In my article Pay Attention. God Has Spoken. published January 1st of this tear, I cited the a Papal declaration Fiducia Supplicans but did not read it. The author is Víctor Manuel Card. Fernández. Since then I have read it and have the following analysis.
On the Nature and Types of Blessings
The declaration begins with a discussion of the nature and type of blessings that the Church recognizes. It notes that:
From a strictly liturgical point of view, a blessing requires that what is blessed be conformed to God’s will, as expressed in the teachings of the Church.
Fiducia Supplicans, para. 9.
Further,
… there is also a care to do so with “things, places, or circumstances that do not contradict the law or the spirit of the Gospel.”
Ibid. para. 10.
These passages emphasize that liturgical blessings must conform to all scripture and teaching of the RC Church. The notion of ‘liturgical’ is the public expression of public religious service. In other words, blessings given in a formal religious setting.
The document continues:
For this reason, since the Church has always considered only those sexual relations that are lived out within marriage to be morally licit, the Church does not have the power to confer its liturgical blessing when that would somehow offer a form of moral legitimacy to a union that presumes to be a marriage or to an extra-marital sexual practice.
Ibid. para. 11.
In short, the Church cannot bless same-sex unions. How do we fix this problem?
Redefining the Meaning of Blessings
The author uses an argument pervasive in our broken society, that the old tradition and culture is rigid and insufficient for our modern world. Hence the need to extend the meaning of ‘blessing’ to accommodate the variety of pagan practices that have come to dominate our culture.
We do this by using ‘charity’ to understand those who are different from our traditional religious beliefs. This is a dominant theme in all of Bergoglio’s writings that I have reviewed to date. This is a requirement if we are to form a universal church for all mankind. It involves the idea of acceptance of the legitimacy of the other.
… Pope Francis urged us not to “lose pastoral charity, which should permeate all our decisions and attitudes” and to avoid being “judges who only deny, reject, and exclude.”
Ibid. para. 13.
The document argues that “charity” should be a guiding consideration in the response for a request for blessing. In particular we see the reference to Bergoglio’s favourite humanist guidelines of having the ” blessing … transformed into inclusion, solidarity, and peacemaking” (para. 19).
Recall that Christ recognize sin and forgave it with the instruction to “go and sin no more”. One can recognize with charity the sin of a homosexual relationship but that must be followed by the instruction to cease and desist. This is precisely why the relationship cannot be blessed because it would be recognition that the relationship would continue. If it were to cease, there would be nothing to bless and no blessing would be required.
God the Father cannot bless sin because in doing so He would be acknowledging that Satan had power over Him which is not a possibility. All real blessing comes from the Father. An ordained priest is given the power to transmit Divine blessing. He can bless any sinful act but such a blessing is devoid of Divine grace.
Other Points of Note
In para. 22 he makes the curious statement that “[t]he sin of the world is great but not infinite”. This implies that the amount of sin in the world is finite. Since sin comes from man, this translates into man having limits on his sin or on how much he can sin. It also implies a limit to original sin. This is blasphemous.
In para. 31, he comes directly to the point:
Within the horizon outlined here appears the possibility of blessings for couples in irregular situations and for couples of the same sex, the form of which should not be fixed ritually [i.e. liturgically] by ecclesial authorities to avoid producing confusion with the blessing proper to the Sacrament of Marriage. In such cases, a blessing may be imparted that not only has an ascending value but also involves the invocation of a blessing that descends from God upon those who—recognizing themselves to be destitute and in need of his help—do not claim a legitimation of their own status, but who beg that all that is true, good, and humanly valid in their lives and their relationships be enriched, healed, and elevated by the presence of the Holy Spirit. These forms of blessing express a supplication that God may grant those aids that come from the impulses of his Spirit—what classical theology calls “actual grace”—so that human relationships may mature and grow in fidelity to the Gospel, that they may be freed from their imperfections and frailties, and that they may express themselves in the ever-increasing dimension of the divine love.
Ibid. para. 31.
Where is renunciation of and repentance for sin in this?
In para. 35 he says:
Therefore, the pastoral sensibility of ordained ministers should also be formed to perform blessings spontaneously that are not found in the Book of Blessings.
Ibid. para. 35.
This sounds like required training for priests.
There needs to be the distinction between the sinner and the sinner’s act of sinning. An “irregular relationship” is the sin and cannot be blessed, all the arguments that such a blessing might result in someone moving closer to God notwithstanding.
Jonathan Cahn Addressees This Apostasy of Bergoglio and the Catholic Church
Today, Jonathan Cahn released a video that motivated me to write this article that I had been procrastinating on. I urge you to watch the video because Cahn addresses this apostasy of Bergoglio and the Catholic Church in much greater detail than I can. Here is his video (29:58 minutes).
I first wrote of the Pope’s apostasy in Apostasy and Schism in the Catholic Church. I identify the apostasy that I addressed as a subset of a larger global apostasy – that of humanism and socialism/communism. This current case is a further specific example of the church’s expression of the Great Apostasy.
Late Breaking: Meet the Author of the Declaration
After I published this a couple of hours ago, Dr. Taylor Marshall released the following video (40:10 minutes) about another text written by the author of this declaration, Víctor Manuel Card. Fernández.
If you only watched the first 10 minutes or so, you will see that this Cardinal, second in rank at the Vatican having recently been promoted by the Pope, exemplifies the apostasy of the Vatican. Do not ask why God is angry.
Articles in This Series
Refer to the series index in A New Direction.
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