from Saturday Night Live.
Meyers grew up in Toronto and was born of English parents, which is interesting in that Toronto, now one of the most liberal cities in Canada, was once one of the most conservative and most English. Meyers sort of personally reflects Toronto in that fashion. Toronto, for example, was once the bastion of English conservative beliefs, but its hip Canadian progressive culture defines the opposite now. While Meyers "Church Lady" was presented on American television, it fits that view of Christianity that baffles Catholics as it doesn't represent Catholic Christianity or any of the Apostolic faiths in their world outlook, which holds that God's nature is unchanging, universally good, but that all humans are burdened with a cross to bear they can accept or reject, with some crosses heavier than others. People with homosexual inclinations, Apostolic Christians hold, cannot act upon those licitly, any more than people with "polyamorous" ones can, but that doesn't make the people themselves objects of contempt.
All of this has presented any number of societal challenges in the modern world, particularly the post Second World War world. We've often noted before that something seems to have dramatically changed following World War Two, and perhaps because of it. We've posted on that many times in the past, and in fact just recently. What exactly it is, isn't clear, but what is clear is that something has changed in how people view their fealty to things outside of themselves, particularly when they're against deep seated desires.
Some of this changed prior to the war, to be sure, but following the war society became wealthier and wealthier. European nations that had been regarded as "advanced" and "industrialized" none the less contained vast number of working poor and rural poor. This was true of the US as well, but mech less so. It would be totally false to argue that the working poor were all religious or even traditional. Indeed, to a large extent the opposite was true, which is what gave rise to so many Socialist and Communist parties before the Second World War. Nonetheless, large numbers of people did focus in the immediate and the metaphysical in ways that people do not now. Somehow, since that time, as wealth increased, "self realization" did as well, not all of which was a bad thing by any means. But at the point we are now at, this has advanced to the point where people actually define themselves in some instances by their sexual urges, and that's a bizarre thing.
Agree with the Responsum or not, (and Catholics must agree with it), it serves to focus on something which people need reminded of. For those with faith, God does not exist to validate our self realization or to give the stamp of approval to all of our desires, no matter how strongly felt. It's a fallen world. And for those without faith, its not a perfect world and we cannot make it so. The basic order of it is plain to see, but reengineering it on a person by person basis cannot be done and in fact is dangerous to try.
Footnotes:
1. German churches and synagogues benefit from the Kirchensteuer which taxes the income of registered members from their paychecks. As there's a real "out of sight, out of mind" element to payroll taxation, its something that people really don't pay that much attention to even though the approximately 8% taxation rate is not unsubstantial. By analogy, very few Americans pay any attention to their FICA tax rate which is 6.2% for the employee and 6.2% for the employer.
About 70% of German church and synagogue revenue comes in this fashion, and as a result the German churches are very wealthy. For reasons that are unclear, however, the problems that we've noted here in regard to post World War Two morality and whatnot have hit Germany fairly hard in recent years. It's worth noting, therefore, in this context that people who are convinced that state support of religion keeps it strong do not have very good evidence to support that. Indeed, some evidence of the opposite can fairly easily be found.
For what its worth, this system is not unique to Germany and is in fact common in Scandinavia.
2. Some of done this in a fairly remarkable fashion with the larger Anglican Communion providing one such example.
To be completely fair, the Church of England never had that good of grasp on the English in the first place. England was as devoutly religious nation throughout its long Christian era, a period which is considerably longer than its Protestant era, but is forced conversion to Protestantism was rocky and violent, and never really worked out that well. Unlike the Scandinavian regions were distance and confusion operated to allow a complete co-opting of Catholicism in the region, the United Kingdom rocked back and forth between doctrinal positions before finally landing on the Anglican one. By that time large groups of English had only loose affiliation with the new religion. In the colonies, however, the Church of England did fairly well, although the oddity of the American Revolution created a particularly odd severance, and retained loyalty, in the Episcopal community.
None the less, particularly in the U.S., but also in Canada, the Episcopal Church benefitted from being wealthy and was associated with economic success. That fact made it a magnet to Christians of other denominations. Protestants who wanted to associate with the more affluent could switch denominations and be comfortable that they were entering what seemed to be a Protestant church, even if the Anglican Communion itself was murky on whether it believed itself to be Protestant. Catholics who were willing to commit what the Church holds is a mortal sin by leaving it could convince themselves that they really were not, if they were attracted to the Episcopal Church for economic reasons, as the Episcopal Church retained many Catholic features. Indeed, this was so much the case that at one time the question of the validity of its Holy Orders was submitted to the Vatican which returned the opinion that they were "completely null and utterly void".
At any rate, the Anglican Communion was highly conservative up into the 1960s. It didn't, and still doesn't officially, recognize divorce. But starting in the 1930s it began to move toward more liberal positions subtly, and then a wing of it, like a wing of every Christian faith in North America, became politically liberal in the 1960s. It's never stopped evolving in that position and whereas as late as the 1960s there was some thought that it might reunite with the Catholic Church, it's put itself far to the left on many social issues since that time. At the same time, its pews began clearing out and some conservative parishes joined the Catholic Church. A recent report in Canada suggests that the once powerful Anglican Church in Canada may well go extinct in the foreseeable future, oddly leaving disappearing parishes that are well endowed with funds from prior loyal members.
3. This is true of the modern Orthodox churches as well. While Orthodoxy made some concessions in the area of marriage and remarriage long ago, in terms of modern social trends its turned its back on them. This was perhaps particularly well summed up, in terms of their views, in the statement issued by the Russian Orthodox Bishop in Alaska who politely and firmly noted that Supreme Court decisions had no impact of the moral teachings of the Russian Orthodox Church.
4. Indeed, this is confusing enough that many rank and file American Catholics, including occasionally American Catholic religious, have picked up Protestant beliefs in this fashion. It's not uncommon to hear some Catholics express the view held by some Evangelical Christians on evolution, for example, even though the greater Church has no position at all on that topic, and most Catholics world wide accept it. This is, interestingly, a very recent development.
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