“Fiducia Supplicans” Is “Cheap Consolation Prize” for LGBTQ+ Catholics, Argues Theologian

Brandon Ambrosino

Fiducia Supplicans, the Vatican’s 2023 declaration that permits blessing people in same-gender relationships, cautions priests to “avoid any form of confusion or scandal” that would leave ambiguity between “spontaneous” and “liturgical” blessings.

“But isn’t this ‘confusion’ actually the very point and promise of the Kingdom?” asks Brandon Ambrosino in Commonweal. A theologian at Villanova University, Ambrosino looks at the “confusion” from a different perspective: “God lavishes his blessings on those who have been judged unworthy. Perhaps the real scandal is in pretending that God joins us in our liturgical algebra…in politicizing the blessings of God, determining the conditions by which and under which they can be offered.”

Ambrosino argues that Fiducia Supplicans “create[s] a hierarchy of blessings” by insisting on a distinction between what he calls “real liturgical ones versus non-liturgical consolation prizes.” The document tries to guard this distinction by setting parameters for what makes a blessing “liturgical.” Ambrosino summarizes these qualifiers:

“Offer a blessing, it says, but make it clear that it’s in no way liturgical. Accompany gay people on their journey, but only partway. Welcome gays but make it clear that you do not join them in their marital delusions. Pay careful attention to what the couple is wearing. Pay attention to who might be watching. But at the same time, be sure your blessing feels ‘spontaneous.'”

Ambrosino views these minutiae as “nitpicking” that is not reflective of Jesus’ ministry. “Jesus is rarely mentioned in Catholic conversations about issues like this,” he writes, “but every time I listen to a bishop or cardinal wax theological on spontaneous versus liturgical blessings, I reflect that this kind of rubricism, this sort of liturgical algebra, doesn’t have any basis in Jesus’ life or ministry.” Ambrosino points out that Jesus frequently bestowed public blessings on people of all walks of life, including notorious sinners. While these interactions were often spontaneous, they should not be read as “lesser” than a blessing given in a liturgical context. He reasons that  “[Jesus] no doubt participated in liturgical rites in the temple, but it’s unlikely he saw a distinction between what he did inside the temple and what he did without.”

“Fiducia supplicans is desperate to preserve a distinction between the inside and outside of liturgy,” Ambrosino writes. He argues that the document is based on a false dichotomy between liturgy and the rest of life, a distinction which he says “collapses under the glory of the word made flesh, of the God who goes outside of himself, who empties himself into the world only to gather it back up into himself and once again to bless it, eternally to bless it.”

Ambrosino argues, “There is nothing less Christian than opposing liturgy and life. And yet it is this very distinction that Fiducia Supplicans helps reinforce when it warns priests against confusing liturgical blessings with non-liturgical ones.” In fact, he warns that “without even realizing it, [Fiducia Supplicans] drive[s] a wedge between liturgy and life, between the Church and the world, between the places of true blessing and those parts of creation that a panel of Church authorities has decided take place apart from the blessing of God.”

“It isn’t scandalous to bless a married couple,” Ambrosino explains, since, “To be created is to be blessed.”  The true scandal caused by Fiducia Supplicans is  “ to throw [LGBTQ+ couples] a cheap consolation prize in the name of God and send them on their way, into the non-liturgical world, while you congratulate yourself for protecting the liturgy from contamination.”

—Ariell Watson Simon (she/her), New Ways Ministry, September 16, 2024