The Pope and his Prefect

steal a page from Obergefell

Justice Kennedy and Cardinal Fernández

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The beast with which I was familiar as an Anglican in the nineties has long been been slouching toward Rome, where its ad limina visit is currently being conducted. The pope has welcomed it, clearing out the stables of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith so as to lodge it there. And from the prefect of that dicastery has now come, just in time for Christmas, Fiducia supplicans, On the Pastoral Meaning of Blessings.

This document, co-signed by Francis, has been given the status of a declaration, so as to trump the responsum produced two years ago by the previous prefect, Cardinal Ladaria, in answer to the question whether same-sex unions can be blessed by the Church. The answer given then was a clear and concise No. The answer given now, by his successor, Cardinal Fernández, is a cagily qualified Yes. (Fernández, for those who don’t know, is the same who in the nineties wrote The Art of Kissing. Over the last decade he has been ghost-writing for Francis. He was appointed to the Holy Office in July.)

The wider purpose of the declaration is plain enough. It restores the trajectory established in the early years of this pontificate, a trajectory laid out already in the notorious eighth chapter of Amoris laetitia, which (as I remarked in “The Francis Reformation”) effectively rehabilitated the quasi-utilitarians John Paul II had rebuked for generating a moral crisis in the Church. That moral crisis, rooted in what used to be called "modernism” but is now called “accompaniment,” is at last coming to a head as an ecclesiological crisis. For the blessing of same-sex unions cannot but create such a crisis, as it has also in Anglicanism and elsewhere in the Protestant world.

It is worth mentioning that the last such declaration from the Holy Office was Dominus Iesus, published at the outset of the new millennium by then-prefect Joseph Ratzinger under John Paul II. It too was controversial, because it insisted that the Church knew of and could proclaim only one Lord, whatever others might say in opposition to his lordship; hence also of only one faith and one Church and one true religion.

Francis has done much to modulate that message, which by Fratelli tutti (seven years into his pontificate) was barely audible. Here it is made audible again, but as a different chord in a different key. Fiducia supplicans takes up many scriptures that speak of the mercy of the Lord and deploys them in support of a theology of blessing “rich” enough to accommodate couples in irregular unions.

While the two chords ought not to clash or grate, unfortunately they do. That is why the sound of one had to die away before the other could be fully played. It is also why Ladaria’s 2021 responsum had quickly to be dampened. It took but four months to do that, once Fernández was in place. Two dexterous manoeuvres achieved it.

The first was to invent a theology of blessing in which some blessings, deemed non-liturgical sacramentals, can be detached from the others and, just so, freed from the first requirement of sacramentals; viz., that they must have suitable matter, capable of being ordered to the graces contained in the seven sacraments, graces pertinent to the created order and to its renewal in Jesus Christ.

The “no” in the responsum rested fundamentally on a refusal to imagine any such separation, which could only be a separation from the Mediator himself. But now we are told that there has been a new development in the theology of blessing that permits this separation, hence also this overturning of the dicastery’s prior judgment, which had declared illicit “any form of blessing that tends to acknowledge [homosexual] unions as such.” 

Personally, I think the new prefect imprudent to have used the word “development” at all, for in doing so he has strayed into the minefield of doctrinal change. Calling the change a development, and appealing to the ordinary magisterium of the pope, does nothing to obviate the fact that the change in question does not develop but rather contradicts.

This has not escaped the notice of prefect emeritus, Cardinal Müller, who has explained why it is not a development at all, but rather “a doctrinal leap.” Not a leap forward, but a leap into blasphemy, for it tries to create a novel category of blessing, in the holy Name, for “situations that are contrary to the law or spirit of the gospel.”

Strong words. Stronger would be hard to come by from so qualified and respected a source. One must allow, however, that setting a precedent for leaps labeled “developments” may be part of the calculation. It is even hinted in the declaration that this putative development belongs somehow “to the mysterious and unpredictable designs of God.” That hint is given immediately after the declaration has worked its way round to the objective it set out to reach: “Within the horizon outlined here appears the possibility of blessings for couples in irregular situations and for couples of the same sex.”

Now, someone will point out that I have put a period in place of a comma; that the full sentence reads: “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 by ecclesial authorities to avoid producing confusion with the blessing proper to the Sacrament of Marriage.”

Which, it will be added, puts the whole document in a different light. Ladaria’s responsum has not served to rein in the Germans and other innovators. The declaration represents a change of tack, perhaps, but is it not really another rebuke to the Germans, in order to prevent them from reaching their objective—to seize control, as Luther did, not only of doctrine and discipline, but also of liturgy and sacraments?

Yes, perhaps another rebuke, I reply, but for what exactly? The Germans, by impatiently forging ahead on the Synodaler Weg, are blowing cover. Recall this, from their Fundamental Text?

We see ourselves as a learning Church. To this end, we want to use the whole network of witnessing instances to reveal the meaning of the Gospel in our time. We want to learn our common Church’s mission anew—together with the people for whom we are on the path as a Church.

Forget Luther. That sounds so much like the 1932 platform of the German Christian movement that I can only shake my head with horror. But let us read on, coming to their call for a new balance in the Church between “unity and diversity of faith;” or, as we might better say, between clarity and unclarity of faith.

A handling of complexity that is attentive and sensitive to ambiguity can be regarded as a basic signature of intellectual contemporaneity—and also encompasses today's theology. For theology, too, there is no one central perspective, no one truth of the religious, moral and political world, and no one form of thought that can lay claim to ultimate authority. In the Church, likewise, legitimate views and ways of life can compete with each other even in core convictions. Yes, they can even at the same time make the theologically justified claim to truth, correctness, comprehensibility and honesty, and nevertheless be contradictory to each other in their statements or in their language.

Is this what is being rebuked? On the contrary, the very same signature ambiguity characterizes the present pontificate, which has made of “rigidity” the great vice and of ambiguity a studied virtue. What is being rebuked, I fear, is merely haste. The Germans are moving in the right direction, but at Blitzkrieg speed. They must slow down. In the matter at hand (liturgical affirmation of diverse sexual practices) it is better first to break the bond between sacraments and sacramentals, lest competing views and convictions appear too nakedly as contradictions. That bond can be restored later, when eventually the sacraments are made to conform to the sacramentals, rather than the sacramentals to the sacraments.

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Rome 2013

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So that is the first manoeuvre: reinvent the category of non-liturgical blessings as a category of universal dispensation, a dispensation of mercy not judgment; then wrap it up attractively in a profusion of biblical texts and present it to the faithful as something safely isolated both from the lex orandi and the lex credendi. That way it will not appear to the ordinary Catholic as much of a threat.

Some are not fooled, of course, just as their priests are not fooled. “Point of clarification,” says one priest:

priests could always bless individuals as individuals, and I cannot envision a priest worth his salt withholding such a blessing. In point of fact, a blessing upon all the faithful occurs at the end of every offering of the Mass—so no need for an instruction from Rome on this. Yesterday’s declaration, however, was something other and designed specifically to encourage blessing of same-sex couples and couples in “irregular situations.” So, yes—a radical departure from what has been.

And from the side comes the opposite complaint. It is not just German Catholics who remark on the inadequacy of such half-way houses as the prefect proposes to build, or who regard this Christmas present from the DDF as decidedly parsimonious. That sort of reaction was nicely anticipated, however, in the declaration’s coded conclusion:

Desiring and receiving a blessing can be the possible good in some situations. Pope Francis reminds us that “a small step, in the midst of great human limitations, can be more pleasing to God than a life which appears outwardly in order but moves through the day without confronting great difficulties.”

But I spoke of two manoeuvres, not one. Let’s turn to the other, to which I alluded already in the title of this essay. For the whole procedure puts me in mind of the method adopted in the civil courts for arriving at same-sex marriage. Bear with me as I explain briefly, before trying to say why this matters.

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Wittenberg 2017: Popular Mechanics (q.v. for spontaneous animation) via The Abbey of Misrule

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Shortly after the Obergefell decision came down, I had occasion to make enquiry of a member of the court who was among the dissenting justices. How is it, I asked—not so presumptuously, I hope, as this may now sound—that no one challenged the majority opinion on the grounds that a rather crucial category mistake had been made?

The majority, and even at points the minority, had moved back and forth between speaking of the right of the individual to marry and found a family, per the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and speaking instead of the alleged right of a “couple” to marry. These, I observed, are two fundamentally different things. One can't simply weave back and forth between them as if changing lanes on a freeway. They are different things because they are grounded in incompatible conceptions of marriage itself.

The traditional view is situated between two poles: the liberty belonging to the individual human being to determine the course of his or her own life; and the common good of a society or people, which cannot flourish without the reproductive and educative powers of the natural family unit.

The novel view is situated elsewhere. It turns between the internal pole of an existing sexualized relationship between two men or two women and the external pole of societal repudiation or, alternatively, approbation. Bentham suggested that repudiation is grounded “only in prejudice.” What approbation is to rest on remains an open question, if not on an exaggerated view of individual liberty without reference to the common good.

Now, the first view is intrinsically universalist. Everyone who wishes to may seek a marriage, if not presently married, and raise such offspring as may result should the search be successful. And everyone, whether married or unmarried, has a vested interest in the flourishing of marriage.

The second view, however, is self-referential and narrowly focused. It begins and ends with celebration of a sexualized bond that is by its nature sterile, hence neither outgoing to the present generation nor ongoing to the next. It is also intrinsically divisive, because in coveting the societal approbation naturally attached to the traditional view, it demands that the traditional view be scrapped in favour of the novel view. It even accuses the former of being precisely what it is not; namely, parochial and discriminatory. “Accuse your enemy of what you are doing, as you are doing it. Create confusion.”

Confusion certainly abounds. Yet it is a very peculiar thing that courts and parliaments throughout the West failed to see the circularity of the argument by which the novel view overcame the traditional view. For it is only on the novel view that the traditional view can be deemed discriminatory.

Which is to say, if marriage is merely a union of any two persons, then it is discriminatory to disqualify those who wish to marry someone of the same sex. But, on the traditional view, that is not what marriage is and there is no discrimination: anyone may marry, but no one has to marry; neither does anyone have to justify the decision not to marry. How, then, can a court justify imposing the novel view, and disenfranchising the traditional view, as a remedy? The putative remedy addresses no actual fault. It is simply codification of the novel view itself.

Okay, you say, but why rehearse this here? It is a point you have made many times before, if not always at dinner with a justice of the Supreme Court. What has it to do with Fiducia supplicans?

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Washington 2009 (CNN): Justice Kennedy leaving Mass

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Much in every way, as St Paul would say.

First, because the same kind of move is being made. Cardinal Fernández, like Justice Kennedy for the Obergefell majority, obscures the distinction between a logic based on the individual, which is as such a universal logic, and a logic based on a sexually intimate couple, which is not. Fernández, like Kennedy, claims thus to be extending and enriching an existing provision (in this case, not the marital institution but the grace of a blessing) when in fact he is doing no such thing. What is already universal cannot be extended.

Second, because the objective appears to be the same. Why did the court do what it did? Why indeed, if not to regularize or normalize same-sex relations at the expense of the chief obstacle to that regularization; namely, the institution of marriage itself? And why is the DDF now suddenly reversing course, at the expense of two thousand years of Christian teaching and practice, if not for the same purpose, the regularization of irregular unions? Nothing less than that can ever satisfy the “supplicating trust” that gave rise to this declaration.

We are assured that such is not the objective and that the sacrament of marriage has not been touched, but we have already found reason to question that assurance. Cardinal Müller again, remarking on the novel fact that a “pastoral” blessing is now to be given in situations contrary to the gospel:

Notice that not only sinful persons are blessed here, but that by blessing the couple, it is the sinful relationship itself that is blessed… It is true that Cardinal Fernandez, in later statements to Infovaticana, said that it is not the union that is blessed, but the couple. However, this is emptying a word of its meaning, since what defines a couple as couple is precisely their being a union.

Müller has grasped the nub of it. He recognizes the dishonesty of the manoeuvre being performed by his successor, of the weaving and shape-shifting that slides from the individual to the couple to the union as such, which by just this means is to be given a new dignity and readied for the sacramentality that pro tempore is withheld for strategic reasons.

Third, I put it to you that the porneia now to be justified by the Fernández theory of descending and ascending, in which “one becomes aware of the Lord’s gifts and his unconditional love, even in sinful situations,” and begs “that all that is true, good, and humanly valid” in one’s life and relationships “be enriched, healed, and elevated by the presence of the Holy Spirit,” when blessed in priestly fashion corrupts the priesthood itself.

“Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel are doing in the dark, every man in his room of pictures? For they say, ‘The Lord does not see us, the Lord has forsaken the land.’” That is one way it corrupts, and we have heard of such things in Rome as Ezekiel alludes to in his—in God’s!—lament over Jerusalem before its fall. We have heard of them also in Washington and many other places.

But there is another way it corrupts. Müller observes that a priest cannot give such blessings without contradicting his own priestly character. Perhaps it is for that reason (or partly for that reason) that a goodly number of diocesan bishops and conferences of bishops have already banned them and that at least one Eastern-rite patriarch has disavowed them.

Blessing a reality that is contrary to created order is impossible. The very attempt, as Müller says, is blasphemous, for it usurps the place of the Creator himself. Blessing a reality that is contrary to the gospel is not an act of mercy toward the sinner, but rather an act of defiance toward the Saviour—toward Christ the Lord, whose high priesthood is the sole ground of the priest’s own priesthood.

The seriousness of all this has nonetheless evaded other Catholic leaders, including those at the CCCB apparently, some of whom may have been fooled by the combination of the declaration’s disclaimers with its appeal to so many biblical texts drawn from the divine economy of receiving and bestowing blessings. Do they not see what is happening? It is all for the sake of including in that economy what can only destroy it, just as same-sex “marriage” has been destroying civil marriage and the parental rights it once protected.

Even the divine mandate “Be fruitful and multiply” is now viewed as a curse rather than a blessing, and indeed as a refusal to recognize that ecological crisis against which a mere ecclesiological crisis is of little or no account. Likewise, the good of holy matrimony, as a sacramental elevation of the created order that opens upon the mystery of Christ and the Church, is under assault as the last bastion of refusal to bless what narcissistic man wishes to bless and to curse what he wishes to curse.

With Fiducia supplicans this man takes a step nearer to complete conquest, not only of holy matrimony but also of holy orders. For a priesthood that blesses what it ought not to bless and curses what it ought not to curse ceases to be subject to the High Priest—the one and only High Priest, Jesus Christ. And where a true priesthood is lacking, what happens to the other sacraments?

We are not there yet! By the grace of God and the guarantee of Jesus Christ, we will never be there. Would, though, that we were riding Balaam’s donkey, which knew no scripture but certainly knew an angel with a drawn sword when he saw one, rather than this slouching beast that, when it suits, quotes scripture like that other angel, the fallen one who went out into the desert to show mercy to Jesus.

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