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Fiducia Supplicans, the recent Vatican statement on blessings, has caused quite the stir in the Catholic Church. As it’s our spiritual home, and there is a great deal of confusion about what is said in this document and perhaps intended, I’m sharing several reflections here. I should preface this post with the fact that I have a pending article under consideration at a major Catholic publication on a tenuously associated topic; I’m not going into great depth at this time. Also, there is a tendency in some circles to pile on Pope Francis. While I have disagreement with his repeated tendency towards obfuscation on issues of doctrine of the Church, I don’t believe it’s my place to encourage or participate in behavior that crosses the line. (Any vitriolic comments concerning Pope Francis will be deleted by the moderator.)
The first thing I’d like to point out is that there are two dimensions to this document. There is the reading of the document itself, then there is the foreseeable application or implication in the real world. We have all seen, for instance, what has happened in the past to denominations that have endeavored to make a simultaneous peace with the world and their church; it fails. In the time of C.S. Lewis and England, it concerned the ordination of women in the Anglican Church. In his essay the “Fern-seed and Elephants” Lewis took a hard look at the implications of this move. (Writers like Joseph Pearce have argued that Lewis would likely not have remained Anglican much longer, but his death in late 1963 left this question unanswerable.) There is no reason to doubt similar negative prospects on a document of this nature, but let’s back up a step or two.
The supporters of Fiducia Supplicans like to suggest that those who oppose it fail to understand the described nuances (loopholes) in the blessing descriptions. That’s not quite right. If you read the document as purely an academic piece, the nuances might perhaps work. If you read it as a piece integral to witness and evangelization, it fails for the degree of ambiguity and confusion it contributes to in its real world application. As a further aside, the document implies that it’s not about blessing the couple at all. It suggests these are akin to ordinary blessings of individuals. Yet, it repeatedly uses the the word “couple” within the document, which lends further discord and confusion to the argument.
38. For this reason, one should neither provide for nor promote a ritual for the blessings of couples in an irregular situation. At the same time, one should not prevent or prohibit the Church’s closeness to people in every situation in which they might seek God’s help through a simple blessing. In a brief prayer preceding this spontaneous blessing, the ordained minister could ask that the individuals have peace, health, a spirit of patience, dialogue, and mutual assistance—but also God’s light and strength to be able to fulfill his will completely.
Not only is this likely going to cause yet more confusion among the faithful (particularly chaste homosexuals), but it puts a bullseye on the back of any priest who declines to perform such a blessing.
Resources and Commentary at a Glance:
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