2024-01-06 23:36:12
The Church is experiencing a surprising crisis due to harsh reactions from hundreds of bishops and entire episcopal conferences that have condemned the pontifical document Begging for Confidence which authorizes the blessing of same-sex couples, clarifying that it is a pastoral gesture that does not influence the blessings and liturgical actions.
The Catholic marriage between a man and a woman open to childbearing is safe, maintain the Pope and the Argentine cardinal Víctor “Tucho” Fernández, who arrived in Rome in July to become the pontiff’s right arm as prefect of Doctrine of faith.
While controversies, clarifications and a climate of disorientation spread In the Church, looking into perspective the worst crisis of the ten-year pontificate of Jorge Bergoglio, the antecedents that led to the outbreak of the open confrontation between progressives and conservatives from the fatal document of December 18 that authorizes the pastoral blessing are obvious. to two people of the same sex by a priest.
Although the document devised by Fernández, approved by the Pope, and the subsequent clarifications in a Press Release signed by the Argentine cardinal establish that the blessing of Catholic homosexuals, particularly couples, represents a pastoral and non-ritual, sacred gesture, which does not have nothing to do with a Catholic marriage, the hurricane of protests It covers a good part of world Catholicism, with a very strong peak of reaction: that of the African churches.
Argentine Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, author of the document on the blessing of same-sex couples. Photo: AFP
On the continent where the Catholic faith is expanding the most, the rebellion of national episcopal conferences and of priests and parishioners takes on worrying dimensions.
The basis of all this contrary demonstration that fully affects the authority of the Argentine pontiff is the historical culture of Africans, opposed to homosexual activities, which in some cases even go beyond prolonged prison sentences and elevate punishments to death penalty.
Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, with 46 million Catholics, said “no” to the novelty of pastoral blessings, while the continent’s bishops’ conferences consult on the opportunity to meet to consider the thorny issue.
It is convenient to read the crisis in perspective. As his pastoral government turns ten years old, the Pope faces a new panorama of his reign. On December 31, 2022, Pope Emeritus Joseph Ratzinger died, at the age of 95. Almost ten as Pope Emeritus, a unique condition: he had renounced 85 years as Pope Benedict XVI, an extraordinary novelty in the Church, where the case of a Pope who resigns of his own free will dates back almost seven centuries.
The death of Ratzinger, an extraordinary conservative theologian who was the right arm of the Polish Pope Saint John Paul II from the position of prefect of the Doctrine of the Faith, a position of which the Argentine cardinal Víctor Fernández is the successor, left the traditionalist factions without their leader.
Changes, controversy and internal fights
In 2023 the Pope was thus able to address without problems his desired initiative of opening the final stage of his pontificate with doctrinal changes and readjustments for whom he called Cardinal Fernández to help. We must remember the frustration that was experienced in 2020 when the World Synod on the Amazon was held.
The synod fathers approved revolutionary initiatives such as that of the “viri probati”, heads of communities that would help alleviate the dramatic lack of priests in the Amazon. Married and heads of family. The measure was also restricted to the Amazon areas. Also other progressive decisions.
Catholic faithful followed the Pope’s Angelus this Saturday in St. Peter’s Square, in the Vatican. Photo: EFE
But although the Synod of Bishops broadly supported the changes, in the final document prepared by the Pope, all the important reforms were not considered by Jorge Bergoglio.
Francis opened a new period, that of the final phase of his pontificate (the Pope turned 87 on December 17), which began in October 2023 with the first phase of the Synod of Synods, a great assembly of world bishops, which will be completed with a second phase in October of this year that has just begun.
The objective is promote changes but handle the brakes to contain the strongest claims of progressives and conservatives and save the Church from any schismatic impulse.
The most dangerous tensions are the ultra positions of progressives and conservatives that can lead to serious ruptures.
In the first phase of the Synod, Francis managed to contain the changes sought by the progressives.
The vast majority were unaware that the Pope had silently launched a major surgery operation. The openness towards homosexuals, who represent for progressives a gigantic ball of lead for a pontificate that wants to confront once and for all an issue that poisons the Church.
It is in the European region where there are most bishops, priests and lay people who want to face the problem once and for all.
Last November 7th. The Pope uttered in a low voice the wild cry: “The Church is open to everyone, everyone, everyone.”
A clear recommendation. The new line was the world premiere of the most red-hot topic in the Church. It was interpreted by a document by the Argentine theologian Cardinal “Tucho” Fernández approved by the Pope.
Priests and bishops, in the Vatican last October, to participate in the Synod of Synods. Photo: EFE
The text dissolves some theological doubts, putting black on white that Transsexuals can also request and receive baptism, they can be godparents and witnesses of marriages. The prefect’s document for the doctrine of faith gives a free pass to homosexual godparents who live with another person. It is enough that they “lead a life according to the faith.”
Although the Catechism of the Church is categorical that chastity must also be included, the document goes over the issue.
Prefect Fernández’s document is motivated by the doubts presented to the former Holy Office by a Brazilian bishop who asked to be enlightened regarding what to do if potential participants for the sacraments of baptism and marriage are presented by trans people.
The document states that a transsexual undergoing hormonal treatment and sex change surgery can receive baptism under the same conditions as other faithful.
“In this case, children and adolescents with problems of a transsexual nature, if well prepared and willing, can receive baptism,” he concludes.
In light of this background, the document also prepared by Cardinal Fernández and published on December 18, which has unraveled the crisis worldwide, is seen with different eyes. There is an obvious logical connection between both documents.
After the outbreak of the conservative protests and the special case of the harsh reaction of the African churches, a real burning coal in the hands of the Pope, Prefect Fernández published a Press Release in which he expanded widely on the difference of the pastoral blessings and their separation from the entire liturgical area.
He even hypothesized with an example of a pastoral blessing to a trans Catholic couple, in which the priest takes about 15 seconds to give his blessing, without knowing anything about the lives of his faithful interlocutors who ask him to bless them.
The crisis meanwhile spreads. The famous conservative Catholic theologian, Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, who demolished the shelf of recent papal documents, summed up his condemnation in one word: “blasphemy.”
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