FIDUCIA SUPPLICANS (“Supplicating Trust”) is a 2023 Declaration on Catholic Doctrine that allows Catholic priests to bless couples who are not considered to be married according to church teaching, including same-sex couples.
INTRODUCTION
Let the games begin! Once again the Francis Papacy is jarred by controversy. The Church on the left believe Francis approves same sex marriages. The church on the right wants Francis charged with heresy and removed from office for blessing same sex couples.
Division is the main tool of the adversary, the Evil one. There is nothing Satan, wants more than division in God’s family the Church.
Satan is not going to bother those who have already drunk his Kool-Aid. Satan’s attacks are on those struggling to go home to Abba, Father. Satan, so envious, wants no one to have what he can never have, union with the Father.
And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world… into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. Revelation 20:10
COMMENTARY
Fiducia Supplicans
DECLARATION
On the Pastoral Meaning of Blessings
Ex Audientia Die 18 December 2023
Francis
VATICAN CITY (CNS) — A Catholic priest can bless a gay or other unmarried couple as long as it is not a formal liturgical blessing and does not give the impression that the Catholic Church is blessing the union as if it were a marriage,
Key points of Fiducia Supplicans
1. It reaffirms the traditional Catholic doctrine on marriage. It makes clear that the Church the Church does not have the power to impart blessings on unionsof persons of the same sex”
2.It clarifies the role of the Church in offering blessing.a distinction between blessing a same-sex couple and blessing their union.
3. It emphasizes Pope Francis’s focus on pastoral charity and inclusivity. Fiducia Supplicans encourages the Church to avoid being overly judgmental or exclusive in its ministry where people seek blessings in faith and sincerity, regardless of their life circumstances.
4. It makes a clear distinction between liturgical rites and blessings. The Church may not create liturgical rites for blessings of unions outside the traditional marriage definition. But the Church can still offer blessings in a pastoral context, to those who ask for a blessing that all that is true, good, and humanly valid in their lives and their relationships be enriched and healed by the presence of the Holy Spirit” FS 29
Fiducia supplicans remains firm on the traditional doctrine of the Church about marriage, but it also explores the “pastoral meaning of blessings” in a way that opens “the possibility of blessing couples in irregular situations and same-sex couples without officially validating their status or changing in any way the Church’s perennial teaching on marriage.”
The Church responds to the requests of people who are in objectively sinful and disordered situations (either same-sex relationships or other irregular situations, like those who are divorced and invalidly “remarried”) with a prayer that God may help them to overcome sin, to live holier lives, and even discern how they may be restored to full communion..
When we ask for blessing to help us along the way, we receive Actual grace, a divine assistance given to help one do the right thing, distinct from sanctifying grace which is habitual.
Sanctifying grace is the gratuitous gift of His life that God makes to us; it is infused by the Holy Spirit into the soul to heal it of sin and to sanctify it. Sanctifying grace makes us “pleasing to God Sanctifying grace is the habitual experience of God’s love.
Actual grace is God’s love at work in specific moments. An example of actual grace might be a revelatory moment of prayer. It could be a timely phone call or answer to a prayer.
REFLECTION
What blessings have I asked God for myself?
For others?
Are there times when I bless myself with sign of cross? Bless others with sign of cross?
The sign of the cross must be a prayer not a good luck charm or superstition.
The last image of Jesus on earth is that of his hands being raised in the act of blessing the Eleven, “And lifting up his hands he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven” Luke. 2450-51
