Welcome to part two of our series of articles talking about the recent allegations that Pope Francis has blessed same-sex couples, mainly through his magisterial document of Fiducia Supplicans. In part 1, we discussed how hermeneutics of suspicion, unwillingness to read the whole document and inability to understand context are the three main reasons people interpreted the document and Pope Francis’ statements in this way.
If you need more proof, read what this next bomb of a text says. The Responsum is insanely clear, concise and beautiful! It says: “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.”
I could just stop here, as this document of the papal magisterium has sufficiently proven the position of Pope Francis. It should be applied to understanding Fiducia Supplicans. I have proven my point, but there is so much more. We are blessing couples, unions, relationships, and mortal sin? Timothy Gordon?! It is nonsense! It is evil! The Responsum says, “What is necessary in order to be blessed must be positively ordered to receive and express grace,” meaning, not negatively and not sinfully. It must be positive. We must not be trying to live in sin or trying to justify sin.
We must be trying to live according to the designs of God. What is the design of God? Overcoming sin and living a holy life. That is what God wants, and only people who are striving to do that are congruent with the essence of the blessings imparted by the Church.
Only those people who are striving to live according to the Church (and according to God) can receive blessings. Did you hear that? So, those who are trying to justify their sins, a relationship or something against God and his designs, cannot be blessed. I am trying to be firm about this because it is so obvious. Yet, all the gas lighting, the sensationalizing, and the fear-mongering are poisoning people’s minds to read this stuff through the hermeneutics of suspicion.
That is a mistake because the documents are very clear. But the Responsum goes on. Let us read what else it says, “For this reason, it is not licit to impart a blessing on relationships, or partnerships, even stable, that involve sexual activity outside of marriage,” oh, hold on, we got more, “as is the case of the unions between persons of the same sex.” Exactly! What else is there to say? How much more obvious could the Church be? It is not licit. I feel like everybody is hearing and saying that “it is licit.” They are hearing what the Church is saying through a skewed means of receptivity.
It is literally the opposite of what the Church has been saying. Again, it said “It is not licit to impart blessings on relationships, or partnerships, even stable ones,” meaning people who truly love each other, “that involves sexual activity outside of marriage.” The meaning is clear – you cannot bless sin.
That is what I have been saying for so long. In spite of Pope Francis’ crystal clear teaching in the Responsum, people have accused me of pope-splaining. The document goes on to make it clearer by naming the unions between persons of the same sex. We cannot bless these unions, couples, and relationships.
We are talking here about individuals, not couples as in a relationship. So, when the Church says, “We can bless couples,” it is not talking about the relationship, the union or the partnership. It literally uses these words, and says that they cannot be blessed. Over and over, ad nauseam, according to Fernandez, the Church has said, “It cannot bless sin. It cannot bless same-sex unions, partnerships or relationships.” Done!
But there is more. This is so good and should be food for you Catholics out there who have been worried, harassed and condemned about this, or told, “You are stupid, you are a pope-explainer. Pope Francis is not even Catholic anymore. These people are not Catholic anymore.” That is a schismatic act that separates you from the holy pontiff. Now, let me ask you: “What is the difference between a Catholic, a Protestant, and an Orthodox?” Catholics accept the papacy and are in union with the pope. Protestants and Orthodox do not. When you reject the pope, and you separate yourself from unity with him, what do you become? Someone who is outside the Church. This is the exact definition the Church uses for schism, which is a mortal sin.
Catholics, be very careful. Please, there is one thing in this Church that we need to recognize, and that is demonic pride. It comes in the form of thinking we can decide, condemn, and tell the pope this and that, and we get so angry! This is what we need to realize – it is really fear-based. Worry-based. We fear that our Church might be in error. It might be wrong after all. We fear that Pope Francis is destroying our Church. We do not want any of that. Many of us have good intentions and want to protect our Church, but we are doing it the wrong way. We have no faith for Christ who said, “The gates of hell will not prevail,” (Matthew 16:18). We have no faith that Jesus said, “the Spirit of truth, he will guide you (his Church) to all truth,” (John 16:13). And that, “I am with you (the Church) always, until the end of the age,” (Matthew 28:20).
Have faith! If you do not have it, pray for it! Humble yourself! Get back into a deep prayer life because a lot of these things are not from God! And this is crazy! This is saying that we cannot bless same-sex unions even if they are really good relationships. Listen again to what the Responsum says, “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 ecclesiastical blessing, since the positive elements exist within the context of a union, not ordered to the Creator’s plan.”
This is exactly what I just said. Nobody can receive a blessing to bless sin. You cannot receive a blessing if you are not willing to live according to God’s plan, his design, and his commandments. So, even if there are positive elements, even if two people truly do love each other and there is some good in the relationship, Pope Francis and the document are saying that you still cannot bless the relationship, no matter how much good is in it because it is intrinsically disordered and against God’s plan. Simply put, we cannot bless sin.
Is this even confusing? Seriously, that is why I am trying to point out that we cannot just take one line or one paragraph out of context. We have to take the remote context as well – the context which led up to this document and which this document relied on. The Responsum that we are talking about now was the precursor for Fiducia Supplicans. The latter relied on it and is an extension of it. Anyone who reads Fiducia Supplicans outside of that context is reading it wrong, which is exactly what Pope Francis said, “Most people are reading it wrong, and they are not understanding the mind of the Church.” Both the Pope and Cardinal Fernandez called people out on that.
So, I think it is pretty obvious that they are correct. The Responsum says, “within the context of a union not ordered to the Creator’s plan,” you cannot bless unions. How many thousands of Catholic influencers, media, and content creators are ignoring those words and misleading people down the wrong road? Simply, because they are misunderstanding the documents, not reading the context, or reading it through a lens of suspicion of the intentions of Pope Francis. Then, thinking they are going to figure out what his “real” agenda is.
It gets even bigger. I mean, it just keeps booming! It is so obvious, but listen to what this says. It is like a breath of fresh air in the midst of chaos, like oxygen amidst the absolute toxicity of our culture. Even the growing number of “Catholic Protestants” within the Church (those who claim to be Catholics but are Protestant minded) will think, “Ah! This is just amazing!” The divisions in our Church are not from God, but listen to what the Responsum says, “Furthermore, since blessings on persons are in relationship with the sacraments, the blessing of homosexual unions cannot be considered licit.” It says persons. I almost choked over that because everybody is saying, “We are blessing unions now, we are blessing gay marriage now, we are blessing relationships, we are blessing the (relationship of) couples.” No, no, no, it says we are blessing persons. This is what we here at Catholic Truth have been saying for so long. It’s also what other people have been saying – including archbishops and priests. The response is often dismissive with people saying that these defenders of the Church are nuts or just trying to pope-splain.
Listen again to what this says, “since blessings on persons are in relationship with the sacraments, the blessing of homosexual unions cannot be considered licit.” It is literally making a distinction between persons and unions. Okay? We have defended Pope Francis by pointing out that the document itself says that you can bless persons (individuals) not unions, not relationships, not couples (as in a relationship or union). We are talking about couples as individuals. We were making the distinction between individuals who could be blessed and the union or relationship itself. And people were calling us “stupid” for that.
I pray that you all out there can see the truth. The Responsum goes on to say that if we bless the homosexual unions, it will “constitute a certain imitation or analog of the nuptial blessing invoked upon a man and a woman united in the sacrament of Matrimony.” So, these blessings cannot be compared to marriage in any way because the only licit relationship is one between a man and a woman who are open to children in marriage. That is what the documents say. All throughout Fiducia Supplicans, this perennial teaching of the Church is affirmed. So, the intention of the Church, the writer of this document and Pope Francis, who approved it, is to uphold the perennial teachings of the Church. It is not to change them regarding marriage, homosexuality or anything else in that regard. We see the teachings upheld throughout this whole document – clearly, crystal clearly, it is amazingly clear!
It says, “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.” In other words, just because we are saying that we cannot bless homosexual unions (or relationships), it is not unjust discrimination. Why? Because it is a “reminder of the truth of the liturgical rite and the very nature of the sacramentals as the Church understands them.”
Let’s look at that line again. The Responsum states, “The declaration of the unlawfulness of blessings of unions between persons of the same sex.” Notice, it is not blessing the union. It is not blessing the couple as in the relationship. It is not blessing the sin. It is blessing persons of the same sex, and I am going to show you again, “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 of the very nature of the sacramentals, as the Church understands them.” So, it is talking about the blessings of unions between persons, okay?
We cannot bless the unions. We can just bless the persons – not the unions. It makes that pretty clear. Some people have agreed with the Responsum in 2021. They thought that was wonderful and clear. Really? Then, you should accept Fiducia Supplicans as well. Especially, since the Responsum was its foundation. Fiducia Supplicans directly quotes and references the Responsum multiple times. Cardinal Fernandez’s clarifications also include that document.
Some people were claiming that they agreed with the 2021 response of Pope Francis, published by the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith, to the dubia presented to them. They agreed with that. Well, if you agreed with that, then you must also agree with Fiducia Supplicans, which relies on, quotes, and continually goes back to the Responsum. Even Cardinal Fernandez, who gives speeches and has made clarifications, constantly goes back to the 2021 document.
It is literally quoted all the time to show that nothing has changed. Fiducia Supplicans is supposed to be read in that context, which is why we are spending so much time reading it to understand the context, the mind of the church, and what Fiducia Supplicans is saying in the right way.
You will notice that a lot of the language in the 2021 Responsum and Fiducia Supplicans is almost identical. They are using so much of the same language, because they are trying to make the same points and bring out the same things. I mean, the German bishops want this and they want that. They want to bless sin and the purpose of this document was to say “No.”
It was supposed to be this big “No” to the German Bishops. But, what did Catholics do? They said: “No to Pope Francis. We will not listen. We will not obey. We will not treat you seriously. We are not going to listen to anything.” What did the German Bishops do? “See, no one else is listening. We do not need to either.”
The document is so clear. The only people that can be blessed are those who are willing to try living according to God’s commands. They are not trying to live in sin or justify it. They are trying to grow, follow God, be moral and live according to the Church’s teachings. That is what it has said, and that is what it is going to continue to say as we go on – over and over again (ad nauseam).
So, to clarify, the blessings are for the persons who seek to live according to God’s will. In the original 2021 document, they instructed people to come up individually to receive a blessing. Now, they are saying people can come up together as a couple to be blessed. Again, the blessing is for the persons and not the relationship, union or sin. It is not something we are trying to justify or bless. But, they can come up together as two people instead of singularly. Why? Because Cardinal Fernandez said, “Nothing in the Church teaching has changed or can change. The sin cannot be blessed, and we have made that clear.”
Even if they want to come up together to receive individual blessings, that is okay, because we are only blessing the individual persons. We are not blessing the relationship, the homosexuality, the sin or anything else of that nature.
