Synod Cardinals Offer Mixed Response on “Fiducia Supplicans”; And More Developments

Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, SJ, Relator General of the Synod

For much of this year, the Vatican declaration Fiducia Supplicans, which permitted blessing people in same-gender relationships, has been at the center of Catholic LGBTQ+ discourse . Then in April, Dignitas Infinita was released, and its condemnatory approach to gender identity issues unleashed a new wave of commentaries and debates. The conversation around Fiducia Supplicans has continued, though. Today’s post provides news and opinion related to the question of blessings.

Synod Leaders Say Blessings No Longer a Synod Issue

Two cardinals leading the church’s synodal efforts spoke about Fiducia Supplicans this spring. While affirming the declaration, both said the issue of blessing same-gender couples was not an issue for the upcoming Synod on Synodality General Assembly this October.

Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, SJ, of Luxembourg, the Synod’s Relator General , commented on Fiducia Supplicans during a press conference about the synodal working groups announced in March. Describing the declaration as “very beautiful,” the cardinal affirmed it as showing “God loves everyone, including those in irregular situations.” Hollerich explained, “It’s truly a pastoral document, it is not a doctrinal document.” He added that with its release, the issue of blessings would not need to be taken up at this October’s assembly because Pope Francis “has already decided, and it is not something we should go back to, at least in the Synod.”

Separately, Malta’s Cardinal Mario Grech, Secretary General of the Synod, said he had no advanced notice about the declaration and became aware of it “like everybody else when it was published.” Grech was not upset with this course of events because, according to him, Fiducia Supplicans has “nothing to do with” the Synod on Synodality’s assemblies. At the conference in Ireland  Speaking at a conference in Ireland, the cardinal remarked on last year’s synod assembly, saying a reference to “LGBTQ” was removed from the synthesis report because:

“We noticed that some had difficulty with that phrase and changed it. We did not change the content but the wording and in that way, we managed to get a majority vote. Whereas had we left the phrase I’m sure it would not have got the vote it got.We need to take into account the needs and the sensibilities of all because our task is to try to reach a consensus and learn, as a church, how to arrive at something agreed by the wider spectrum.”

Leader of African Bishops Repeats Claims of Western Colonization

Cardinal Fridolin Ambongo of Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, said in a March interview that the blessings declaration represented a “cultural colonization” and “kind of Western imperialism, but on a cultural level” because “practices that are considered normal in the West were imposed on other peoples.” He added that Fiducia Supplicans was unnecessary and contrary to synodality because the question of blessing “irregular” couples should have been discussed at the Synod on Synodality’s General Assembly this October, rather than in a Vatican document. In January, as president of the Symposium of Episcopal Conferences of Africa and Madagascar, Ambongo issued a letter banning blessings for same-gender couples on the continent, which he said was written with Vatican support, and yet it was later contradicted by bishops in North Africa and Southern Africa.

Former Irish President Sees Declaration as Path to Evolving Doctrine

Mary McAleese, the former president of Ireland and a noted LGBTQ+ advocate with a gay son, argued in an essay reprinted by the Global Network of Rainbow Catholics that Fiducia Supplicans was a sign of hope. Contrasting the new declaration to the Vatican’s 2021 responsum banning such blessings, about which McAleese wrote, “nowhere in that awful document could I see Christ,” she now believes:

“At one level the Declaration [Fiducia Supplicans] can be seen as little more than a limited concession to gay Catholic couples which permits a priest, if asked, to give informal ‘short and simple pastoral blessings (neither liturgical nor ritualized) of couples in irregular situations (but not of their unions)’. . .

“At another level, the most critical level, the Declaration has to be potentially the first step on a Damascene road to  the ‘fundamental revision’ of Catholic Church teaching on homosexuality. . .If synodality is to mean anything, if God’s love is to mean anything, then accompanying each other, listening to one another, standing in the shoes of the other, in charity and in love has to end in an admission of the  profound damage done to so many good people by a judgmental, law-bound, sex-obsessed, self- righteous magisterium. Fiducia Supplicans could signal the beginning of a long overdue end.”

Key to Fiducia Supplicans Is Mercy—For All, Writes Ethicist

David DeCosse, a theologian at Santa Clara University, California, wrote that the blessings declaration should be read in view of God’s mercy, which Pope Francis has strongly emphasized. DeCosse tied blessings for LGBTQ+ couples to the workers of mercy serving so many marginalized people. He wrote, in part:

“Moreover, the ‘mercy’ at stake here isn’t some trite kindness. Nor is it something we can earn. We can’t parcel it out only to the deserving according to conditions we establish from perches far removed from the messiness of life. Instead, mercy is the divine power to transform evil into good – a power that is offered to every person and that extends to every dimension of human life. Out of this ocean of mercy many kinds of blessings flow. . .

“Catholic sacraments are beautiful things. But the document invites us to look at the sacramental nature of our lives outside of the specific liturgical settings of any of the seven sacraments. The myriad practices of popular religion – like blessings of every different kind – help us to see the divine presence in a thousand faces and in a thousand things. . .So let the blessings flow – on gay and lesbian couples, on soup kitchen denizens and migrants in search of a better life, on every hungry heart that longs for the touch of divine mercy.”

Blessings Declaration Prompts Canadian Dispute

In the Canadian city of Halifax, LGBTQ+ advocates criticized a pastor’s homily, in which the priest said, among other anti-gay remarks, that same-gender relationships are “not true love,” reported the CBC.

Norman Prince, treasurer of Dignity/Canada/Dignité, a Catholic LGBTQ+ organization, said Father Isaac Longworth, a priest at St. Benedict parish, erred in his evaluation of these relationships. Daniel MacKay, publisher of the LGBTQ+ website Wayves, noted that the homily was “peculiar” given the “context of Pope Francis, his boss, asserting just a couple of weeks ago that blessing same-sex couples was acceptable.

Longworth’s pastor at St. Benedict’s Church backed him, but Halifax-Yarmouth’s Archbishop Joseph Dunn, said he “welcomes the direction given to us through Fiducia Supplicans” and hopes “that all the people entrusted to my care find churches, pastors, staff and volunteers involved in ministry, who welcome everyone wherever they are in their faith journey and support their desire to know and love a God who knows and loves us all.”

Theologian Fr. Dan Horan, OFM, wrote about the impact Fiducia Supplicans has for Catholic higher education. Citing his own college years at St. Bonaventure University, Olean, New York, during which “LGBTQ+ visibility was notably low,” Fiducia Supplicans now greatly enhances the many existing efforts to support LGBTQ+ students by promoting visibility. Horan wrote, in part:

“When it comes to Catholic institutions, our colleges and universities have often been some of the most intentional organizations in the church to prioritize LGBTQ+ inclusivity and support. Nevertheless, queer people and queer love often have been erased by both misunderstanding and, at times, overt bigotry over the years. Fear of discrimination, violence, or mockery has kept LGBTQ+ students, staff, and faculty at the margins and in the closet. And, at times, explicit recourse to our institutions’ Catholic identity and mission have been misused to justify such shameful behavior.

“This is one reason why Fiducia Supplicans is particularly meaningful. In order to declare that those in same-sex relationships can and should receive blessings from the church’s ministers upon request, you must first acknowledge that such people actually exist in the world!”

Cardinal Affirms Cameroon Bishops’ Rejection of Declaration

Cardinal Robert Sarah, former prefect of the Vatican’s then-Congregation for Divine Worshop and a prominent critic of Pope Francis, addressed Cameroon’s bishops with praise for their “bold and prophetic” rejection of Fiducia Supplicans. Countering claims that some African prelates’ opposition to the declaration was more cultural than theological, Sarah chastised Western church leaders for what Crux described as “a form of intellectual neo-colonialism.”

The cardinal, who linked the issue of blessings to a “dangerous disease” of “practical atheism” in the church, claimed, “Many Western prelates are tetanized by the idea of opposing the world. They dream of being loved by the world; they’ve lost the desire to be a sign of contradiction.” He also praised Africa’s bishops for stymieing efforts at greater inclusion during last October’s Synod General Assembly.

—Robert Shine (he/him), New Ways Ministry, May 7, 2024