The scandal of Fiducia Supplicans

By now many readers of this blog will likely have heard about Fiducia Supplicans and the worldwide controversy it has generated, which may end up being even more bitter and momentous than the many other controversies sparked over the last decade by the words and actions of Pope Francis.  The Declaration, issued by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) under its new Prefect Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, for the first time allows for “the possibility of blessings for couples in irregular situations and for couples of the same sex.”  This revises the statement on the matter issued in 2021 under Fernández’s predecessor Cardinal Ladaria, which reaffirmed the Church’s traditional teaching that “it is not licit to impart a blessing on relationships, or partnerships, even stable, that involve sexual activity outside of marriage… as is the case of the unions between persons of the same sex.”

The good

I have already had a lot to say about the subject on Twitter, but an article summarizing the main points might be useful.  The first thing to note is that at the Declaration emphasizes that there is no change to the relevant doctrinal principles, which it explicitly reaffirms.  It also emphasizes that no blessing or liturgical rite that might imply such a change can be approved.  Here are the relevant passages:

This Declaration remains firm on the traditional doctrine of the Church about marriage, not allowing any type of liturgical rite or blessing similar to a liturgical rite that can create confusion…

Therefore, rites and prayers that could create confusion between what constitutes marriage – which is the “exclusive, stable, and indissoluble union between a man and a woman, naturally open to the generation of children” – and what contradicts it are inadmissible.  This conviction is grounded in the perennial Catholic doctrine of marriage; it is only in this context that sexual relations find their natural, proper, and fully human meaning. The Church’s doctrine on this point remains firm.

This is also the understanding of marriage that is offered by the Gospel.  For this reason, when it comes to blessings, the Church has the right and the duty to avoid any rite that might contradict this conviction or lead to confusion… [T]he Church does not have the power to impart blessings on unions of persons of the same sex…

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.

End quote.  So far so good.  Why the controversy, then?  And exactly what has changed?  To understand that, consider next that the Declaration holds that what has been said so far cannot be the end of the story, given the nature of the act of asking for a blessing.  It says:

In order to help us understand the value of a more pastoral approach to blessings, Pope Francis urges us to contemplate, with an attitude of faith and fatherly mercy, the fact that “when one asks for a blessing, one is expressing a petition for God’s assistance, a plea to live better, and confidence in a Father who can help us live better.”  This request should, in every way, be valued, accompanied, and received with gratitude.  People who come spontaneously to ask for a blessing show by this request their sincere openness to transcendence, the confidence of their hearts that they do not trust in their own strength alone, their need for God, and their desire to break out of the narrow confines of this world, enclosed in its limitations…

When people ask for a blessing, an exhaustive moral analysis should not be placed as a precondition for conferring it.   For, those seeking a blessing should not be required to have prior moral perfection…

God never turns away anyone who approaches him!  Ultimately, a blessing offers people a means to increase their trust in God.  The request for a blessing, thus, expresses and nurtures openness to the transcendence, mercy, and closeness to God in a thousand concrete circumstances of life, which is no small thing in the world in which we live.  It is a seed of the Holy Spirit that must be nurtured, not hindered.

End quote.  Let’s leave aside the middle paragraph, which attacks a straw man.  No one holds that either moral perfection or exhaustive moral analysis ought to be prerequisites to blessing someone.  The key principle here is that the act of asking for a blessing evinces “a petition for God’s assistance, a plea to live better, and confidence in a Father who can help us live better” etc.  Again, so far, so good.  I don’t know of anyone who denies that this is the case, at least in general.

The bad

The problem comes from the Declaration’s claim that this principle is such an “innovative contribution to the pastoral meaning of blessings” that it calls for “a real development from what has been said about blessings in the Magisterium and the official texts of the Church.”  In particular, claims Fiducia Supplicans, it entails “the possibility of blessing couples in irregular situations and same-sex couples.”  Later on the Declaration repeats that what is in view is “the possibility of blessings for couples in irregular situations and for couples of the same sex.”  And again, the Declaration speaks of cases where a “prayer of blessing is requested by a couple in an irregular situation” or “the blessing is requested by a same-sex couple,” and where the request can be granted given that certain conditions are met. (Emphasis added in each case)

To be sure, Fiducia Supplicans makes clear qualifications regarding the spirit and manner in which such blessings can be given.  It says that a blessing for such a couple can be permitted “without officially validating their status or changing in any way the Church’s perennial teaching on marriage.”  It acknowledges that such couples may be in “situations that are morally unacceptable from an objective point of view.”  It envisages cases where such couples, in requesting a blessing, “do not claim a legitimation of their own status.”  And in any event, says the Declaration, in allowing such a blessing, “there is no intention to legitimize anything.”  Moreover, there is no authorization of anything more than an informal blessing, and it must not be construed as a blessing on a civil union or a purported marriage.  The Declaration says:

The form of [these blessings] should not be fixed ritually by ecclesial authorities to avoid producing confusion with the blessing proper to the Sacrament of Marriage…

Precisely to avoid any form of confusion or scandal, when the prayer of blessing is requested by a couple in an irregular situation, even though it is expressed outside the rites prescribed by the liturgical books, this blessing should never be imparted in concurrence with the ceremonies of a civil union, and not even in connection with them.  Nor can it be performed with any clothing, gestures, or words that are proper to a wedding.  The same applies when the blessing is requested by a same-sex couple.

End quote.  These qualifications reinforce the Declaration’s insistence that there is no change at the level of doctrine and thus no approval of any sexually immoral arrangements.  What is in view is simply acknowledging that to ask a blessing involves a recognition of the need for God’s assistance, as well as a plea “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,” on the part of those “whose guilt or responsibility may be attenuated by various factors affecting subjective imputability.”  And as far as I have seen, no one has any quarrel with giving a blessing to any individual who asks for it in this spirit.  Indeed, the 2021 Vatican statement issued under Cardinal Ladaria explicitly said that to forbid the blessing of couples “does not preclude the blessings given to individual persons with homosexual inclinations, who manifest the will to live in fidelity to the revealed plans of God as proposed by Church teaching” (emphasis added).

What has generated controversy are the words I have put in bold italics above.  Indeed, “controversy” is much too mild a word.  At the time I write this, the bishops of Poland, Ukraine, Nigeria, Malawi and Zambia have indicated that they will not implement the Declaration.  Cardinal Ambongo, Archbishop of Kinshasa, has called for a united African response to the problematic new policy.  The Declaration has been criticized by Cardinal Müller, Archbishop Chaput, Archbishop Peta and Bishop Schneider, and the British Confraternity of Catholic Clergy.  Among priests and theologians, criticisms have been raised by Fr. Thomas Weinandy, Fr. Dwight Longenecker, Prof. Larry Chapp, and others.

The problems with Fiducia Supplicans can be summed up in three words: incoherence, abuse, and implicature.  Let’s consider each in turn.

The incoherence stems from the fact that, as Dan Hitchens has pointed out at First Things, the Declaration contradicts the 2021 Vatican document.  The contradiction is clear when we compare the following two statements:

2021: “It is not licit to impart a blessing on relationships, or partnerships, even stable, that involve sexual activity outside of marriage… as is the case of the unions between persons of the same sex”

2023: “Within the horizon outlined here appears the possibility of blessings for couples in irregular situations and for couples of the same sex”

I trust that the contradiction is obvious to anyone who reads the two statements dispassionately, but in case it is not, here’s an explanation.  A “couple” is just the same thing as two people in a “relationship” or “partnership.”  “Irregular situations” is a common euphemism in contemporary Catholic discourse for relationships that involve fornication, an invalid marriage, same-sex sexual activity, or the like.  The 2021 document clearly peremptorily rules out any blessing for a couple in this sort of situation, whereas the 2023 document clearly allows it under certain circumstances.   Since these are contradictory, the new Declaration entails a clear reversal of the 2021 document. 

On Twitter, I’ve seen several odd, tortuous, and utterly unconvincing attempts to get around this problem.  Some say that the new document authorizes blessing “couples” but not “unions.”  The problem, of course, is that the distinction is merely verbal.  Both the 2021 and 2023 documents are addressing romantic relationships.  And in that context, to be a “couple” entails having a “union” of some kind (an emotional bond, going steady, sharing bed and board, or whatever).  To say that one might bless couples but not unions is like saying that one could bless bachelors without blessing unmarried men. 

What if “unions” are understood as “civil unions,” in the legal sense?  This does indeed have a different meaning than “couples,” since not all couples are in civil unions.  But this does not solve the problem, because the 2021 document rules out blessing any unions of a same-sex or otherwise irregular kind, not merely civil unions in the legal sense.  Indeed, Fiducia Supplicans is doubly incoherent, because it reiterates the teaching of the 2021 document that “the Church does not have the power to impart blessings on unions of persons of the same sex.”  This statement contradicts the statement that couples can be blessed, because a “couple” and a “union” are the same thing.  The new Declaration thus not only contradicts the 2021 document, it contradicts itself.

Some have claimed that couples and unions are not the same thing, on the grounds that “couple” can refer to simply a pair of individual things, as when one speaks of drinking “a couple of beers” or having slept for “a couple of hours.”  But the problem is that the context concerns, again, couples in the romantic sense.  And a couple in that sense is more than merely a pair of individuals.  It is, again, a pair who have some emotional bond or the like.  It would be absurd to pretend that Fiducia Supplicans is speaking of “couples” in a thin sense that might include two complete strangers who simply happen to be standing next to each other as each asks the same priest for a blessing!

Some have claimed that Fiducia Supplicans merely authorizes blessing the individuals who make up the couple, not the couple itself.  But the document explicitly and repeatedly speaks of blessing couples, not merely the individuals in the couple.  Moreover, the 2021 document already explicitly said that individuals could be blessed.  So there would be no need for the new document, and in particular nothing in it that counts as “innovative” or as “a real development,” without the reference to “couples,” specifically.

Some have claimed that there is crucial significance in the phrase “blessing for couples,” as if the “for” somehow entailed that the couple itself is not being blessed.  One problem with this is that we need some explanation of how a “blessing for couples” amounts to anything different from “blessing couples.”  Another problem is that the Declaration also does in fact speak of “blessing couples,” and not merely of “blessings for couples.”

Some have claimed there is no contradiction between the 2021 and 2023 documents insofar as one can, they say, bless a “couple” without blessing the “relationship” between the individuals who make up the couple.  But again, the document speaks of blessing couples, not merely the individuals in the couple.  The blessing is imparted to a couple qua couple, not merely qua individuals.  That is, as I have said, why the document can claim to be “innovative” and “a real development.”  But how can one bless a couple qua couple without blessing the relationship that makes it the case that they are a couple?    

The 2021 document also explicitly says that while individuals in unions can be blessed, it “declares illicit any form of blessing that tends to acknowledge their unions as such.”  But to bless couples qua couples and not merely qua individuals is precisely “to acknowledge their unions as such.”  So, even if one could make sense of the idea of blessing a couple without blessing the relationship, there would still be a contradiction between the 2021 and 2023 documents.  Even acknowledging the union while blessing it, no less than the blessing itself, is forbidden by the 2021 document but allowed by the 2023 document.

The bottom line is that blessing “couples” in the 2023 document amounts to “blessing people qua in a relationship.”  And the 2021 document’s prohibition on blessing “relationships” is obviously just a way of prohibiting “blessing people qua in a relationship.”  The differences in phraseology between the documents are merely verbal.  Perhaps the new document uses the words it does in the hope of avoiding a contradiction.  The point, though, is that it does not in fact avoid a contradiction, given the way terms like “couple,” “relationship,” and the like are actually used when describing romantic and sexual situations.  Nor are there any special theological usages in play here, for the relevant terms have none. 

So, it is, in my judgement, sheer sophistry to deny that Fiducia Supplicans permits the blessing of couples in same-sex and other irregular relationships, and to deny that this contradicts the 2021 document.  On Twitter, Fr. James Martin triumphantly declared:

Re: Vatican declaration on same-sex blessings. Be wary of the "Nothing has changed" response to today's news. It's a significant change. In short, yesterday, as a priest, I was forbidden to bless same-sex couples at all. Today, with some limitations, I can.

One can and should lament that Fr. Martin is right, but one cannot reasonably deny it – Fiducia Supplicans does indeed mark a significant change, and precisely because it permits what was previously forbidden.

The ugly

Now, Fr. Martin immediately went on to bless a same-sex couple in a manner that even some defenders of Fiducia Supplicans have said is an abuse of the Declaration.  This brings us to the second problem with the Declaration, which is that such abuse was inevitable.  For, again, the new document makes the Church’s current policy incoherent.  On the one hand, the Document insists that there is no doctrinal change at all, and that there is no change entails that the Church can no more acknowledge the acceptability of same-sex and other irregular “couples” today than it has in the past.  On the other hand, to bless such couples as couples (and not merely as individuals) implies that their being a couple is in some way acceptable (and not merely that they are accepted as individuals).  It “tends to acknowledge their unions as such,” which the 2021 document forbade.

Hence, many are bound to judge that the Church now in some way accepts same-sex and other irregular “couples” – again, as couples and not merely as individuals – and will naturally draw the conclusion that she no longer takes very seriously the immoral sexual behavior that defines such relationships.  To be sure, Fiducia Supplicans explicitly rejects any approval of such behavior.  But that is bound to be lost on the average man in the pew.  If one has to have special theological expertise even to try to make coherent sense of Fiducia Supplicans – and is likely to fail even then – it can hardly be surprising if people draw from it precisely the heterodox conclusions the document claims to forestall. 

This brings me to the last problem with the Declaration, which is the implicature it involves.  An implicature is a communicative act which, by virtue of its context or manner, relays a meaning that goes beyond the literal meaning of the actual words that may be used.  To take an example I’ve used before, suppose you go out on a blind date and a friend asks you how it went.  You pause and then answer flatly, with a slight smirk: “Well, I liked the restaurant.”  There is nothing in the literal meaning of this sentence, considered all by itself, that states or implies anything negative about the person you went out with, or indeed anything at all about the person.  Still, given the context, you’ve said something insulting.  You’ve “sent the message” that you liked the restaurant but not the person.  Or suppose someone shows you a painting he has just completed, and when asked what you think, you respond: “I like the frame.”  The sentence by itself doesn’t imply that the painting is bad, but the overall speech act certainly conveys that message all the same. 

In these cases, the speaker intends the insult, but the implicature can exist even without the intention.  Suppose you said “Well, I liked the restaurant” or “I like the frame” without wanting to insult anyone, and indeed with the intention of avoiding the insult that would follow from saying directly what you really think.  You still would have sent an insulting message, however inadvertently, because these statements would in fact be insulting, given the context.  That you meant no insult is irrelevant.  And it would be disingenuous or at least naïve of you to protest your innocence on the grounds that the literal meaning of your words is in no way insulting.  For the literal meaning is not all that is relevant to the message sent by an utterance.  Even if you were innocent of intending to insult, you are guilty of carelessness or at least naïveté.

Implicatures have always been important to the Church when evaluating theological propositions (even if churchmen and theologians don’t usually use the word “implicature,” which is a technical term from linguistics and philosophy).  Even statements that are not strictly heretical, or even erroneous, have nevertheless been condemned as problematic in some other way.  For example, they might be badly expressed; or ambiguous; or prone to cause scandal; or “savor of heresy” even if not being strictly heretical; or “offensive to pious ears.”  These are among the “theological censures” well-known to Catholic theologians of past generations, even if they are not always familiar to contemporary writers.  A moral or theological proposition whose literal meaning is not necessarily heretical or even false might still be “badly expressed” or “prone to cause scandal” or the like insofar as, given the context in which it is asserted, it involves a heretical or false implicature.

Now, here is the context relevant to Fiducia Supplicans: The secular world hates the Church’s teaching on sexual morality perhaps more than any other of her doctrines.  It constantly urges her to abandon it, many supposing that it is simply a matter of time until she does abandon it.  Most churchmen rarely discuss it, and on the occasions when they do, the tendency is to give a vague and perfunctory acknowledgement following by an impassioned plea for acceptance of those who do not obey it.  The current pope tends to favor and promote churchmen who deemphasize traditional teaching on the subject, and strongly to disfavor churchmen who happen to have a reputation for upholding it.  He is also widely perceived as being inclined to soften Church teaching in other areas.  Those who have most loudly favored the blessing of same-sex and other “irregular” couples are precisely those who reject the Church’s traditional teaching on sexual morality, whereas those who have most loudly opposed such blessings are those most keen to uphold that teaching.  Meanwhile, no one could fail to realize in advance of issuing a document like Fiducia Supplicans that the qualifications it makes would be known to few who would hear about it and understood by fewer – that, to most laymen who would learn of these qualifications, they would sound confusing and legalistic and make far less of an impression than the new policy itself.

It cannot reasonably be denied that, given all of this context, the Declaration has the implicature that the Church is now at least in part conceding the criticisms of those who reject her teaching, and that she now in some way approves of certain same-sex and other “irregular” arrangements (such as those involving fornication and invalid marriages).  It cannot fail to send that message whether or not it was the message intended.  And it does so regardless of all the silly wrangling over the meaning of “couple,” and whether or not one could somehow cobble together a strained reading that reconciles the new document with the 2021 document.  Even if the Declaration is not strictly heretical, it is manifestly “prone to cause scandal,” “badly expressed,” and “ambiguous.”

It is worth adding that we are only seeing the beginning of the implications of this development.  There is nothing special about “couples,” after all.  Hence there is no reason in principle why the logic of the Declaration should rule out blessings for “throuples” or even larger polyamorous “unions,” or for organizations like the pro-abortion Catholics for Choice.  How could it?  Members of such groups would also claim that there is much “that is true, good, and humanly valid in their lives and their relationships,” and that by the very act of asking for a blessing, they are “expressing a petition for God’s assistance, a plea to live better, and confidence in a Father who can help us live better.”  Why should they be denied, if same-sex and other “irregular” “couples” are not to be denied?

Cardinal Müller judges the new Declaration “self-contradictory.”  Archbishop Chaput describes it as “doubleminded.”  Fr. Weinandy says it “wreaks havoc.”  Prof. Chapp pronounces it a “disaster.”  Prof. Roberto de Mattei, though a reliably measured commentator on the controversies surrounding Pope Francis, nevertheless writes: “It pains me to say, that a very grave sin was committed by those who promulgated and signed this scandalous statement.”  These conclusions all seem to me exactly right.

It is extremely rare that such things could justly be said of the highest doctrinal authorities in the Church, but it can happen when a pope does not speak ex cathedra, and it is not unprecedented.  The most spectacular case is that of Pope Honorius, whose ambiguous teaching gave aid and comfort to the Monothelite heresy.  For this he was condemned by three Church councils and by his successors.  Pope St. Leo II declared: “We anathematize the inventors of the new error… and also Honorius, who did not attempt to sanctify this Apostolic Church with the teaching of Apostolic tradition, but by profane treachery permitted its purity to be polluted.”  Historian Fr. John Chapman, in his book The Condemnation of Pope Honorius, notes that “the formula for the oath taken by every new Pope from the 8th century till the 11th adds these words to the list of Monothelites condemned: ‘Together with Honorius, who added fuel to their wicked assertions’” (pp. 115-16).  I have discussed the case in detail here and here.

The case of Pope Honorius should be studied carefully by theologians and churchmen – and by Pope Francis especially.