Fiducia Supplicans is Meant to Cause Tension: Part 1

By Fr. James Barry

On December 18, 2023 the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith issued the declaration Fiducia Supplicans: On the Pastoral Meaning of Blessings. The declaration has already produced a wide range of reactions and responses.

Two questions about Fiducia Supplicans (FS), however, are especially puzzling.  Why issue such a document if nothing has really changed and it’s not saying anything new, and why issue a document that will most certainly generate confusion with its ambiguity?

The First Question

One could argue that there is precedent for issuing a document that does not say anything new.  The last time the CDF/DDF issued a document with this level of authority was back in 2000, when the declaration Dominus Iesus was issued.  In Dominus Iesus nothing new was being said either.

Dominus Iesus dealt with “the unicity and salvific universality of Jesus Christ and the Church” (the sub-title of the declaration).   The document’s purpose was  to set the parameters of the playing field in discussing matters of faith.   By the year 2000,  as a result of Second Vatican Council’s declaration on religious freedom and inter-religious dialogue, discussions had taken on some noteworthy, and erroneous, interpretations which the CDF sought to answer.

With Dominus Iesus, the CDF was simply painting the lines on the playing field – you can play here, and there, but not in the stands and not outside the field.  In other words, these truths cannot be changed, but these theological proposals are open for discussion.

But FS is different.  The document says that the declaration is meant, oddly enough, as a sort of responsum to a Responsum to a dubium.

The Responsum

The Responsum from 2021, specifically said that the Church does not have the power to bless same-sex unions.  And as FS says, it “elicited numerous and varied reactions. Some welcomed the clarity of the document and its consistency with the Church’s perennial teaching; others did not share the negative response it gave to the question or did not consider the formulation of its answer and the reasons provided in the attached Explanatory Note to be sufficiently clear. To meet the latter reaction with fraternal charity, it seems opportune to take up the theme again and offer a vision that draws together the doctrinal aspects with the pastoral ones in a coherent manner” (3).

Fraternal charity might be the motive, but Dominus Iesus also received a very negative reaction in some circles – and no one got a different declaration more to their liking. Now, however, because there were people who didn’t like the answer in the Responsum, or thought it was unclear, the CDF decided to issue a document more to their liking – and which is less clear.

I’m not sure that fraternal charity is a motive that warrants a CDF declaration, especially if nothing has changed doctrinally. On that same token, if it’s just a question of liturgy or liturgical praxis, let the Congregation/Dicastery for Divine Worship deal with it, but I digress.

The difficulty is this: the document says it doesn’t change anything, but it also says that there has been a real development based on Pope Francis’ pastoral vision.  So nothing has changed – yet something has changed.

An Analogy

I think we can make an analogy with the slogan of the LGBTQ-etc. movement: “Love is love.”

If we take that statement at face value, it’s impossible to disagree. Indeed, it’s what philosophers call a tautology: “Love is love.” Yes, indeed.  It’s like saying “A car is a car” or “A dog is a dog.” At face value, nothing new is being said.

However, this is not what the movement wants: they want it to mean that all love is the same, using love in the broadest sense possible. Man with a man, woman with a woman, a man with men and women, whatever. It all goes, because “love is love.”

The problem, however, is that the content doesn’t correspond with the words. Some of these forms of ‘love’ are not loving at all. On the contrary, they’re sinful, and sin is never loving.  So not all loves are, in fact, loving.  “Love is love,” however, is great marketing. It’s difficult to persuasively argue against it in 20 words or less, or in a 10 second sound bit.

The “Book of Blessings”

I get the impression it’s the same with FS.  The content doesn’t correspond with the words. “Nothing has changed, we’re just advancing in our understanding of blessings.”

What, however, is being advanced?  If you look at the “Book of Blessings,” you can bless pretty much anything. I have the “Book of Blessings” (the old-school Roman Ritual Latin-English version) within reach of my desk.  In it there are blessings for irrational creatures (dogs, cats, fish, goats).  It also contains blessings for beer, bonfires, brick-kilns, butter, chalk, cheese, eggs, electric dynamos (just in case?), fields, oats, printing presses, railways and railcars (both a solemn and non-solemn form), seismographs, telegraph-instruments, tools for scaling mountains, and wheelchairs.

The book also has protective blessings and even a deprecatory blessing against noxious vermin.  I prayed it once at a friend’s house.  It includes such heart-warming phrases as:  “By our blessing, curse these noxious vermin, destroy and exterminate them … I purge you noxious vermin of evil, that speedily you be banished from our lands and fields, never returning, but departing into places where you can do no harm … We pronounce a curse on you, that wherever you go, you be cursed, decreasing from day to day unto your extermination.  Let no remnant of you remain except that which might be necessary for the welfare and use of mankind.”

So telling me that out of all the things I can bless, I can also bless people is nothing new.  I had already figured that out.

Blessing Pilgrims

Likewise, FS says that we can bless pilgrims on the journey without asking about their marital status. Yes, we can certainly do that.

In Europe, in general, people ask for blessings all the time.  Priests pray with them and for them, and ask God to help them through life. Great.

Likewise, in the United States (this is the only place I’ve seen this done), we commonly bless people who come up to communion with their arms crossed. The most likely reason is that they’re not in a state of grace. Nonetheless we bless them.

So, why is there a need for a DDF document to tell me that I can bless people when I already knew that? Indeed, another priest in his commentary wrote that good and holy priests bless pilgrims and random people all the time, without asking for any credentials or marriage certificates.

So, why issue a declaration for something wherein nothing has changed, and there’s nothing new? I think it is because we have a case of “love is love” here. The document says nothing has changed, but the emphasis on blessing same-sex couples or those in irregular unions is to make a point. We don’t want to bless their situations.  Rather we want to bless their . . . intrinsic goodness as human beings?

Sometimes we call this pastoral de escritorio, a desk apostolate. It has no connection with the real world. On paper it seems great, but in real life it makes no sense.

Blessing or Absolution?

Consider the situation in some European countries that are traditionally and culturally Catholic. Often there are couples that aren’t married who come to have their children Baptized.

In Italy, for example, part of the Baptismal preparation is a brief class with the opportunity to go to confession. I knew a priest in Italy who used to tell the people that if they are living together and not married, they can go to Confession, but the priest won’t give them absolution.  They will receive a blessing instead. The problem is that these people have so little formation and understanding they don’t know the difference between a blessing and absolution.

So, FS tells us that we can bless same-sex and irregular couples in a way that is not liturgical and cannot be confused with marriage or approval if the couples ask for it spontaneously. Presumably, this is something that we could’ve done before in the broadest sense of the term if nothing has changed.

Problems

In the end, FS creates a number of problems.

Again, why issue a document for this if it’s nothing new? Is it really a document for priests and pastors? OR, is it more for couples in irregular situations?  Will it entice them to come and ask for a blessing, and insist that they can receive one (even if they don’t understand the difference between liturgical and non-liturgical)?

After Amoris laetitia, I recall a woman coming to me, asking to go to confession so she could receive communion, even though she was living with a man who she wasn’t married to. I told her that she really couldn’t receive communion.  But she insisted that “Pope Francis said it was fine.” I replied that if it was really okay, why did she want to come to Confession first?

Perhaps FS is not a document for the average parish pastor.  Maybe it is for ideological pastors who want to make a point.

In either case, people will take FS, and run with it.  For instance, Fr. James Martin already invited a same-sex couple to come and be blessed (so the blessing wasn’t spontaneous).  The New York Times was conveniently on hand for photographs.  And other episcopal conferences have also seen the open door, and said, “Well, let’s come up with liturgical blessings for them!”

Part two of this article, tomorrow, addresses the second question: Why issue a document that will most certainly generate confusion?

(Fr. James Barry is a pseudonym for a Roman Catholic parish priest.)